Quotes about goal
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“12--Lose Battles, But Win The War: Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is the art of looking beyond the present battle and calculating ahead. Focus on your ultimate goal and plot to reach it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

War, Art

“The world is bigger than you know, and scarier than you might imagine. The only currency worth anything is being true to yourself, and the only goal worth seeking is finding out who you truly are.”

Derek Landy Skulduggery Pleasant

Source: Skulduggery Pleasant

World, Imagination

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

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

Original from Zig Ziglar https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Zig_Ziglar Misattributed

Motivational, Wise, Deep, Inspirational

“You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands - your own.”

Mark Victor Hansen (1948) American writer

Dreams, Thinking, Future, Personality

“With the tools of democracy, democracy was murdered and lawlessness made "legal." Raw power ruled, and its only real goal was to destroy all other powers besides itself.”

Eric Metaxas (1963) American journalist

Source: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

Democracy

“One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Effort

“In avoiding specific goals he had avoided specific limitations. For the time being the world, life itself, could be his chosen field.”

Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road

Source: Revolutionary Road

Life, World, Time

“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Education, Intelligence

“You know, bicycling isn't just a matter of balance," I said. "it's a matter of faith. You can keep upright only by moving forward. You have to have your eyes on the goal, not the ground. I'm going to call that the Bicyclist's Philosophy of Life.”

Susan Vreeland (1946–2017) US author

Source: Clara and Mr. Tiffany

Life, Faith

“I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Age, Personality

“The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal!”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Happiness, People, Thinking

“A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.”

James A. Michener (1907–1997) American author

People, Youth, Fashion, Reading

“My ideal goal is to "mature" into childhood. That would be genuine maturity.”

Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) Polish novelist and painter

Childhood

“It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Love, Happiness, Wealth

“I stopped. She was bleeding after all. Perfect lines crossed her wrists, not near any crucial veins, but enough to leave wet red tracks across her skin. She hadn; t hit her veins when she did this; death hadn't been her goal.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

Death, Perfection

“Man lives consciously for himself, but serves as an unconscious instrument for the achievement of historical, universally human goals.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Universe

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“There is no such thing as unlimited trust. At some point, all beings with free will can, and will, betray you when you're no longer pursuing the same goals.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Unknown

“When it comes to believing in yourself, put your eye on the mark and don’t blink. If you have a goal, a dream, or an aspiration…believe in yourself while you are on the way to your destination, and you will have already arrived.”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

Dreams, Way

“For glory lit, and life alive, for goals unreached and aims to strive. All men must try, the wind did see. It is the test, it is the dream.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Life, Men, Dreams

“I spend most of my waking hours confronting and destroying things that I fear. A thousand-year-old master vampire was a tall order, but a girl's got to have a goal.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Fear, Girl

“Freedom in art, freedom in society, this is the double goal towards which all consistent and logical minds must strive.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Art, Freedom

“A man on a thousand mile walk has to forget his goal and say to himself every morning, 'Today I'm going to cover twenty-five miles and then rest up and sleep.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Sleep, Forgetting

“Set your mind on a definite goal and observe how quickly the world stands aside to let you pass.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

World

“My goal is not to be better than anyone else, but to be better than I used to be.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

Variant: you don't need to be better than any one else you just need to be better than you used to be

“Healthy striving is about striving for internal goals, and wanting to be our best selves. Perfectionism is not motivated internally. Perfectionism is about what people will think. And you do not see effective leaders in corporations sitting on an email for three hours to make sure it’s worded just perfectly. You don’t. They have work to get done.. You don’t see elite athletes letting themselves be discouraged by a bad workout or a single bad performance. It happens all the time. They’re accustomed to winning, they’re accustomed to losing. Once perfectionism becomes the goal, they’re out of the sport.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Washington Post, October 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/exhaustion-is-not-a-status-symbol/2012/10/02/19d27aa8-0cba-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story_2.html Source: The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

People, Motivation, Thinking, Sport

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“Just start off with the same goals in mind. If you have the same values, same goals then you'll be on track for the same future.”

Angelina Jolie (1975) American actress, film director, and screenwriter

Future

“Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal it’s difficult to score.”

