Intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings. – Salvador Dali 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. – Abraham Lincoln 

You can’t get anything done without wanting to get it done. Humanity can be separated into classes, not based on wealth or talent, but based upon the characteristics of ambition and motivation. Salvador Dali, an influential Spanish surrealist painter, only accomplished his master works out of ambition, despite the initial lack of outside interest and success. Early in his life, he suffered failures such as losing his mother at an early age, being expelled from his university, and being accused of being a fascist. Dali’s successes include paintings such as Galatea of the Spheres, The Persistence of Memory, and Crucifixion.  He defines ambition, and not intellect or skill, as the sole factor leading to eventual success. Humans are motivated internally and externally, and while everyone’s goal is different, whether it be earning the respect of others or material wealth, these ambitions define our species to be different from animals in that we as people strive to build something in life. Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, had only the humble goal of proving himself worthy and respected to his contemporaries, “by rendering [himself] worthy of their esteem”. Lincoln as a man was motivated by his sense of morality to achieve great things politically so as to ensure the dignity of his fellow man and the unity of his nation. Through his achievements, he will be forever known in this country as a hero.

While I believe that Dali is right in that nothing comes to the man or woman who doesn’t strive towards their goals, I also think that ambition is only one ingredient in the recipe for success. Dali’s quote suggests that intelligence without ambition is like a bird without wings, so it can follow that ambition without intelligence is wings without a bird. Even with ambition, there is a certain amount of skill, talent, upbringing, disposition, and luck involved before one can truly fly: one’s upbringing may represent the hollow bones of a bird while one’s innate talents could represent feathers.

Lincoln adopts a generally held idea that each and every person has a dream to follow. Upon a cursory glance, Lincoln’s goal, ‘to achieve the esteem of his fellow man’, appears mild, but the way that he achieved this esteem defied any and all expectations. His successes, including preserving the Union during the Civil War, and freeing the slaves, exemplify that. While Dali implies that since ambition is necessary for success and that success is rare, Lincoln brings up the idea that ambition is held by all, leading to a partial contradiction in ideas: President Lincoln believed that every man has ambition, while Dali, by implying that ambition is the key to success, insinuates that ambition is not a commonly held trait inherent in human nature. I disagree with the notion that every man has ambition, or motivation, in life, given the tendency among people for complacency in the modern world. In Lincoln’s era, life was much harder than it is now, mortality rates higher, and virtues more enforced.

The notion that ambition is the key to success appears in the novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. In it, a rising politician named Peter remarks to his sister, “For every Einstein, there are a thousand people just as smart as him, who never reach their full potential.” Peter implies that the desire and determination to achieve one’s goals are far more important than mere IQ, that although both intellect and ambition are necessary to accomplish one’s objectives, ambition is by far the rarer and therefore more important quality.

Another idea stems from my own experiences. My mother takes a position that intellect and raw talent do not matter, and don’t even exist. She proposes that what society regards as skill is merely the result of enrichment through education, tutors, classes, et cetera. Then, she cites motivation and drive as the key to academic success, bringing up my other peers, and dividing them into the categories of those who have the drive to succeed, and those who don’t and are heading towards failure. She believes that only some people have ambition to prosper, and that ambition is not innate. She also believes that ambition can be inspired, but that some will never attain it. These experiences roughly correlate with Dali’s idea, and although they contrast with President Lincoln’s concept that all people have separate ambitions, there is the possibility that the people on my mom’s  “not motivated” lists have desires in a different direction. Ambition means different things to individuals. Some have ambitions to become a business leader or a doctor, while others have ambitions to become a train engineer, or a gardener. Some ambitions are more widely accepted than others by society.

My mother’s views are supported in Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Adopted Son”. In the story, two nearly identical children’s fates are split in different directions. Both were born to serf families, but one is given up for adoption after a rich childless couple visits their squalid home. So, one child is raised by peasants with numerous siblings, while the other is raised by affluent parents with no separate commitments. The adopted son becomes a wealthy, successful man while the son who stayed with the peasants remains a member of that class. Although the moral of the story is not directly about ambition, the story demonstrates the idea that the environment that one is brought up in is the critical measure in ensuring success. It is my firm belief that one’s surroundings dictate one’s disposition, and ambition is a part of one’s disposition.

It can be difficult to identify ambition: when searching for it, does one count unlikely or obscure ambitions, or does one account for those who say they possess it but in reality lack it? Dali explicitly names ambition as the crucial factor to success in life but implies that other qualities are necessary. Lincoln says that all men are possessed with ambition, and with great understatement, defines his own. Personally, I am ambitious. Had I experienced the conditions of Lincoln’s day would I feel differently? Unchecked ambition is never unambiguously a good thing, though, as for every hero benefitting from it such as Lincoln, we have people like Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden. Those with intelligence and ambition can achieve their objectives in life, but it is the responsibility of all to make sure ambition is not abused for evil purposes. Ambition is a powerful and rare quality.