“Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.”
—JOHN ADAMS
“Elections, my dear sir, to offices which are a great object of ambition, I look at with terror.”
—JOHN ADAMS
“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on [offices], a rottenness begins in his conduct.”
—THOMAS JEFFERSON
“The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.”
—RUTHERFORD B. HAYES