How to tell ambition from heroism: trace it to its engine. Becker's diagnostic is blunt — 'of all things that move man, one of the principal ones is his terror of death.' When you see someone driving hard to be admired, to win, to be remembered, ask whether the drive is a reflex against mortality rather than a genuine desire. The tell is reflexiveness: the more automatic and unconscious the striving, the more likely it is death-denial wearing the costume of ambition.

— In our words · Source: The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)