[Ambitious men] may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top.
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Section 2, member 3, subsection 11, Concupiscible Appetite, as Desires, Ambition, Causes.Robert Burton
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Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Robert Browning
What is this thing called the existence? Is it all the things that we perceive it to be? Or is it something else? It's a gift. One of my favorite examples is the bird in the cage. You may think that you own the bird inside the cage, but you're wrong. You only own the cage. People think that they need to have a very fancy cage, that the more incredible the cage, the more incredible the bird will look. But the cage and the bird are really two different things. When the bird is gone, all that will be left is the cage.
Maharaji (Prem Rawat)
"Climb, you bastard! Climb, climb, climb, climb! "
Joseph Heller
So, life is like, again, an icy ladder. So, when you climb up, you have to be really, really energetic or you won’t be able to climb up ‘cause you slip and fall down.
Stanislav Pozdniakov
Family quarrels have a total bitterness unmatched by others. Yet it sometimes happens that they also have a kind of tang, a pleasantness beneath the unpleasantness, based on the tacit understanding that this is not for keeps; that any limb you climb out on will still be there later for you to climb back.
Mignon McLaughlin
Burton, Robert
Burton, Sir Richard Francis
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