Quotes: Ambition
Ambition on this page reads as both a horizon and an engine: personal dreams, bold proclamations and the discipline to move forward, seen through voices like Eleanor Roosevelt, J. Cole and George Bernard Shaw. The selections treat ambition as imagination made actionable, whether quiet resolve or confident display.
A tension runs through them between striving and daring—Browning’s persistence versus Randy Savage’s celebratory bravado or Newton’s insistence on living boldly. The recurring question is practical and moral at once: how far are you willing to take your vision, and what will you risk to make it real?
4 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- Widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but quote researchers have not found this exact wording in her authenticated writings; earliest strong matches appear decades after her death.
- What remains uncertain
- The attribution is disputed: evidence ties the line to later printing and proverb-like circulation rather than a specific Roosevelt source.
The line explains why a vivid vision matters: seeing your dreams as beautiful gives purpose and drive to effort. It matches Eleanor Roosevelt’s public themes—hope, duty, human dignity—and today serves as a compact call to turn ideals into action.
“Fail I alone, in words and deeds? / Why, all men strive and who succeeds?”
Source: The Last Ride Together, 1855 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The line is a direct verse from Robert Browning’s poem The Last Ride Together (1855).
Browning turns a lover’s private failure into a wider truth: everyone strives, yet success is never guaranteed. In the dramatic lyric “The Last Ride Together” (1855) the speaker’s questions widen a personal loss into a shared human condition, finding consolation in the dignity of trying.
“Live your life as an exclamation rather than an explanation.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The phrase is widely circulated under Isaac Newton's name across quotation websites, but the provided searches found no primary-source match in Newton's surviving corpus.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is disputed: scholarly records and Newton's preserved writings do not show this aphoristic wording, so the ascription is likely apocryphal.
The line urges living boldly and visibly—acting with conviction instead of constantly defending yourself. It appears online under Isaac Newton's name, but no primary Newton text has been found to back that claim. Treat it as a modern motivational aphorism endorsing decisive action.
“You see things, and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were, and I say, ‘Why not?’”
Source: Back to Methuselah, Part I, Act I (1921) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording appears in Shaw’s Back to Methuselah (1921), spoken by the Serpent in Part I, Act I.
- What remains uncertain
- The widely quoted Kennedy wording is a later paraphrase; many popular versions alter Shaw’s original dramatic phrasing.
Shaw sets ordinary doubt against bold imagination: instead of accepting things as they are, the line urges inventing what doesn't yet exist. It appears in Back to Methuselah (1921) as a dramatic command to embrace possibility and action.