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One must avoid ambition in order to write. Otherwise something else is the goal: some kind of power beyond the power of language.

— Cynthia Ozick Interview with The Paris Review (1987)

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Ambition

More quotes by Cynthia Ozick

Metaphor is the reciprocal agent, the universalizing force: it makes possible the power to envision the stranger's heart.

Metaphor & Memory (1991)

It is useless either to hate or to love truth - but it should be noticed.

Trust (1966)

Real apprenticeship is ultimately always to the self.

Fame & folly (1996)

She thought: How hard it is to change one’s life. And again she thought: How terrifyingly simple to change the lives of others.

Foreign Bodies (2010)

Lie, illusion, deception, she said--was that it truly, the universal language we all speak?

Dictation: A Quartet (2008)

All Cynthia Ozick quotes →

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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: Cynthia Ozick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.