Ambition
idea · 6 works · 6 mentions · 9 anchored passages
ambition · ambitious · candidacy for honours · desire of growing greater · false greatness · fond of honor · the power of ambition
in the texts
Nicomachean Ethics
The disposition to seek honor, blamed in excess and praised in moderation.
The fact is that the expression fond of so-and-so is ambiguous, and we do not always apply the word fond of honor (ambitious) to the same thing;
We blame a man as ambitious if he seeks honor more than is right, or from wrong sources;
Compared with ambition it appears unambitiousness, and compared with unambitiousness it appears ambition:
Letters to Lucilius
The insatiable desire for power and greatness that drove great conquerors to ruin themselves and others.
To Gnaeus Pompey too it was not virtue or reason that counselled foreign and domestic wars, but the insane love of false greatness.
These men, while they shook all things, were themselves shaken, after the manner of whirlwinds, which whirl about what they snatch up, but are themselves first whirled, and for this reason rush on with greater force, because they have no governance of themselves;
Doubtless a boundless desire of growing greater, since to himself alone he seemed too little great.
On Anger
A vice of excessive desire for honor and power, cited as another false claimant to greatness of mind
let ambition, too, seem of a great mind—it is not content with yearly honours;
On the Shortness of Life
The self-renewing drive for public honours and advancement that consumes a person's entire life without ever being satisfied.
New occupations take the place of the old, hope kindles hope, ambition kindles ambition.
the conqueror of Hannibal, the conqueror of Antiochus, the ornament of his own consulship, the surety for his brother’s, who, but for his own delay, would be set beside Jupiter—him civil seditions will harass as the saviour of his country, and after he had as a young man scorned honours that made him the equal of the gods, in old age the ambition of stubborn exile will please him.
Some, before they could struggle to the summit of their ambition, life abandoned while they were yet wrestling among the first steps;
De Cultu Feminarum
The vice of desiring glory and display through possessions, especially rare or costly goods
This will be "ambition"—whence too its name is to be interpreted, because it is born from concupiscence going about (ambiente) in the mind toward the votive desire of glory:
Against the one we level the charge of ambition;
Hellenica
The desire for command and honor, named explicitly by Pharnabazus as the force that would override his gratitude toward Sparta.
but if he assigns the command to me,—so strong, it seems, is the power of ambition—you may be well assured that I shall war upon you to the best of my ability.