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It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.

— John Constable

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Ambition

More quotes by John Constable

No man who can do any one thing well will be able to any different thing equally well.

He seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent, and so airy.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may—light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

We see nothing truly till we understand it.

his lectures History of Landscape Painting (1836)

It is so ambiguous as to be scarcely intelligible in some parts (and those the principal), yet as a whole, it is novel and affecting.

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

Jean de La Bruyère Les Caractères (1688)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Constable (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.