Ambitious people don't like failing or looking stupid. As the social scientist Chris Argyris (one of the fathers of organizational-learning theory) put it, smart people have trouble learning because it involves so much floundering and failure.

Ambition drastically discounts the value of anything achieved in the present, while overvaluing what may be possible in the future.

A fall from the third floor hurts as much as a fall from the hundredth. If I have to fall, may it be from a high place.

Until you've explicitly defined your life's goals and aspirations, you can't really know what tradeoffs you're willing to make to reach them.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

Enjoy all you have while pursuing all you want.