“Don’t take an eye on the short term but think long.”

Source: Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How (2015), p. 44

The Last Lecture (2007)
Context: How do you get people to help you? You can’t get there alone. People have to help you and I do believe in karma. I believe in paybacks. You get people to help you by telling the truth; by being earnest. I'll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short-term, earnest is long term.

Source: Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997), Chapter 14, "The Common Enemy"
Context: Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

Letter to Harrison Blake (16 November 1857)
Context: Let me suggest a theme for you: to state to yourself precisely and completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for you, — returning to this essay again and again, until you are satisfied that all that was important in your experience is in it. Give this good reason to yourself for having gone over the mountains, for mankind is ever going over a mountain. Don't suppose that you can tell it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again, especially when, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Source: The Last Song