“Life is futile unless it be directed towards a definite goal.”

—  Stefan Zweig, book Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman

Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman (1927)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Life is futile unless it be directed towards a definite goal." by Stefan Zweig?
Stefan Zweig photo
Stefan Zweig106
Austrian writer 1881–1942

Related quotes

“The concept of organizational goals, like the concepts of power, authority, or leadership, has been unusually resistant to precise, unambiguous definition. Yet a definition of goals is necessary and unavoidable in organizational analysis. Organizations are established to do something; they perform work directed toward some end.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, Organizational Analysis: A Sociological View, 1970, p. 133

Bruce Lee photo

“Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Part 6 "Beyond System — The Ultimate Source of Jeet Kune Do"
Jeet Kune Do (1997)

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“Unless we have a definite faith in the goal of our existence, and unless we believe, work for, and actually come to experience the goal positively as an existent factor, there is no hope of any plan becoming successful.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“The essential task of management is to arrange organizational conditions and methods of operations so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts toward organizational objectives.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 178

Arnold J. Toynbee photo

“The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.”

Arnold J. Toynbee book A Study of History

A Study of History (1934–1961)

René Girard photo

“What Jesus invites us to imitate is his own desire, the spirit that directs him toward the goal on which his intention is fixed: to resemble God the Father as much as possible.”

René Girard (1923–2015) French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science

Source: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

“The ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness represent attempts to interpret the process of development as a group of tendencies permanently directed towards certain permanent and universal ends. But human behaviour is not directed towards unchanging ends, not even towards those temporary ideals which each community sets up for itself. The formative tendency is displayed, not in any steady process of definite orientation, but in a rhythmic sequence of transformation which cannot be represented as tending towards any particular final condition.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Source: The Next Development in Man (1948), p. 261-262

Henry David Thoreau photo

“Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)
Context: Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know. The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth, grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks, but only how good potato blows are. The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight has rested on this ground. It has a logic more severe than the logician's. You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.

Scott Jurek photo

“We strive toward a goal, and whether we achieve it or not is important, but it's not what's most important. What matters is how we move toward that goal.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Epilogue, p. 227
Eat and Run (2012)

Mircea Eliade photo

“The way towards 'wisdom' or towards 'freedom' is the way towards your inner being. This is the simplest definition of metaphysics.”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Attributed in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross.

Related topics