Quotes by American Authors - Page 163

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not disgrace to reach the stars but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure but low aim is a sin.
Benjamin Mays
People don't pay much attention to you when you are second best. I wanted to see what it felt like to be number one.
Florence Griffith Joyner
If you would hit the mark you must aim a little above it every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The state of the world today demands that women become less modest and dream/plan/act/risk on a larger scale.
Charlotte Bunch
It's expectation that differentiates you from the dead.
Sheila Ballantyne
I think the key is for women not to set any limits.
Martina Navratilova
We're half the people we should be half the Congress.
Jeannette Rankin
I want to be great or nothing. I won't be a commonplace dauber so I don't intend to try any more.
Louisa May Alcott
I've always had such high expectations for myself. I'm aware of them but I can't relax them.
Mary Decker Slaney
Your goal should be out of reach but not out of sight.
Anita DeFrantz
There is no such thing as expecting too much.
Susan Cheever
I take it that what all men are really after is some form of perhaps only some formula of peace.
James Conrad
From his cradle to the grave a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one-to secure peace of mind spiritual comfort for himself.
Mark Twain
The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
S.J. Perelman
There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.
Erich Fromm
I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.
Rita Mae Brown
The goal of all civilization all religious thought and all that sort of thing is simply to have a good time. But man gets so solemn over the process that he forgets the end.
Don Marquis
Life is about enjoying yourself and having a good time.
Cher
Life is an end in itself and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Catching something is purely a byproduct of our fishing. It is the act of fishing that wipes away all grief lightens all worry dissolves all fear and anxiety.
Gladys Taber
I care not what your education is elaborate or nothing what your mental calibre is great or small that man who concentrates all his energies of body mind and soul in one direction is a tremendous man.
T. DeWitt Talmage
What does so-called success or failure matter if only you have succeeded in doing the thing you set out to do. The doing is all that really counts.
Eva Le Gallienne
One principle reason why men are so often useless is that they ... divide and shift their attention among a multitude of objects and pursuits.
Nathaniel Emmons
Nations like individuals have to limit their objectives or take the consequences.
James Reston
Leader and followers are both following the invisible leader-the common purpose.
Mary Parker Follett
There are people who want to be everywhere at once and they get nowhere.
Carl Sandburg
As you emphasize your life you must localize and define it... you cannot do everything.
Phillips Brooks
I'm not going to let my life revolve around losing weight. I have other things to do.
Rosie O'Donnell
Enthusiasm for one's goal lessens the disagreeableness of working toward it.
Thomas Eakins
Our victory is sure to come and I can endure anything but recreancy to principle.
Lucy Stone
You have to define success in your own way. What maintains your dignity and integrity and what is your life's plan where do you want to put your efforts. I could be richer and more famous but I would have to give up things that are of infinitely more value.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Promises that you make to yourself are often like the Japanese plum tree-they bear no fruit.
Frances Marion
There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts.
Christine Lavin
For me it's the challenge-the challenge to try to beat myself or do better than I did in the past. I try to keep in mind not what I have accomplished but what I have to try to accomplish in the future.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Concentrate on finding your goal then concentrate on reaching it.
Colonel Michael Friedman
Remember if people talk behind your back it only means you're two steps ahead!
Fannie Flagg
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today I knew it then as purpose.
Bette Davis
I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.
Billie Holiday
Normal is not something to aspire to it's something to get away from.
Jodie Foster
You can have your titular recognition. I'll take money and power.
Helen Gurley Brown
It doesn't matter what anybody thinks of what I do. The clock doesn't lie.
Bonnie Blair
No matter what the competition is I try to find a goal that day and better that goal.
Bonnie Blair
A woman finds the natural lay of the land almost unconsciously and not feeling it incumbent on her to be guide and philosopher to any successor she takes little pains to mark the route by which she is making her ascent.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
There were angry men confronting me and I caught the flashing of defiant eyes but above me and within me there was a spirit stronger than them all.
Antoinette Brown Blackwell
Follow your bliss. Find where it is and don't be afraid to follow it.
Joseph Campbell
There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision the determination and the courage to reach it.
Mary McLeod Bethune
Know what you want to do-then do it. Make straight for your goal and go undefeated in spirit to the end.
Ernestine Schumann-Heink
You decide what it is you want to accomplish and then you lay out your plans to get there and then you just do it. It's pretty straightforward.
Nancy Ditz
A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.
Annie Dillard
Goals are dreams with deadlines.
Diana Scharf Hunt
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Byrne
If we would only give just once the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks' vacation we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Fortunate is the person who has developed the self-control to steer a straight course toward his objective in life without being swayed from his purpose by either commendation or condemnation.
Napoleon Hill
A life that hasn't a definite plan is likely to become driftwood.
David Sarnoff
In this life we get only those things for which we hunt for which we strive and for which we are willing to sacrifice.
George Matthew Adams
If you don't know where you are going how can you expect to get there?
Basil S. Walsh
Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.
Frank Gaines
One of the sources of pride in being a human being is the ability to bear present frustrations in the interests of longer purposes.
Helen Merrell Lynd
Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
Kenneth Hildebrand
Destiny is not a matter of chance it is a matter of choice it is not a thing to be waited for it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan