Is it a vice or a virtue? Maybe a bit of both. Napoleon once gave an amazing quote that I think puts it quite nicely, "Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them."

Perhaps it's a bit ironic coming from the man who crowned himself emperor, but you go to war with the army you have.

I have ambition. I think everyone does, in some varying aspect or another. It’s not a matter of talent or of some internal sense of destiny; it comes down to a very simplistic idea: hard work. Here in America we cling to the notion of absolute equality, when in reality Uncle Sam has just been selling us snake-oil, or rather, we’ve been willfully drinking it. You see, America is a nation that upholds equality of opportunity, whether such a claim is true is a different matter, but the very idea opens the gates to ambition.

It’s a force that can transcend the individual, striking a chord in the heartstrings of every human being who desires the same courage to act on their God-given potential. God himself is either all-powerful or all-good, but he cannot be both.

Thus it goes with ambition. Used for the sake of power alone it results in all things corrupt and vile. Used for good it goes to benefit the masses. Ambition is simply a balancing act between strength and restraint. As I’ve said, it’s a vice and a virtue.

However, there lies within ambition power, power to change, and power corrupts.