Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

Humans are not proud of their ancestors, and rarely invite them round to dinner.

...a timid reverence for the decisions of our ancestors, as if it were the nature of the mind always too degenerate and never to advance.

The instructor-Na has observed in the Na 14 tendencies toward an archaic and dangerous quality to which the ancients gave the name personal ambition.

All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition.

Would our aristocracy like that a man of low caste or insignificant origin, though he be a B.A. or M.A., and have the requisite ability, should be in a position of authority above them and have power in making laws that affect their lives and property? Never! Nobody would like it.

It is definitely a century that hangs its head in shame. Our elders have been called impotent, and we are accused of being ‘limp’…

One striking characteristic of modern education is the unanimous disapproval of exploiting the powerful feeling of shame. … Yet in ancient education, e.g. in the Socratic dialogs, this very arousal of shame is a chief device; the teacher greets the hot flush as a capital sign that the youth is educable, he has noble aims. Such a youth has dignity in his very shame.
The difference seems to be that we cannot offer available opportunities for honor, we do not have them; and therefore we must protect what shreds of dignity the youth has. Since he has no future, if we make him ashamed of his past and present, he is reduced to nothing. In other ages, the community had plenty of chances of honor, and to belong to the community itself was an honor.

The worst reason to promote people is seniority.

In the ancient notion of love, on the other hand, there is an element of anxiety. The noble fears the descent to the less noble, is afraid of being infected and pulled down. The “sage” of antiquity does not have the same firmness, the same inner certainty of himself and his own value, as the genius and hero of Christian love.

Avoid outshining the master. All superiority is odious, but the superiority of a subject over his prince is not only stupid, it is fatal. This is a lesson that the stars in the sky teach us - they may be related to the sun, and just as brilliant, but they never appear in her company.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Ambition displeases when it has been sated... Having reached the peak, it aspires to descend.

I had a horror of the danger of arrogance. What a pitiful thing it is when a man lets a little temporary success spoil him, warp his judgment, and he forgets what he is!