Paul Arden (1940–2008) writer

Source: It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be

“Obstacles are those frightening things you see when you take you eyes off your goal.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

“You must walk to the beat of a different drummer. The same beat that the wealthy hear. If the beat sounds normal, evacuate the dance floor immediately! The goal is to not be normal, because as my radio listeners know, normal is broke.”

Dave Ramsey (1960) American financial advisor

Source: The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness

Dance

“Sadie," he said forlornly, "when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children's.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Children, Dreams, Understanding, Parent

“Now Everybody has some secret goals in life… Sometimes you can get what you want and what you need at the sames time.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Life, Secret, Time

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and
farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your
thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Source: Focal Point: A Proven System to Simplify Your Life, Double Your Productivity, and Achieve All Your Goals

Cars, Feeling, Perfection

“Isn’t ‘not to be bored’ one of the principal goals of life?”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Source: Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

Life

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Peace, Distant, Peaceful

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.”

John Piper (1946) American writer

“Revolution is an art that I pursue rather than a goal I expect to achieve. Nor is this a source of dismay; a lost cause can be as spiritually satisfying as a victory.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Art, Victory

“I think one of the primary goals of a feminist landscape architecture would be to work toward a public landscape in which we can roam the streets at midnight, in which every square is available for Virginia Woolf to make up her novels”

Rebecca Solnit (1961) Author and essayist from United States

Source: Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics

Thinking

“No point in playing if your goal is to lose.”

Rachel Hawthorne (1950) American author

Source: Moonlight

“You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal?… A plan.”

Jodi Picoult book Lone Wolf

Source: Lone Wolf

Dreams

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

As quoted by Ernst Straus in Einstein: A Centenary Volume by A.P. French (1980), p. 32. Attributed in posthumous publications Variant: "if you want to be a happy man, you should tie your life to a goal, not to other people and not to things." A quote from Ernst Straus' memoir of Einstein in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives edited by Gerald Holton and Yehuda Elkana (1982), p. 420 http://books.google.com/books?id=CNuwE3NL1QgC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA420#v=onepage&q&f=false

Life, Happiness, People, Motivational

“Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.”

John Dewey book Democracy and Education

Source: Democracy and Education

“You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.” -Hera, goddess of marriage”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Marriage

“Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem—in my opinion—to characterize our age.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"The Common Language of Science", a broadcast for Science, Conference, London, 28 September 1941. Published in Advancement of Science, London, Vol. 2, No. 5. Reprinted in Ideas and Opinions (1954), the quote appearing on this page http://books.google.com/books?id=OeUoXHoAJMsC&lpg=PP1&pg=PT357#v=onepage&q&f=false. 1940s

Age, Perfection

“All we are now concerned with is the search for “new and improved” version of whatever means are already available for attaining goals such means make possible. The value of the goals themselves is irrelevant … What counts is doing things better than before. Whether such things are worth doing in the first place is no longer a question.”

Alexander Nehamas (1946) Professor of philosophy

Foreword to Alain Renaut, The Era of the Individual (1999), p. xi.

Search, Question

“At this point bourgeois thought must come up against an insuperable obstacle, for its starting-point and its goal are always, if not always consciously, an apologia for the existing order.”

György Lukács book History and Class Consciousness

Source: History and Class Consciousness (1968), p. 48

“What debaters in ivory towers often fail to realize is that when it comes to achieving well-defined goals, both theism and atheism can work.”

Varadaraja V. Raman (1932) American physicist

Truth and Tension in Science and Religion

“A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus…to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters…And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose. [”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Letter to Steve Colbern, as quoted in American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0060394072 (2001), by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), pp. 184-185. 1990s

Family, Thinking, Freedom, Future

“Recent organizational approaches to control (e. g., Ouchi 1979) suggest two underlying control strategies. On the one hand, control can be accomplished through performance evaluation. Performance evaluation refers to the cybernetic process of monitoring and rewarding performance. This strategy emphasizes the information aspects of control. Namely, to what degree can the various aspects of performance be assessed? Alternatively, control can be achieved by minimizing the divergence of preferences among organizational members. That is, members cooperate in the achievement of organizational goals because the members understand and have internalized these goals. This strategy emphasizes people policies such as selection, training, and socialization.
The two control strategies are interrelated. An organization can tolerate a work force with highly diverse goals if a precise evaluation system exists. In contrast, a lack of precision in performance evaluation can be tolerated when goal incompatibility is minor (Ouchi 1979). The choice between the two is driven by the ease of performance evaluation”

