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Quotes about motivation and goals

230 quotes from 178 people

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One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
Helen Keller1880–1968Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf, Mt. Airy, Philadelphia (8 July 1896)
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
Marie Curie1867–1934Autobiographical Notes, in Pierre Curie (1923)
A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.
Richard Nixon1913–19941969 note to self, as quoted in Nixon (1987) by Stephen E. Ambrose, p. 284
- Failure
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
MOMary Oliver1935–2019New and Selected Poems (1992)
- Life & Death
There are many things that seem impossible only so long as one does not attempt them.
André Gide1869–1951Si le grain ne meurt [If It Die] (1924), ch. III
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.
Ursula K. Le Guin1929–2018The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 15 “To the Ice” (p. 220)
Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
Jonathan Edwards1703–1758Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723), No. 5.
- Time
There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,
Can circumvent or hinder or control
The firm resolve of a determined soul.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox1850–1919“Will,” included in Maurine: And Other Poems, p. 145 (1882)
- Luck
It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.
Søren Kierkegaard1813–1855The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s, 1841
It is not enough to fight. It is the spirit which we bring to the fight that decides the issue. It is morale that wins the victory.
George C. Marshall1880–1959Address at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut (June 1941)
- War & Peace
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to “jump at de sun.” We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
Zora Neale Hurston1891–1960Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Ch.2: My Folks, p. 13
- Family
Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find his right road.
Dag Hammarskjöld1905–1961Vägmärken · Markings (1963), 1925–1930
- Advice
If I abandon this project I would be a man without dreams and I don’t want to live like that: I live my life or I end my life with this project.
Werner Herzogborn 1942Herzog on Herzog (2002), Said while making Fitzcarraldo
- Movies
The gulls who scorn perfection for the sake of travel go nowhere, slowly. Those who put aside travel for the sake of perfection go anywhere, instantly.
Richard Bachborn 1936Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
A man has to have goals — for a day, for a lifetime — and that was mine, to have people say, “There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.”
Ted Williams1918–2002My Turn at Bat: The Story of My Life (1970), p. 7
- Baseball