Goal Setting Quotes

Where better to start than asking “so where do you want to go?” Here’s a quote from a different literary figure:

“‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where…’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.”
(Lewis Carrol from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

Unless you’d prefer some non-fictional philosophy…..

“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” (Seneca)

“The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there.” (Yogi Berra)

“Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.” (Aristotle)

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” (Andrew Carnegie)

“Mark Twain” by sfjalar (licensed under CC BY 2.0)

“To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal.” (Earl Nightingale)

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who are alive.” (Howard Thurman)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (Mark Twain)

“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)

“I’m convinced that we can write and live our own scripts more than most people will acknowledge. I also know the price that must be paid. It’s a real struggle to do it. It requires visualization and affirmation. It involves living a life of integrity, starting with making and keeping promises, until the whole human personality, the senses, the thinking, the feeling, and the intuition, are ultimately integrated and harmonized.” (Stephen Covey)

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstance they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.” (George Bernard Shaw)

“You can’t hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can’t catch a fish unless you put your line in the water. You can’t reach your goals if you don’t try.” (Kathy Seligman)

“One’s philosophy is not the best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.” (Louis Pasteur)

“I’m a big believer in growth. Life is not about achievement, it’s about learning and growth, and developing qualities like compassion, patience, perseverance, love, and joy, and so forth. And so if that is the case, then I think our goals should include something which stretches us.” (Jack Canfield)

“The highest reward for man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.” (John Ruskin)

“Growth is the only evidence of life.” (Cardinal Newman)

“If we agree that the bottom line of life is happiness, not success, then it makes perfect sense to say that it is the journey that counts, not reaching the destination.” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

“If you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. For where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. Keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.” (Saint Augustine)

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” (Benjamin Disraeli)

“I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done.” (Henry Ford)

“What the mind can believe, you can achieve.” (Lorraine Moller)

“To make the future demands courage. It demands work. But it also demands faith.” (Peter Drucker)