Kathleen M. Eisenhardt American economist

Source: "Control: Organizational and economic approaches," 1985, p. 135

People, Understanding, Training

“Your quicksilver declaiming eye
Had frozen to the stare of a straight line
Which only saw goals painted in its beam
And made an artificial darkness all around
Which thickened into Allies.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"Napoleon In 1814"
The Still Centre (1939)

Painting

“The radical middle movement is phenomenally diverse. But if you look at what everyone who might be called radical middle is saying and doing, you'll discover we share four goals. I like to call them our Four Key Values:”

Mark Satin (1946) American political theorist, author, and newsletter publisher

1. maximize choices for every American (and for the U.S. as a whole) as much as possible;
2. guarantee a fair start in life for every American;
3. maximize every American's human potential as much as possible;
4. be of genuine help to everyone in the developing world.
Source: Radical Middle (2004), Chapter 1, "A Creative and Practical Politics," p. 6.

“Leadership is the activity of influencing people to cooperate toward some goal which they come to find desirable.”

Ordway Tead (1891–1973) American academic

Source: The art of leadership (1935), p. 20; As cited in: Joseph Clarence Rost (1993) Leadership for the Twenty-first Century. p. 48.

People

“Microsoft has had two goals. One was to copy the Mac and the other was to copy Lotus' success in the spreadsheet. And over the course of the last 10 years, Microsoft accomplished both of those goals. And now they are completely lost.
They were able to copy the Mac because the Mac was frozen in time. The Mac didn't change much for the last 10 years. It changed maybe 10 percent. It was a sitting duck. It's amazing that it took Microsoft 10 years to copy something that was a sitting duck. Apple, unfortunately, doesn't deserve too much sympathy. They invested hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D, but very little came out They produced almost no new innovation since the original Mac itself.”

Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs, "Steve Jobs in 1994: The Rolling Stone Interview" https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/steve-jobs-in-1994-the-rolling-stone-interview-20110117 June 16, 1994, reprinted in Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, January 17, 2011 1990s, Rolling Stone interview (1994)

Change, Time, Success

“Demanding that wolf populations be allowed to continue to increase is not only a false conservation goal, but also a counterproductive tactic that is bound for short-term failure. It is strategically preferable to promote wolf range expansion and to accept reduction of unacceptable levels of conflict through scientifically planned and managed culling rather than through uncontrolled poaching. Full protection of wolf populations living near, or interspersed with, human settlements leads sooner or later to surplus wolves being killed, legally or illegally. Opposing wolf killing altogether implies accepting that all wolves will eventually be removed from these areas, whereas accepting some wolf control will allow wolves over much larger ranges. This vision requires a fundamental shift in the way wolves are perceived by folks who consider every wolf a symbol of the conservation battle or an animal with special rights among all other species. In the end, this approach probably will yield many more wolves than we could afford to keep in a few fully protected areas, no matter how large.”

L. David Mech (1937) American Biologist , Ecologist

Wolves: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation (2003)

Way, Failure, Wolf, Animals

“The biological goal of the existence of every organism becomes understandable when we realize that it acts as a protector of genes worn in it, which must ensure that they move into the child's body before the caregiver himself becomes old and can not function properly.”

Jerzy Vetulani (1936–2017) Polish scientist

Vetulani, Jerzy (2010): Poszukiwanie dobrostanu. Academia, 2, pp. 4–7 (in Polish).

Understanding

“Every American must believe in the promise of America. And to reach this noble, necessary goal, there is a role for government. America doesn't need more big government, and we've learned that more money is not always the answer. If a program is failing to serve people, it makes little difference if we spend twice as much or half as much. The measure of true compassion is results.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

2000s, 2002, Compassionate Conservatism (April 2002)

Money, People, Learning

“I'm a very driven person. I'm always going after my goals. You just get up in the morning and kick yourself in the butt. I'd like to show people that they can have that same drive to go where they want to go. It's up to you and not to anybody else.”

