The will to incessant creation is vulgar, betraying jealousy, envy, and ambition. Assuming that you are something, there is really nothing that you need to do-and yet you do a great deal. Above the "productive" man there is still a higher type.
... I think it would be so much better for me to learn something which would be useful to me in the army, as well as affording me exercise and amusement.
The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.
This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors
For a people, as for an individual, it is tragic to have ambitions and to lack both the means essential to their fulfillment and any hope of acquiring those means.