The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
Avoid fragmentation: Find your focus and seek simplicity. Purposeful living calls for elegant efficiency and economy of effort—expanding the minimum time and energy necessary to achieve desired goals.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
How foolish you would be to start on a journey without knowing where you wanted to go. Have you ever sat down and seriously drawn up a plan for your life? Have you ever deliberately mapped out where you want to go during your life’s journey? Now, isn’t your life infinitely more important to you than any journey you may take? Why, therefore, not devote the most earnest effort to plan your life, to set for yourself a goal? We are now at the New Year season. Isn’t this a peculiarly appropriate time to look ahead, to indulge in solemn thinking, to formulate life plans, to lay down a definite course to follow?
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
The one thing worth living for is to keep one’s soul pure.
—Marcus Aurelius (121–180) Emperor of Rome, Stoic Philosopher
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
No one can go back and make a brand new start, my friend, but anyone can start from here and make a brand new end.
—Dan Zadra
He who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the other.
—Japanese Proverb
They are the guiding oracles which man has found out for himself in that great business of ours, of learning how to be, to do, to do without, and to depart.
—John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Political Leader, Writer, Editor, Journalist
Concentrate on finding your goal, then concentrate on reaching it.
—Michael Friedsam (1858–1931) American Philanthropist
If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.
—Brian Tracy (b.1944) American Author, Motivational Speaker
Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
—Jean Antoine Petit-Senn (1792–1870) French-Swiss Lyric Poet
Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.
—Diana Ross (b.1944) American Singer, Film Actress
I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
—Og Mandino (1923–96) American Self-Help Author
There must be a goal at every stage of life! There must be a goal!
—Maggie Kuhn (1905–95) American Social Activist
Let us live, while we are alive.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
We’re still not where we’re going, but we’re not where we were.
—Natasha Josefowitz
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
—Ralph Washington Sockman (1889–1970) American United Methodist Pastor
Make the most of today. Translate your good intentions into actual deeds. Know that you can do what ought to be done. Improve your plans. Keep a definite goal of achievement constantly in view. Realize that work well and worthily done makes life truly worth living.
—Grenville Kleiser (1868–1935) Canadian Author
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
—Anne Frank (1929–45) Holocaust Victim
An ignorance of means may minister
To greatness, but an ignorance of aims
Make it impossible to be great at all.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin.
—Benjamin Mays (1894–1984) American Minister, Educator, Scholar, Social Activist
It takes great goals to lead us out of our everyday limits into accomplishing more than we ever thought we could or would.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
It is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top.
—Arnold Bennett (1867–1931) British Novelist, Playwright, Critic
One ship sails east and another sails west
With the self-same winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sail and not the gale
Which determines the way they go.
As the winds of the sea are the ways of fate
As we voyage along through life,
Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American Poet, Journalist
Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
To seek one’s goals and to drive toward it, stealing one’s heart, is most uplifting.
—Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) Norwegian Playwright
A life that hasn’t a definite plan is likely to become driftwood.
—David Sarnoff (1891–1972) American Broadcaster, Businessman
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