Heidi Klum (1973) German model, television host, businesswoman, fashion designer, television producer, and actress

Quoted in Parade Magazine 10 July 2008 http://www.parade.com/celebrity/celebrity-parade/archive/pc_0194.html.

People, Personality

“In addition, profits are so completely subordinated in Germany and Italy to requirements of a militarily conceived national interest and of full employment that the maintenance of the profit principle is purely theoretical. Profits have lost their autonomy as an independent, not to say the supreme, goal of economic activity.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

Source: 1930s- 1950s, The End of Economic Man (1939), p. 149

“.. and then it remains you to re-create your study, the fragment, into a painting. For remember; these are two [different] things: Nature is the material from which we must take. But don't be fooled by the modern theories, that imitating, copying nature would be 'everything'. The goal, the Art's aim is …. to move..”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek (original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) ..en dan blijft u over, om de studie, het fragment, tot schilderij te herscheppen. Want vergeet niet, dat dat twee [verschillende] dingen zijn: De natuur is de stof, waaruit wij moeten putten. Maar laat u niet door de moderne (Jeltes: hij bedoelde hier waarschijnlijk de Belgische neo-impressionistische) theoriën wijsmaken, dat het navolgen, het copieeren der natuur 'alles' is. Het doel, het streven van de Kunst is.. ..te ontroeren.. Quote of Roelofs, in a letter to his pupil Frans Smissaert, 8 June 1886; as cited in Willem Roelofs (1822—1922), by Mr. H. F. W. Jeltes, in Maandschrift Elsevierweekblad... http://maandschrift.elsevierweekblad.nl/EGM/1922/01/19220101/EGM-19220101-0268/story.pdf, Jan. 1922, p. 222 1880's

Fools, Art, Nature, Study

“We know that we are a main goal for the Iranian regime. We will not wait until the battle becomes in Saudi Arabia but we will work to have the battle in Iran rather than in Saudi Arabia”

Mohammad bin Salman (1985) Saudi crown prince and minister of defense

2017-05-07 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-saudi-minister/iran-minister-warns-saudi-arabia-after-battle-comments-tasnim-idUSKBN1830Y7

Waiting

“When I asked Bhutto what he thought of Assad, he described the Syrian leader as “The Levanter.” Knowing that, like himself, I was a keen reader of thrillers, the Pakistani Prime Minister knew that I would get the message. However, it was only months later when, having read Eric Ambler’s 1972 novel The Levanter that I understood Bhutto’s one-word pen portrayal of Hafez Al-Assad. In The Levanter the hero, or anti-hero if you prefer, is a British businessman who, having lived in Syria for years, has almost “gone native” and become a man of uncertain identity. He is a bit of this and a bit of that, and a bit of everything else, in a region that is a mosaic of minorities. He doesn’t believe in anything and is loyal to no one. He could be your friend in the morning but betray you in the evening. He has only two goals in life: to survive and to make money… Today, Bashar Al-Assad is playing the role of the son of the Levanter, offering his services to any would-be buyer through interviews with whoever passes through the corner of Damascus where he is hiding. At first glance, the Levanter may appear attractive to those engaged in sordid games. In the end, however, the Levanter must betray his existing paymaster in order to begin serving a new one. Four years ago, Bashar switched to the Tehran-Moscow axis and is now trying to switch back to the Tel-Aviv-Washington one that he and his father served for decades. However, if the story has one lesson to teach, it is that the Levanter is always the source of the problem, rather than part of the solution. ISIS is there because almost half a century of repression by the Assads produced the conditions for its emergence. What is needed is a policy based on the truth of the situation in which both Assad and ISIS are parts of the same problem.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Opinion: Like Father, Like Son http://www.aawsat.net/2015/02/article55341622/opinion-like-father-like-son, Ashraq Al-Awsat (February 20, 2015).

