If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul. — William Shakespeare

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

Author: William Shakespeare

Insight: We usually think of ambition as something we're supposed to manage quietly—keep it hidden, let results speak for themselves, stay humble. But Shakespeare's character here does something different: he admits the wanting openly, almost defiantly. There's a strange honesty in that, especially when you notice he's not apologizing or second-guessing himself. He's saying: yes, I want this, and I want it badly. The tricky thing about honor and recognition is that pretending not to care about them doesn't actually make the wanting go away. It just makes it messier. We still care what people think, still notice who gets praised and who doesn't, still feel that small sting when someone else gets the thing we'd hoped for. The difference is that acknowledging it lets you at least work with it consciously instead of letting it operate like a shadow drive beneath everything you do. The real tension isn't between being ambitious and being decent—it's between being honest with yourself about what motivates you and letting that honesty turn into something corrupted. Shakespeare's character covenants his wanting into the open, where at least you can see it clearly and decide what you're actually willing to do about it.

Source: Othello, Act 1, Scene 2