Quotes about goal
page 9

Ruhollah Khomeini photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
Herbert A. Simon photo
Rudolf Rocker photo

“I am an Anarchist not because I believe Anarchism is the final goal, but because there is no such thing as a final goal.”

Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958) anarcho-syndicalist writer and activist

The London Years (1956)

George W. Bush photo
Thomas Edison photo

“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor and businessman

As quoted inThe A-V Magazine Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 18, and The Extended Circle : A Dictionary of Humane Thought (1985) by Jon Wynne-Tyson, p. 75; this has been cited to "Harper's Magazine (1890)" but no occurence prior to the 1981 appearance has been located.
Disputed

Jayant Narlikar photo
George Boole photo

“[Boole's apparent goal was to] unfold the secret laws and relations of those high faculties of thought by which all beyond the merely perceptive knowledge of the world and of ourselves is attained or matured, is a object which does not stand in need of commendation to a rational mind.”

George Boole (1815–1864) English mathematician, philosopher and logician

Source: 1850s, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854), p. 3: as cited in: John Cohen (1966) A new introduction to psychology. p. 121

Kevin Kelly photo

“In a poetic sense the prime goal of the new economy is to undo – company by company, industry by industry – the industrial economy.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)

John F. Kennedy photo
Ron Paul photo

“…a few years back, in the 1980s, in our efforts to bring peace and democracy to the world we assisted the freedom fighters of Afghanistan, and in our infinite wisdom we gave money, technology and training to Bin Laden, and now, this very year, we have declared that Bin Laden was responsible for the bombing in Africa. So what is our response, because we allow our President to pursue war too easily? What was the President's response? Some even say that it might have been for other reasons than for national security reasons. So he goes off and bombs Afghanistan, and he goes off and bombs Sudan, and now the record shows that very likely the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was precisely that, a pharmaceutical plant… As my colleagues know, at the end of this bill I think we get a hint as to why we do not go to Rwanda for humanitarian reasons… I think it has something to do with money, and I think it has something to do with oil… they are asking to set up and check into the funds that Saddam Hussein owes to the west. Who is owed? They do not owe me any money. But I will bet my colleagues there is a lot of banks in New York who are owed a lot of money, and this is one of the goals…
Dana Rohrabacher: This resolution is exactly the right formula… Support democracy. Oppose tyranny. Oppose aggression and repression… We should strengthen the victims so they can defend themselves. These things are totally consistent with America's philosophy, and it is a pragmatic approach as well… Our support for the Mujahedin collapsed the Soviet Union. Yes, there was a price to pay, because after the Soviet Union collapsed, we walked away, and we did not support those elements in the Mujahedin who were somewhat in favor of the freedom and western values. With those people who oppose this effort of pro democracy foreign policy, a pro freedom foreign policy rather than isolation foreign policy, they would have had us stay out of that war in Afghanistan. They would never have had us confronting Soviet aggression in different parts of the world… Mr. Speaker, the gentleman does not think it is proper for us to offer those people who are struggling for freedoms in Iraq against their dictatorship a helping hand?
Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it would be absolutely proper to do that, as long as it came out of the gentleman's wallet and we did not extract it from somebody in this country, a taxpayer at the point of a gun and say, look, bin Laden is a great guy. I want more of your money. That is what we did in the 1980s. That is what the Congress did. They went to the taxpayers, they put a gun to their head, and said, you pay up, because we think bin Laden is a freedom fighter.
Dana Rohrabacher: Well, if the gentleman will further yield, it was just not handled correctly.
Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, again reclaiming my time, the policy is flawed. The policy is flawed.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Debate on the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, October 5, 1998 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec98/cr100598.htm
1990s

Steve McManaman photo
Thomas Szasz photo

“The “treatment” can have only one goal: to convert the heretic to the true faith, to transform the homosexual into a heterosexual.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 172.

David C. McClelland photo
Paul Graham photo
John Gray photo
Kellyanne Conway photo

“I serve at the pleasure of @POTUS. His message is my message. His goals are my goals. Uninformed chatter doesn't matter.”

Kellyanne Conway (1967) American strategist and pollster

Twitter account @KellyannePolls https://twitter.com/KellyannePolls/status/831566360153042944 (February 14, 2017)

Friedrich Engels photo

“By dissolving nationalities, the liberal economic system had done its best to universalise enmity, to transform mankind into a horde of ravenous beasts (for what else are competitors?) who devour one another just because each has identical interests with all the others – after this preparatory[work there remained but one step to take before the goal was reached, the dissolution of the family. To accomplish this, economy’s own beautiful invention, the factory system, came to its aid.”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Nachdem die liberale Ökonomie ihr Bestes getan hatte, um durch die Auflösung der Nationalitäten die Feindschaft zu verallgemeinern, die Menschheit in eine Horde reißender Tiere - und was sind Konkurrenten anders?
zu verwandeln, die einander ebendeshalb auffressen, WEIL jeder mit allen andern gleiches Interesse hat, nach dieser Vorarbeit blieb ihr nur noch ein Schritt zum Ziele übrig, die Auflösung der Familie. Um diese durchzusetzen, kam ihr eine eigene schöne Erfindung, das Fabriksystem, zu Hülfe.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)

Harun Yahya photo
George W. Bush photo
Yuri Kochiyama photo

“The goal of the war [on terrorism] is more than just getting oil and fuel. The United States is intent on taking over the world… It's important we all understand that the main terrorist and the main enemy of the world's people is the U. S. government. Racism has been a weakness of this country from its beginning. Throughout history, all people of color, and all people who don't see eye-to-eye with the U. S. government have been subject to American terror.”

Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014) American activist

[Diane Carol Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama, https://books.google.com/books?id=b1oowDNmgpoC&pg=PA310, 2005, U of Minnesota Press, 978-0-8166-4593-0, 310] ; In response to the United States' actions following the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Jimmy Carter photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Matthew Arnold photo
Baruch Ashlag photo
Willem Roelofs photo

“The goal, the pursuit of art is to move, like music does; to create sensations in our mind..”

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

1880's

Jefferson Davis photo

“Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, had made clear from the first days of the war that his paramount goal was the attainment of independence… [H]e fought for such measures as conscription, central direction of the army, and the suspension of habeus corpus.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Paul D. Escott, After Secession: Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (1992), p. 254

“The operative goals will be shaped by the dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task area that is most critical, their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based upon their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own needs.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Variant: The dominant group, reflecting the imperatives of the particular task that is most critical (to the organization), their own background characteristics (distinctive perspectives based on their training, career lines, and areas of competence) and the unofficial uses to which they put the organization for their own ends.
Source: 1960s, "The analysis of goals in complex organizations", 1961, p. 857

“Organizational design is the body of knowledge and techniques that seeks to offer useful advice to organizations about their structures (and other aspects) needed to attain their goals.”

Richard M. Burton, ‎Bo Eriksen, ‎Dorthe Døjbak Håkonsson (2008). Designing Organizations: 21st Century Approaches. p. 5

“Have a goal, a destination and a clear map. If you don't know where you are going any road will take you there”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 58

Jim Butcher photo
Marvin Minsky photo

“Computer languages of the future will be more concerned with goals and less with procedures specified by the programmer.”

Marvin Minsky (1927–2016) American cognitive scientist

Turing Award Lecture "Form and Content in Computer Science" (1969), in Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery 17 (2) (April 1970)

“Chapter Five deals with the messiest problem of all— but the one to which all analytical roads should lead : the nature of organizational goals and the strategies used to achieve them.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

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

Michael Ignatieff photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
David Morrison photo
Stanley Baldwin photo
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani photo
Henri Fayol photo

“coordination of all efforts towards the overall goal;”

Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism

L’exposé des principes généraux d’administration, 1908

Josh Lucas photo
Louis Auguste Blanqui photo
John Desmond Bernal photo
Alexander Rodchenko photo

“[my goal is] to photograph not a factory but the work itself from the most effective point of view.... in order to show the grandness of a machine, one should photograph not all of it but give a series of snapshots.”

Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) Russian artist and photographer

Quote, 1930: from Rodchenko lecture at the October group's meeting; as quoted by Margarita Tupitsyn in Chapter 'Fragmentation versus Totality: The Politics of (De)framing', in The great Utopia - The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932; Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1992, p. 486
the issue was not to take 'photo pictures' of the entire object but to make 'photo stills' of characteristic parts of an object

Leonid Brezhnev photo
Charles Simic photo
Max Heindel photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“I must say that when my Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its work in Birmingham, we encountered numerous Negro church reactions that had to be overcome. Negro ministers were among other Negro leaders who felt they were being pulled into something that they had not helped to organize. This is almost always a problem. Negro community unity was the first requisite if our goals were to be realized. I talked with many groups, including one group of 200 ministers, my theme to them being that a minister cannot preach the glories of heaven while ignoring social conditions in his own community that cause men an earthly hell. I stressed that the Negro minister had particular freedom and independence to provide strong, firm leadership, and I asked how the Negro would ever gain freedom without his minister's guidance, support and inspiration. These ministers finally decided to entrust our movement with their support, and as a result, the role of the Negro church today, by and large, is a glorious example in the history of Christendom. For never in Christian history, within a Christian country, have Christian churches been on the receiving end of such naked brutality and violence as we are witnessing here in America today. Not since the days of the Christians in the catacombs has God's house, as a symbol, weathered such attack as the Negro churches.
I shall never forget the grief and bitterness I felt on that terrible September morning when a bomb blew out the lives of those four little, innocent girls sitting in their Sunday-school class in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. I think of how a woman cried out, crunching through broken glass, "My God, we're not even safe in church!" I think of how that explosion blew the face of Jesus Christ from a stained-glass window. It was symbolic of how sin and evil had blotted out the life of Christ. I can remember thinking that if men were this bestial, was it all worth it? Was there any hope? Was there any way out?… time has healed the wounds -- and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting -- ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor's police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor's bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor's men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor's men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Another time I will never forget was one Saturday night, late, when my brother telephoned me in Atlanta from Birmingham -- that city which some call "Bombingham" -- which I had just left. He told me that a bomb had wrecked his home, and that another bomb, positioned to exert its maximum force upon the motel room in which I had been staying, had injured several people. My brother described the terror in the streets as Negroes, furious at the bombings, fought whites. Then, behind his voice, I heard a rising chorus of beautiful singing: "We shall overcome."”

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

Tears came into my eyes that at such a tragic moment, my race still could sing its hope and faith.
Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s

J. Doyne Farmer photo

“Our goal is to build a broad-based model of key components of the economy: households, firms, banks and government… The failure to embrace things like simulation has inhibited progress in economics.”

J. Doyne Farmer (1952) American physicist and entrepreneur (b.1952)

As quoted by Stephen Foley, " Physicists and the financial markets http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8461f5e6-35f5-11e3-952b-00144feab7de.html#axzz2j7a3dBoP" Financial Times Magazine (Oct18, 2013) ref: the CRISIS Project http://www.crisis-economics.eu/.

Freeman Dyson photo

“The two great conceptual revolutions of twentieth-century science, the overturning of classical physics by Werner Heisenberg and the overturning of the foundations of mathematics by Kurt Gödel, occurred within six years of each other within the narrow boundaries of German-speaking Europe. … A study of the historical background of German intellectual life in the 1920s reveals strong links between them. Physicists and mathematicians were exposed simultaneously to external influences that pushed them along parallel paths. … Two people who came early and strongly under the influence of Spengler's philosophy were the mathematician Hermann Weyl and the physicist Erwin Schrödinger. … Weyl and Schrödinger agreed with Spengler that the coming revolution would sweep away the principle of physical causality. The erstwhile revolutionaries David Hilbert and Albert Einstein found themselves in the unaccustomed role of defenders of the status quo, Hilbert defending the primacy of formal logic in the foundations of mathematics, Einstein defending the primacy of causality in physics. In the short run, Hilbert and Einstein were defeated and the Spenglerian ideology of revolution triumphed, both in physics and in mathematics. Heisenberg discovered the true limits of causality in atomic processes, and Gödel discovered the limits of formal deduction and proof in mathematics. And, as often happens in the history of intellectual revolutions, the achievement of revolutionary goals destroyed the revolutionary ideology that gave them birth. The visions of Spengler, having served their purpose, rapidly became irrelevant.”

Freeman Dyson (1923) theoretical physicist and mathematician

The Scientist As Rebel (2006)

Calvin Coolidge photo
Abdul Rahman Arif photo

“The existance of Israel is an error which we must put right. This is our opportunity to wipe out the disgrace which is Israel which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear- to wipe Israel off the map.”

Abdul Rahman Arif (1916–2007) President and Prime Minister of Iraq

Radio broadcast, 1 June 1967, as quoted in Michael Scott-Bauman (1998) Conflict in the Middle East: Israel and the Arabs.

Emil M. Cioran photo
C. Wright Mills photo
Isidore Isou photo
George W. Bush photo
Edgar Bronfman, Sr. photo
Kurt Lewin photo
Georg Brandes photo
Max Scheler photo
Albert Einstein photo

“The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations.”

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

"Science and Religion" (1939-1941), p. 23 http://books.google.com/books?id=Q1UxYzuI2oQC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q&f=false
1950s, Out of My Later Years (1950)

Donald J. Trump photo
Robert M. Pirsig photo
Shreya Ghoshal photo

“I believe, entertainment has its pros and cons. It is important, but too much involvement of kids can deter them from achieving their key goals.”

Shreya Ghoshal (1984) Indian playback singer

Talking about kids (1) http://m.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/music/news/I-am-a-girl-next-door-Shreya-Ghoshal/articleshow/9455640.cms

David Korten photo
Ben Carson photo

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed… I'm telling you there is a reason these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

As quoted in "Ben Carson explains Holocaust comments" http://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/08/politics/ben-carson-gun-control-2016-election/, CNN, (October 9, 2015)

George W. Bush photo
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu photo
Milan Kundera photo

“Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect some day to suffer vertigo.”

pg 56
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Two: Soul and Body

Serzh Sargsyan photo

“The world saw and understood that, when it comes to the normalization of the Armenian-Turkish relations, they have to deal not just with Armenia with its three million population, but with the ten million Armenians. And let no one ignore the fact that, contrary to any slogans, the Armenian nation is united in its goals and is strong with its sons and daughters.”

Serzh Sargsyan (1954) Armenian politician, 3rd President of Armenia

Address of the President of Armenia to the people of the Republic of Armenia and to all Armenians http://www.president.am/events/news/eng/?day=10&month=10&year=2009&id=751 (October 10, 2009)

Kurt Lewin photo

“A goal can play an essential role in the psychological situation without being clearly present in consciousness.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1930s, Principles of topological psychology, 1936, p. 19.

Daniel Bell photo
David C. McClelland photo
Steven Pinker photo
Donald Barthelme photo

“The present goal of the individual in group enterprises is to avoid dominance; leadership is felt to be a character disorder.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“The Crisis”.
Great Days (1979)

Will Eisner photo
Francis Heylighen photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo
Franz Kafka photo

“Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.”

Haim Ginott (1922–1973) psychologist

Ginott, H. G. (1972). Teacher and child. New York: Macmillan.

Allen C. Guelzo photo

“Emancipation, not colonization, was the real goal to which the logic of the American Founding was driving the nation.”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, The Logic of Liberty (2014)

Masaru Ibuka photo

“We worked furiously (to realise our goals). Because we didn't have fear, we could do something drastic.”

Masaru Ibuka (1908–1997) Japanese businessman

Masaru Ibuka cited in: Ashley Goldsworthy (2009), Leadership in Action. p. 52

“Where and how will official goals be subverted?”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1960s, Authority, Goals and Prestige in a General Hospital, 1960, p. 23

Frederik Pohl photo

“Specialization is the goal of civilization.”

Frederik Pohl (1919–2013) American science fiction writer and editor

My Lady Green Sleeves (p. 88)
Platinum Pohl (2005)

Francis Escudero photo