Life, Money, Truth, Game

“When the Nobel award was announced I saw it as a personal triumph, an achievement for me and my collaborators -- a recognition for a very remarkable discovery, for reaching the goal I had pursued for 7 years. But when I sat in that crowded hall and I saw the sea of western faces surrounding me, and I, the only Indian, in my turban and closed coat, it dawned on me that I was really representing my people and my country. I felt truly humble when I received the Prize from King Gustav; it was a moment of great emotion but I could restrain myself.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

On the occasion of the Noble Prize award presented to him in 1930 by King Gustova in Stokholm Raman observed Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of India's website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

People, Personality, Sea, Country

“Two in two minutes for him, and Brazil's World Cup is surely over. This is the first time ever, that Brazil have trailed by four goals in a World Cup match. Four-nil down, twenty-six minutes on the clock. Germany, just too good? This is Brazil, not so much without Neymar. But, without Thiago Silva. Organizing their defense, and this could get a lot worse. Yeah? Unless this team tightens up somehow. Terrible mistake by Fernandinho on that last goal.”

Ian Darke (1950) British association football and boxing commentator

Brazil v. Germany (8 July 2014).
2010s, 2014, 2014 FIFA World Cup

World, Time

“Once the experience of war makes visible the possibility of death that lies locked up in each moment, our thoughts cannot travel from one day to the next without meeting death's face. The mind is then strung up to a pitch it can stand for only a short time; but each new dawn introduces the same necessity; and days piled on days make years. On each one of these days the soul suffers violence. Regularly, each morning, the soul castrates itself of aspiration, for thought cannot journey through time without meeting death on the way. Thus war effaces all conceptions of purpose or goal, including even its own "war aims." It effaces the very notion of war's being brought to an end. Consequently, nobody does anything to bring this end about. In the presence of an armed enemy, what hand can relinquish its weapon? The mind ought to find a way out, but the mind has lost all capacity to so much as look outward. The mind is completely absorbed in doing itself violence. Always in human life, whether war or slavery is in question, intolerable sufferings continue, as it were, by the force of their own specific gravity, and so look to the outsider as though they deprived the sufferer of the resources which might serve to extricate him.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Iliad or The Poem of Force (1940-1941), p. 181

Life, Death, War, Way

“It was the wise all-seeing soul
Who counselled neither war nor peace:
'Only be thou thyself that goal
In which the wars of time shall cease.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

War, Peace, Soul, Time

“The attachment to a rationalistic, teleological notion of progress indicates the absence of true progress; he whose life does not unfold satisfyingly under its own momentum is driven to moralize it, to set up goals and rationalize their achievement as progress.”

John Carroll (1944) Australian professor and author

Source: Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 34

Life

“If we find, when we read again one of our classics—say Virgil for instance—that we like it better than ever, the experience may suggest an even more pleasing conjecture. Psychologists tell us that fullness of life is the goal of everything that lives, that the impulse towards completeness, towards ripeness and self-realization, is the most compelling of all motives. These discoveries in old books of new beauties and aspects of interest may persuade us, therefore, that we are not only still ourselves, but more ourselves than ever: that our spirit has not only persisted in its being, but has become more lucid in the process.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Montaigne,” p. 2
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Life, Books, Beauty, Motivation

“For too long our culture has said, "If it feels good, do it." Now America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: "Let's roll". In the sacrifice of soldiers, the fierce brotherhood of firefighters, and the bravery and generosity of ordinary citizens, we have glimpsed what a new culture of responsibility could look like. We want to be a nation that serves goals larger than self. We've been offered a unique opportunity, and we must not let this moment pass.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Invoking the words of Todd Beamer (passenger on ill-fated Flight 93 on September 11, 2001) to suggest Americans are becoming more altruistic and willing to sacrifice. State of the Union Address (January 29, 2002)
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)

Feeling

“Beauty is not the goal of competitive sports, but high-level sports are a prime venue for the expression of human beauty. The relation is roughly that of courage to war. The human beauty we’re talking about here is beauty of a particular type; it might be called kinetic beauty. Its power and appeal are universal. It has nothing to do with sex or cultural norms. What it seems to have to do with, really, is human beings’ reconciliation with the fact of having a body.”

David Foster Wallace (1962–2008) American fiction writer and essayist

Federer as Religious Experience, New York Times, August 20, 2006
Essays

War, Beauty, Sex, Courage

“The goal of life is to realize God and to be always immersed in thought in Him.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

Women Saints of East and West

Life, God

“Multiculturalists encourage vagueness about 'contributions' to give the impression of equal participation, as in the 'new age' school sports where every player in the team must handle the ball before a goal can be scored. If one were to compose a more precise ethnic history it would read something like this: The English, Irish and Scots were the founding population; they and their children established the Australian nation.”

John Hirst (1942–2016) Australian historian

Sense and Nonsense in Australian History (2005)

Children, Age, School, History

“Core values = The organization’s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of general guiding principles, not to be confused with specific cultural or operating practices, and not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency.
Purpose = The organization’s fundamental reasons for existence beyond simply making money – a perpetual guiding star on the horizon, not to be confused with specific goals or business strategies”

James C. Collins book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies

Source: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, 1994, p. 73

Money, Star, Business

“I have been studying inherited susceptibility of cancer through affected families. The goal is to identify genes that are involved in cancer development.”

Frederick Pei Li (1940–2015) American physician

Whonamedit - dictionary of medical eponyms http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/2249.html.

Family, Study

“Courage… is not a selfish attribute: it is only possible if you are pursuing a wider and more worthy goal.”

Ted Malloch (1952) American businessman

Source: Doing Virtuous Business (Thomas Nelson, 2011), p. 66.

Courage, Selfishness

“I’ve always chosen the most competitive and most difficult careers — that’s kind of all I know. Being a dancer is the same thing. You’re auditioning. You’re working really hard to achieve that goal as an artist. With modeling, you’re auditioning. You’re putting yourself out there. So acting was just another venue, but the most difficult one to actually achieve and to actually work because it’s much more cutthroat. But I was used to it because I had already been auditioning through dance and modeling so I knew that aspect of it.”

Crystal Allen (1972) American actress

Interview: Crystal Allen on Lacrosse, Superman and Storms http://www.celebrityextraonline.com/2012/05/interview-crystal-allen-on-lacrosse.html (May 18, 2012)

Dance

“PROUN is understood as the creative construction of form (based on the mastery of space) assisted by economic construction of the applied material. The goal of PROUN is progressive movement on the way to concrete creation, and not the substantiation, explanation, or promotion of life.”

El Lissitsky (1890–1941) Soviet artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect

1915 - 1925, Theses on the 'PROUN': from painting to architecture' (1920)

Life, Way

“(About the "New Atheists") They fail to recognize that mocking religious people in public is entirely inimical to the goals they wish to achieve.”

Jacques Berlinerblau (1966) Associate Professor, Director of the Program for Jewish Civilization, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service,…

Professor Jacques Berlinerblau tells atheists: Stop whining! Washington Post, 17th September 2012 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/professor-jacques-berlinerblau-tells-atheists-stop-whining/2012/09/14/0fdaf7f4-feab-11e1-98c6-ec0a0a93f8eb_story.html?utm_term=.6145b4fb44a8 Other

People

“Naturally, when considering the whole issue of who will live in Europe, one could argue that this problem will be solved by successful integration. The reality, however, is that we’re not aware of any examples of successful integration… In countering arguments for successful integration, we must also point out that if people with diverging goals find themselves in the same system or country, it won’t lead to integration, but to chaos. It’s obvious that the culture of migrants contrasts dramatically with European culture. Opposing ideologies and values cannot be simultaneously upheld, as they are mutually exclusive. To give you the most obvious example, the European people think it desirable for men and women to be equal, while for the Muslim community this idea is unacceptable, as in their culture the relationship between men and women is seen in terms of a hierarchical order. These two concepts cannot be upheld at the same time. It’s only a question of time before one or the other prevails. Of course one could also argue that communities coming to us from different cultures can be re-educated. But we must see – and Bishop Tőkés also spoke about this – that now the Muslim communities coming to Europe see their own culture, their own faith, their own lifestyles and their own principles as stronger and more valuable than ours. So, whether we like it or not, in terms of respect for life, optimism, commitment, the subordination of individual interests and ideals, today Muslim communities are stronger than Christian communities. Why would anyone want to adopt a culture that appears to be weaker than their own strong culture? They won’t, and they never will! Therefore re-education and integration based on re-education cannot succeed.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

