Quotes by American Authors - Page 164

Unhappiness is in not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.
Don Herold
Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it.
Mae West
Laboring toward distant aims sets the mind in a higher key and puts us at our best.
C. H. Parkhurst
He might never really do what he said but at least he had it in mind. He had somewhere to go.
Louis L'Amour
To have a reason to get up in the morning it is necessary to possess a guiding principle. A belief of some kind. A bumper sticker if you will.
Judith Guest
The American people can have anything they want the trouble is they don't know what they want.
Eugene V. