# Quote — Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake

> “You don’t quench ambition by feeding it any more than you quench a fire the same way,” said Cletus. “To an ambitious man, what he already has is nothing. It’s what he doesn’t have that counts.”

- Author: [Gordon R. Dickson](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson.md)
- Book: [Tactics of Mistake](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson/tactics-of-mistake.md)
- Page: 280
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gordon_R._Dickson#Tactics_of_Mistake_(1971)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson/tactics-of-mistake/you-dont-quench

## More from this book

> Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger...

p. 153 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson/tactics-of-mistake/trouble-rather-the.md)

> Plainly he was one of those rare people who burn with an inner fire—but the inner fire that never failed in James Arm-of-the-Lord was a brand of woe and a torch of terror to the Unrighteous. Nor was it lessened by the fact that the ranks of the Unrighteous, in James’ estimation, included all those whose opinions in any way differed from his own.

p. 328 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson/tactics-of-mistake/plainly-he-was.md)

> “Exaggeration of confidence,” he said, “is a fault in people who don’t know their business.”

p. 315 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/gordon-r-dickson/tactics-of-mistake/exaggeration-of-confidence.md)