"Greg could really hold a blood grudge."

In Henry Crumpton's book on working in the CIA's Clandestine Service, he refers to one of his colleagues, saying "Greg could really hold a blood grudge." Hence, Greg was motivated, to say the least. I wonder when we such motivation in the scholarly or academic life. I am not thinking of athletics and sports, or academic politics, or mean competitiveness. Rather in just doing the work we do in our research and scholarship, do we ever have such powerful motivation? To show them, to show Nature, ... To prove to others who denied us tenure that we are ten times better than they are.