OF AMBITION

Ø  First appeared 1612; revised 1625.

Ø  Ambition is like choler;  which is an humour that maketh men ative, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped.

Ø  Choler, according to ancient physiology, is one of the four humours or fluids in the human body, the other three being, phlegm, blood and bile. The proportion in which these four humours are present in a man determines his physical and mental qualities. Excessive disproportion in quantities of the four humours leads to physical and psychological disorder or disease. The predominance of choler in a man makes him Choleric in nature, that is, one who can be easily provoked  and made excessively angry.

Ø  A man under the influence of choler becomes quick and active; so does a man prompted by ambition.

Ø  Unrealized ambition and unexpressed anger are very poisonous and injurious. It is better if they are allowed to find expression in action.

Ø  Ambitious men spell danger for the king and state if they are checked in their career of progress. So long as they are progressing, they are only irritating on account of their meddlesomeness. When their progress is halted they grow dissatisfied and start brooding over their failure and wishing evil of everybody.

Ø  It is better if efficient army commanders are not ambitious. However, even if they are ambitious, it does not matter much as their good service to the king overweighs all their defects, including ambition.

Ø  A Seeled dove rises higher and higher as it cannot see which way it has to fly. Similarly, an ambitious man is blind to all danger and is concerned only with rising higher and higher in his career.

Ø  Ambitious men serves as shields to kings when the latter become unpopular with the masses and their life and position get fraught with dangers.

Ø  Tiberius was the second emperor of Rome. Sejanus was his friend and the commander of the Praetorian guard. When Tiberius found Sejanus to have become too powerful and a danger to his crown, he got him killed along with his friends, children and relatives with the help of his favourite Macro.

Ø  When the king conveys his favour and punishment through his favourites and not personally, it is certain that his favourites will see that nobody becomes too great.

Ø  Bacon advises a king to employ some men of low birth for troubling ambitious and influential great men so that the latter get so busy with these gadflies that they cannot pose much of a danger for the throne.

Ø  The ambitious man who wholly and solely depends upon himself is less dangerous than the one who is rearing a big army of followers and dependents.

Ø  One who is all in all, without whom others have no significance whatever. Even a very long row of ciphers has no value till there is a figure (digit) among them.

Ø  Ambitions and ambitious men are of many kinds. There are some men whose ambition is to be considered the best among the people. Such men do honest work to realize their ambition. However, there are other ambitious men who aim at being all in all. Such schemes plunge the entire age into utter ruination, thanks to their wily machinations.

Ø  A man in a high position can easily do good to others, and more concerned with the discharge of their duty than with careerism, and love to do work conscientiously and sincerely rather than for the sake of exhibition.