When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.
Jean De La BruyereRead
The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Ambition drives a person to seek support from multiple sources to achieve success.
In this quote, Jean De La Bruyère contrasts the life of a slave, who is bound to a single master, with that of an ambitious man, who actively seeks the help and cooperation of many others to achieve his goals. This illustrates the essence of ambition as a desire for progress and a willingness to engage with others to enhance personal fortunes.
Themes
AmbitionSuccessFortuneCollaborationMotivation
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about pursuing dreams.
More from Jean De La Bruyere
All quotes βWe perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.
Jean De La BruyereRead
We seldom repent of speaking little, very often of speaking too much: a vulgar and trite maxim, which all the world knows and, but which all the world does not practice
Jean De La BruyereRead
False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.
Jean De La BruyereRead
From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
Jean De La BruyereRead
Every man is valued in this world as he shows by his conduct that he wishes to be valued.
Jean De La BruyereRead
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