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Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and remedies into diseases.

— Thomas Brooks Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

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Ambition

More quotes by Thomas Brooks

If any prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must be superlatively so, for it prepares and fits the soul for all other supplication.

"Continuing instant in prayer." The Greek is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs that never give over the game till they have got their prey.

Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, and no otherwise.

Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself.

Though the scorpion be little, yet will it sting a lion to death; and so will the least sin the sinner, unless pardoned by the blood of Christ.

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