'Ambition is the last refuge of failure'- Oscar Wilde

To be ambitious, is essentially to have not achieved something. Wilde is famous for his exuberant confidence; any man that, when asked at the U.S. Customs border if he had anything to declare, and responds, 'Nothing but my genius!', had better have achieved a lot. And he certainly did; known for his novels, poetry and flamboyant quotes like this one, it's impossible to fault Wilde as a failure. However, on the issue of failure residing in ambition, I cannot agree with him. One would certainly think that ambition would be the refuge of success; no one ever made it in to the history books without a passionate ambition to succeed for one reason or another. I can see his point, in that ambition is the unfulfillment of success, but this is a temporary measure apparently not experienced by Wilde, the self proclaimed genius who never failed; but for the rest of us, ambition is necessary.