Ambition

Desire for honors is good when it includes recognition that what is truly honorable is from God, and that the honor itself is ultimately to be referred to God. Now, the desire for honors which a man wishes for himself without referring them to God, is sinful ambition.

Sinful ambition is opposed to the virtue ofmagnanimity, because the desire or love of honors, whichmagnanimity regulates, is manifested without regulation in ambition.