A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Poor little Cinderella, perhaps it would have been better had god- mamma been less ambitious for you, dear; had you married some good, honest yeoman, who would never have known that you were not brilliant, who would have loved you because you were just amiable and pretty; had your kingdom been only a farmhouse, where your knowledge of domestic economy, gained so hardly, would have been useful; where you would have shone instead of being overshadowed; where Papa would have dropped in of an evening to smoke his pipe and escape from his domestic wrangles; where you would have been REAL Queen.
~ The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
I like to watch an old boatman rowing, especially one who has been hired by the hour. There is something so beautifully calm and restful about his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life. He is not for ever straining himself to pass all the other boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes him it does not annoy him; as a matter of fact, they all do overtake him and pass him - all those that are going his way. This would trouble and irritate some people; the sublime equanimity of the hired boatman under the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness.
~ Three Men in a Boat (to Say nothing of the Dog)
After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. It is easy to recite copy-book maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that can "move us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled.
~ Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
We wish to become rich men, not in order to enjoy ease and comfort--all that any one man can taste of those may be purchased anywhere for 200 pounds per annum--but that our houses may be bigger and more gaudily furnished than our neighbors'; that our horses and servants may be more numerous; that we may dress our wives and daughters in absurd but expensive clothes; and that we may give costly dinners of which we ourselves individually do not eat a shilling's worth.
~ Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
What would the world do without ambitious people, I should like to know? Why, it would be as flabby as a Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the leaven which raises it into wholesome bread. Without ambitious people the world would never get up. They are busybodies who are about early in the morning, hammering, shouting, and rattling the fire-irons, and rendering it generally impossible for the rest of the house to remain in bed.
~ Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow