Everything is dangerous, my dear fellow. If it wasn't so, life wouldn't be worth living.
Oscar WildeRead
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Ambition can often mask a lack of true achievement, representing a fallback for those who do not succeed.
In this quote, Oscar Wilde suggests that ambition, while often seen as a positive trait, can also be a misguided refuge for those who fail to accomplish their goals. It implies that simply having ambition is not enough; true success is measured by actual achievements rather than mere desires or aspirations.
Themes
AmbitionFailureSuccessAchievementGoals
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to encourage students to achieve their goals.
More from Oscar Wilde
All quotes βLondon is too full of fogs and serious people. Whether the fogs produce the serious people, or whether the serious people produce the fogs, I don't know.
Oscar WildeRead
When one has never heard a man's name in the course of one's life, it speaks volumes for him; he must be quite respectable.
Oscar WildeRead
Men always want to be a woman's first love - women like to be a man's last romance.
Oscar WildeRead
A truth ceases to be true when more than one person believes in it.
Oscar WildeRead
His morality is all sympathy, just what morality should be
Oscar WildeRead
Similar quotes
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All progress depends upon the unreasonable person.
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Money is worth what it will help you to produce or buy and no more.
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I'm literally driving in the middle of the night, and my phone rings, and my manager says, 'How would you like to be the host of the Daily Show?' I get out the car, and I didn't have legs. You know in those movies where there's an explosion? But instead of the sound of the explosion, you hear the silence. That's literally what happened.
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There's an energy and excitement when you're building a company. You have so much tail wind. You're planting new seeds. But it's also scary, because there's no safety net.
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Don't be misled into believing that somehow the world owes you a living. The boy who believes that his parents, or the government, or any one else owes him his livelihood and that he can collect it without labor will wake up one day and find himself working for another boy who did not have that belief and, therefore, earned the right to have others work for him.
David SarnoffRead