Life, Women, Men, People

“The only things I had to look forward to in life was a job and a career and a family and just going through the whole cycle. It just seemed like what everybody else was doing. And I looked at people around me. I looked at the people that taught the schools and around the government, and I looked at the type of work that my father did, and none of it really interested me that much. And when I first took psychedelics, I felt like I was admitted into a world of compassion and beauty and creativity. It was like nothing I had experienced in my regular life. And almost instantly that became the goal of where I wanted to be…”

D.M. Turner (1962–1996) American drug researcher

Interview with Elizabeth Gips http://www.tripzine.com/articles.asp?id=dmturnergips

Life, People, World, School

“Skill is a property of a person; it is a person's ability to demonstrate a system and sequence of behaviour that [is] functionally related to attaining a performance goal.”

Richard Boyatzis (1946) American business theorist

Source: Competent manager (1982), p. 33.

Personality

“I don't understand how many painters can be so short-sighted to value art from earlier periods as completely worthless. Every art is an expression of an era and only for that reason already it is interesting. A Rembrandt has gone other ways, but he has certainly also pursued the highest goals. That one can assert: it is not necessary for a painter to have an impression when he is painting an Image, is nonsense. Certainly an artist, if he is really an artist, always has an inner urge to create an Image and thus sees an impression for himself that he may not always be able to explain, because deeper feelings are very difficult to grasp in words, but he has an impression - otherwise he only makes paintings as pure brain work. And intellectual art I can't bear. You can not make abstract art as something on its own. One feel various forms in their inner coherence. For example: when reading a fairy tale I can get the idea to paint a forest in completely abstract forms with motifs of trees. Every abstract form has an inner meaning for me.”

Jacoba van Heemskerck (1876–1923) Dutch painter

translation from Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in Dutch / citaat van Jacoba van Heemskerck, in het Nederlands vertaald: Ik begrijp niet hoe veel schilders zo kortzichtig kunnen zijn kunst uit vroegere perioden als volkomen waardeloos aan te merken. Elke kunst is een uiting van een tijdperk en alleen daarom al interessant. Een Rembrandt is andere wegen gegaan maar heeft zeker ook de hoogste doelen nagestreefd. Dat men beweren kan: een schilder hoeft bij het schilderen van een Bild geen voorstelling te hebben, is onzin. Zeker heeft een kunstenaar, als hij werkelijk artiest is, altijd een innerlijke drang een Bild te scheppen en ziet dus een Bild voor zich dat hij misschien niet altijd verklaren kan omdat diepere gevoelens heel moeilijk in woorden te vatten zijn, maar een voorstelling heeft hij - anders maakt hij schilderijen en is het puur hersenwerk. En intellectuele kunst staat mij zeer tegen. Abstracte kunst is niet op zich zelf staand te maken. Men voelt verscheidene vormen in hun innerlijke samenhang. Bijvoorbeeld: bij het lezen van een sprookje kan ik de ingeving krijgen een bos in geheel abstracte vormen met boommotieven te schilderen. Elke abstracte vorm heeft voor mij een innerlijke betekenis.
Quote of Jacoba van Heemskerck in her letter of 1 May 1920, to Gustave Bock in Giessen, Germany; as cited in Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest, 1876 – 1923: schilderes uit roeping, A. H. Huussen jr. (ed. Marleen Blokhuis), (ISBN: 90-400-9064-5) Waanders, Zwolle, 2005, p. 168
1920's

Art, Way, Feeling, Idea

“[My own goal is] to be completely empty of ideas at the moment of setting brush to canvas, the head being just as empty as the canvas.”

Asger Jorn (1914–1973) Danish artist

In a conversation with Pierre Loeb, circa 1946; as quoted on the website of the Jorn Museum 'Articles' by Jorn http://www.museumjorn.dk/en/article_presentation.asp?AjrDcmntId=255, 1940 - 1948, Various sources

Idea

“Your product is a starting point. A loyal customer is the goal.”

