Quotes about motivation and goals
230 quotes from 178 people
Jordan Petersonborn 1962Beyond Order (2021), p. 133Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Horace Mann1796–1859Address at Antioch College (1859)
Cicero107–43 BC“De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” Book V, Chapter 58
Charles Bukowski1920–1994Factotum (1975), Ch. 45, Manny
William Blake1757–1827Proverbs of Hell, Line 5
Robert Browning1812–1889Rabbi ben Ezra (1864), Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Rabbi Ben Ezra.In context
John F. Kennedy1917–1963Speech given at the Arkansas State Fairground, Little Rock, United States of America (3 October 1963); quoted in John F. Kennedy in Quotations: A Topical Dictionary, with Sources (2013), McFarland, entry 1729- Jordan Petersonborn 1962Beyond Order (2021), p. 184
Edmund Burke1729–1797Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796), No. 3
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry1900–1944Citadelle or The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)
Samuel Johnson1709–1784The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Ch. XIIIThe Republic is a dream.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Carl Sandburg1878–1967“Washington Monument by Night” in Slabs of the Sunburnt West (1922)I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.
Carl Sandburg1878–1967Incidentals (1904)Action … is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde1854–1900The Critic as Artist (1891), Part IOur chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882The Conduct of Life (1860)