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Goals Quotes and Quotations
 An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.  You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning. What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motions of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason. If I had one wish for my children, it would be that each of them would reach for goals that have meaning for them as individuals. The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. Purpose is what gives life a meaning. Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream. He is conscious of touching the highest pinnacle of fulfillment... when he is consumed in the service of an idea, in the conquest of the goal pursued. He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose. Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Unless you give yourself to some great cause, you haven't even begun to live. If we could only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. Be a life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. To live means to have ... a mission to fulfill-and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty. To seek one's goals and to drive toward it, steeling one's heart, is most uplifting! The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues. A useless life is an early death. My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." Without a purpose, nothing should be done. To grow and know what one is growing towards-that is the source of all strength and confidence in life. Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants, lives so as to give a meaning and a value to his own life. Men cannot for long live hopefully unless they are embarked upon some great unifying enterprise, one for which they may pledge their lives, their fortunes and their honor. No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purpose. Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. There is one thing which gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner. Lack of something to feel important about is almost the greatest tragedy a man may have. There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning. If you cry "Forward," you must make plain in what direction to go. Men, like nails, lose their usefulness when they lose direction and begin to bend. A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me it is utterly basic, yet it seems like it's a great secret. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures. The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going. This is true joy of life-the being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a right one, instead of being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. Not only must we be good, but we must also be good for something. It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is greatest need for having a fixed goal. When few comforts come from without, it is all the more necessary to have a fount to draw on from within. In everything one must consider the end. A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective. There's some end at last for the man who follows a path; mere rambling is interminable. Having a goal is a state of happiness. The American people can have anything they want; the trouble is, they don't know what they want. Life has a meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself. To have a reason to get up in the morning, it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker, if you will. An aspiration is a joy forever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. The soul that has no established aim loses itself. Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object. He turns not back who is bound to a star. He might never really do what he said, but at least he had it in mind. He had somewhere to go. The great and glorious masterpiece of man is how to live with a purpose. What most counts is not to live, but to live aright. - Socrates Choosing a goal and sticking to it changes everything. No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port. Laboring toward distant aims sets the mind in a higher key, and puts us at our best. Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it. - Mae West Set short term goals and you'll win games. Set long term goals and you'll win championships! We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about. Unhappiness is in not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it. Having a dream isn't stupid. ... It's not having a dream that's stupid. Happiness is the overcoming of not unknown obstacles toward a known goal. To have no set purpose in one's life is the harlotry of the will. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes. One of the sources of pride in being a human being is the ability to bear present frustrations in the interests of longer purposes. Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible. If you don't know where you are going, how can you expect to get there? The only people who attain power are those who crave for it. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. In this life we get only those things for which we hunt, for which we strive, and for which we are willing to sacrifice. You seldom get what you go after unless you know in advance what you want. Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign. A life that hasn't a definite plan is likely to become driftwood. Only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road. Fortunate is the person who has developed the self-control to steer a straight course toward his objective in life, without being swayed from his purpose by either commendation or condemnation. Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight. If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days. The purpose of life is a life of purpose. Aim at nothing and you'll succeed. The purpose of life is life. Goals are dreams with deadlines. So long as I believe I have to do certain things, I will just go right ahead. That's how I run my life. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. You decide what it is you want to accomplish and then you lay out your plans to get there, and then you just do it. It's pretty straightforward. What does so-called success or failure matter if only you have succeeded in doing the thing you set out to do. The doing is all that really counts. Get out of the blocks, run your race, stay relaxed. If you run your race, you'll win. Channel your energy. Focus. Know what you want to do-then do it. Make straight for your goal and go undefeated in spirit to the end. There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision, the determination, and the courage to reach it. Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different, and yet the same. Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it. You can't assume the responsibility for everything you do-or don't do. There were angry men confronting me and I caught the flashing of defiant eyes, but above me and within me, there was a spirit stronger than them all. A woman finds the natural lay of the land almost unconsciously; and not feeling it incumbent on her to be guide and philosopher to any successor, she takes little pains to mark the route by which she is making her ascent. No matter what the competition is, I try to find a goal that day and better that goal. It doesn't matter what anybody thinks of what I do. The clock doesn't lie. You can have your titular recognition. I'll take money and power. Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from. I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been. My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose. In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as they tie their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you're two steps ahead! It's a sign of your own worth sometimes if you are hated by the right people. For me it's the challenge-the challenge to try to beat myself or do better than I did in the past. I try to keep in mind not what I have accomplished but what I have to try to accomplish in the future. There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts. Promises that you make to yourself are often like the Japanese plum tree-they bear no fruit. I am not sending messages with my feet. All I ever wanted was not to come up empty. I did it for the dough, and the old applause. First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome. What exactly is success? For me it is to be found not in applause, but in the satisfaction of feeling that one is realizing one's ideal. We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. ... What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties. To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. You have to define success in your own way. What maintains your dignity and integrity and what is your life's plan, where do you want to put your efforts. I could be richer and more famous, but I would have to give up things that are of infinitely more value. You cannot do good work if you take your mind off the work to see how the community is taking it. When the shriveled skin of the ordinary is stuffed out with meaning, it satisfies the senses amazingly. Our victory is sure to come, and I can endure anything but recreancy to principle. If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing. Concentrate on finding your goal, then concentrate on reaching it. Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it. I'm not going to let my life revolve around losing weight. I have other things to do. The streams which would otherwise diverge to fertilize a thousand meadows, must be directed into one deep narrow channel before they can turn a mill. He who wants to do everything will never do anything. As you emphasize your life, you must localize and define it... you cannot do everything. There are people who want to be everywhere at once, and they get nowhere. Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader-the common purpose. A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end, although it shifts with every variation of the weathercock, and assumes ten different positions in a day. People can have many different kinds of pleasure. The real one is that for which they will forsake the others. Nations, like individuals, have to limit their objectives or take the consequences. One of the most important factors, not only in military matters but in life as a whole, is ... the ability to direct one's whole energies towards the fulfillment of a particular task. It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself. One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in the water, one pops up while you try to hold down the other. One principle reason why men are so often useless is that they ... divide and shift their attention among a multitude of objects and pursuits. I can tell you how to get what you want: You've just got to keep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eyes wander to right or left or up or down. And looking back is fatal. He who begins many things finishes but few. Who begins too much accomplishes little. Never try to catch two frogs with one hand. If you run after two hares, you will catch neither. The greyhound that starts many hares kills none. A bull does not enjoy fame in two herds. The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one May hope to achieve it before life be done. But he who seeks all things wherever he goes Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows A harvest of barren regrets. Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms. -Samuel Johnson No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. - Bible He who wishes to fulfill his mission in the world must be a man of one idea, one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guiding and controlling his entire life. Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.... A determinate purpose in life, and a steady adhesion to it through all disadvantages, are indispensable conditions of success. If you would be Pope, you must think of nothing else. One should want only one thing and want it constantly. Then one is sure of getting it. But I desire everything, and consequently get nothing. I care not what your education is, elaborate or nothing, what your mental calibre is, great or small, that man who concentrates all his energies of body, mind and soul in one direction is a tremendous man. He who hunts two hares leaves one and loses the other. He who serves two masters has to lie to one. All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it. What does so-called success or failure matter if only you have succeeded in doing the thing you set out to do. The doing is all that really counts. Catching something is purely a byproduct of our fishing. It is the act of fishing that wipes away all grief, lightens all worry, dissolves all fear and anxiety. Let us live, while we are alive! Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it. I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure as a test of value. There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval. Life is about enjoying yourself and having a good time. - Cher All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The goal of all civilization, all religious thought, and all that sort of thing is simply to have a good time. But man gets so solemn over the process that he forgets the end. The business of life is to enjoy oneself; everything else is a mockery. The true object of human life is play. Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself. Pleasure is the object, duty and the goal of all rational creatures. - Voltaire Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness. I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it. Life exists for the love of music or beautiful things. There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself. The main obligation is to amuse yourself. From his cradle to the grave, a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one-to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort, for himself. I take it that what all men are really after is some form of, perhaps only some formula of, peace. There is no such thing as expecting too much. Your goal should be out of reach but not out of sight. Why should I deem myself to be a chisel, when I could be the artist? I've always had such high expectations for myself. I'm aware of them, but I can't relax them. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber, so I don't intend to try any more. We're half the people, we should be half the Congress. I think the key is for women not to set any limits. It's expectation that differentiates you from the dead. The state of the world today demands that women become less modest and dream/plan/act/risk on a larger scale. Aim at the sun, and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself. - J. Hawes When one paints an ideal, one does not need to limit one's imagination. If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth. People don't pay much attention to you when you are second best. I wanted to see what it felt like to be number one. Nearly every glamorous, wealthy, successful career woman you might envy now started out as some kind of schlepp. The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor. In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fall immediately, they had better aim at something high. Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone. 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 disgrace to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim, is a sin. I have an almost complete disregard of precedent and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things always have been done. ... I defy the tyranny of precedent. I cannot afford the luxury of a closed mind. I go for anything new that might improve the past. It's not enough to just swing at the ball. You've got to loosen your girdle and really let it fly. I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. Someday, someone will follow in my footsteps and preside over the White House as the President's spouse. And I wish him well. The most absurd and reckless aspirations have sometimes led to extraordinary success. When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud, either. I might have been born in a hovel but I am determined to travel with the wind and the stars. The brain is wider than the sky. My motto: sans limites. A lot of young girls have looked to their career paths and have said they'd like to be chief. There's been a change in the limits people see. [My father] said, Don't grow up to be a woman, and what he meant by that was, a housewife ... without any interests. Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled. What else are we gonna live by if not dreams? We need to believe in something. What would really drive us crazy is to believe this reality we run into every day is all there is. If I don't believe that there's a happy ending out there-that will-you-marry-me in the sky-I can't keep working today. People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top. I am always more interested in what I am about to do than in what I have already done. We have believed-and we do believe now-that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible. I always ask the question, "Is this what I want in my life?" Tell them that as soon as I can walk I'm going to fly! He who demands little gets it. Unless in one thing or another we are straining toward perfection, we have forfeited our manhood. It is necessary to try to surpass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life. I was born to be a remarkable woman; it matters little in what way or how. ... I shall be famous or I will die. I never intended to become a run-of-the-mill person. There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best. Too low they build, who build beneath the stars. I have the same goal I've had ever since I was a little girl. I want to rule the world. - Madonna Your world is as big as you make it. Whatever course you have chosen for yourself, it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving, if your sights are set far above the merely secure and mediocre. Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you. Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you get neither. I truly believe that before I retire from public office, I'll be voting for a woman for president. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. If I smashed the traditions it was because I knew no traditions. Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. One may miss the mark by aiming too high, as too low. Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it, you will land among the stars. We aim above the mark to hit the mark. Every act hath some falsehood or exaggeration in it. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I many not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead. A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. Not failure, but low aim, is crime. On the human chessboard, all moves are possible. Great is the road I climb, but... the garland offered by an easier effort is not worth the gathering. I never took a position we were going to be a good ball club. I took the position we were going to be a winning ball club. Man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. ... You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin. You have to erect a fence and say, "Okay, scale this." You can change your beliefs so they empower your dreams and desires. Create a strong belief in yourself and what you want. Man can only receive what he sees himself receiving. A person can grow only as much as his horizon allows. You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens. Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity. What our deepest self craves is not mere enjoyment, but some supreme purpose that will enlist all our powers and give unity and direction to our life. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose. There is more to life than just existing and having a pleasant time. Happiness is not the end of life; character is. Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. A good goal is like a strenuous exercise-it makes you stretch. It's weak and despicable to go on wanting things and not trying to get them. Growth is not concerned with itself. The self-confidence one builds from achieving difficult things and accomplishing goals is the most beautiful thing of all. - Madonna If ambition doesn't hurt you, you haven't got it. We need to restore the full meaning of that old word, duty. It is the other side of rights. This is true joy of life-being used for a purpose that is recognized by yourself as a mighty one ... instead of being a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. That is happiness: to be dissolved into something completely great. I looked on child rearing not only as a work of love and duty but as a profession that was fully as interesting and challenging as any honorable profession in the world and one that demanded the best I could bring to it. Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected. The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation. When we ... devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, ihen happiness comes of itself. Duties are what make life most worth living. Lacking them, you are not necessary to anyone. Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it; seek for duty, and happiness will follow, as the shadow comes with the sunshine. True happiness ... is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose. True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out; you must stay out, and to stay out, you must have some absorbing errand. Happiness is the natural flower of duty. The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good. The secret of living is to find ... the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand. The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind speak of color. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. The full-grown modern human being ... is conscious of touching the highest pinnacle of fulfillment... when he is consumed in the service of an idea, in the conquest of the goal pursued. Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation. A man's happiness: to do the things proper to man. Happy the man who knows his duties! I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things. Happiness is the overcoming of not unknown obstacles toward a known goal. Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not. Having a goal is a state of happiness. Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Without duty, life is soft and boneless. Never mind your happiness; do your duty. I probably hold the distinction of being one movie star who, by all laws of logic, should never have made it. At each stage of my career, I lacked the experience. The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who early in life discerns his object and toward that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. A determinate purpose of life, and steady adhesion to it through all disadvantages, are indispensable conditions of success. The secret of success is constancy to purpose. The man who fails because he aims astray, or because he does not aim at all, is to be found everywhere. Life has ... taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God. The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his. The object of war is to survive it. If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want to make the deserts bloom and man grow to greater dignity as a human being-we can do it. The most comprehensive formulation of therapeutic goals is the striving for wholeheartedness: to be without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one's feelings, one's work, one's beliefs. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. Only when men are connected to large, universal goals are they really happy-and one result of their happiness is a rush of creative activity. The great business of life is to be, to do, to do without, and to depart. The proper function of man is to live-not to exist. Life's objective is life itself. I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain. - Plautus There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. I am searching for that which every man seeks-peace and rest. Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessings of heaven. The one thing worth living for is to keep one's soul pure. The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. 
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