Ron Kaufman (1956) American author and consultant

Lift Me UP! Service With A Smile (2005)

“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown to us.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Three: Words Misunderstood, Ch. 10

Marriage, Girl, Boy, Idea

“Most of the time, organizations generate actions unreflectively and non-adaptively. To justify their actions, organizations create problems, successes, threats and opportunities. These are ideological molecules that mix values, goals, expectations, perceptions, theories, plans, and symbols. The molecules form while people are result watching, guided by the beliefs that they should judge results good or bad, look for the causes of results, and propose needs for action. Because organizations modify their behavior programs mainly in small increments that make sense to top managers, they change too little and inappropriately, and nearly all organizations disappear within a few years.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

Abstract
"Organizations as action generators," 1983

People, Behavior, Problem, Sense

“If great managers are catalysts, speeding up the reaction between the individual's talents and the company's goals, then great leaders are alchemists. Somehow they are able to transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future.”

Marcus Buckingham (1966) British writer

Source: The One Thing You Need to Know (2005), p. 145

Fear, Confidence, Future, Speed

“Simply waiting for low-carbon-emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing [carbon dioxide] that will be required under most credible climate-change models.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Palin sees gas drilling as step to curb global warming, Murphy, Kim, April 15, 2009, LA Times, 2011-10-27 http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/15/nation/na-palin15, 2009

Change, Waiting

“Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society.”

Dominic Cadbury (1940) British businessman and member of the Cadbury chocolate manufacturing dynasty

UK, Commission Report: Corporate Governance (1992).

Communication

“IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change – Nobel-winning scientific body that informs us about what is the scientific knowledge – issued a report last week, which you can find online. Just google “IPCC 1.5 degrees C” because they were asking the question, what does it take for us to achieve the goal we set in Paris in December 2015 to keep the planet safe? And they said we’re running out of time, that there still is… By a miracle, if the politicians acted and we really focused on it and so on, we could still do it. But, basically, we’re running out of time, because in Canberra and in Washington and in other places they are not representing the common interest at all. They’re representing a few big companies, but not the people.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

People, Question, Knowledge, Change

“Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

The Ayn Rand Letter (1971–1976)

Motivation

“The simultaneity of the disappearance of literature (as aesthetic) and history (as development), which we can observe around us in the academy, points to a fundamental commonality; unraveling one implies unraveling the other, since both are grounded in the same goal-oriented structures that postmodern sensibility opposes. Both civilizational history and autonomous literature are constitutively teleological, dependent on notions of progress toward goals, and they both therefore face resistance from the antidevelopmentalism of contemporary intellectual life.”

Russell Berman (1950) American academic

Source: Fiction Sets You Free: Literature, Liberty and Western Culture (2007), p. 8.

Life, History, Literature, Dependency

“What these tests tell employers about potential employees is hard to imagine, since the "right" answers should be obvious to anyone who has ever encountered the principle of hierarchy and subordination. Do I work well with others? You bet, but never to the point where I would hesitate to inform on them for the slightest infraction. Am I capable of independent decision making? Oh yes, but I know better than to let this capacity interfere with a slavish obedience to orders. At The Maids, a housecleaning service, I am given something called the "Accutrac personality test," which warns at the beginning that "Accutrac has multiple measures which detect attempts to distort or 'psych out' the questionnaire." Naturally, I "never" find it hard "to stop moods of self-pity," nor do I imagine that others are talking about me behind my back or believe that "management and employees will always be in conflict because they have totally different sets of goals."”

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941) American writer and journalist

The real function of these tests, I decide, is to convey information not to the employer but to the potential employee, and the information conveyed is always: You will have no secrets from us.
Source: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001), Ch. 2: Scrubbing in Maine (p. 59)

Secret, Imagination, Mood, Nature

“The social rootedness of science is often associated with the utility of applied science; this is an error and a dangerous error. But precisely the detachment of the theoretical scientist is rooted in the institutions of his society and in the evaluative choices which underlie those institutions. He can focus his whole attention, bringing every relevant clue to bear, on a problem wholly without appetitive or utilitarian implications, he can put his whole heart and mind into the search for understanding for the sake of understanding alone. How can he do this? First, because he himself has been nourished and disciplined by traditions cultivated within his society which have produced this kind of devoted attention to impersonal goals. And secondly, because the society itself, in its deepest foundations, respects those independently self-sustaining traditions of scientist or scholar.”

Marjorie Grene (1910–2009) American philosopher

The Knower and the Known (1974), pp. 180-181

Error, Search, Understanding, Problem