Quotes: Alchemy. Altruism. Ambition.

NOTE: The statement in bold-face is a brief summary of the quote, or the quote stands by itself and needs no simplification. The number to the left is the page number.

Alchemy
Alchemy 2 Things have souls and, awakened, they have a life of their own. "Things have a life of their own, the gypsy proclaimed…simply a matter of waking up their souls." Marquez, I. One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Altruism
Altruism 176 Benevolence has some additional motive. "Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive." Sam. Johnson. 1776. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Altruism 197 "There is often a good deal of spleen at the bottom of benevolence." Hazlitt. 1823. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Altruism 13 Altruism is the name given to every horror of history. "Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive." Ayn Rand. Portable Curmudgeon.

Altruism 10 Common people don't think they are common. “I just love common workmen,” glowed Carol. Classmate Stewart Snyder: “Only you don’t want to forget that common workmen don’t think they’re common.” Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Altruism 11 She wanted to improve the culture and taste of the poor. "She wanted, just now, to have a cell in a settlement-house, like a nun without the bother of a black robe, and be kind, and read Bernard Shaw, and enormously improve a horde of grateful poor." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street.

Altruism 74 To be good to others does not mean that you must be cruel to yourself. "For when nature encourages you to be good to others, she does not then order you to be cruel and harsh to yourself." Sir Thomas More, Utopia.


Ambition
Ambition 1242 People who attempt great things denigrate what they have already done. "But thus it always is with persons who are destined to perform great things; what they have already done seems less than nothing; what they have taken in hand to do seems worth toil, danger, and life itself." “The Three Golden Apples” Hawthorne’s The Wonder Book for Boys and Girls

Ambition 541 Worthless money is like building castles in the air. “It [outdated money] is just the sort of capital for building castles in the air.” Hawthorne: “Peter Goldthwaite’s Treasure.”

Ambition 954 To be famous, you will need to live for the age in which you exist and maybe you will live for posterity. "Yet, if your heart is set on being known…the surest, the only method, is, to live truly and wisely for your own age, whereby, if the native force be in you, you may likewise live for posterity." Hawthorne: “A Select Party”

Ambition 95 Where do people who appear to be "up and coming" disappear to? "How many ‘coming men’ one has known! Where on earth do they all go to? Sir Arthur Pinero." Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Ambition 107 To be ambitious is to be villified by enemies while living and ridiculed by friends when dead. "Ambition: An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead." Ambrose Bierce. 1906. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Ambition 107 The slave has only one master; ambitious people have as many masters as they need to advance themselves. "A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position." La Bruyere. 1688. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Ambition 131 Successful people ultimately fail because of the faults they used to succeed. "We see men fall from high estate on account of the very faults through which they attained it." La Bruyere. 1688. Gross, ed. Oxford Book of Aphorisms.

Ambition 132 We see others fail, but that does not keep us from trying to succeed. "The favorites of fortune or fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition." Vauvenargues. 1746.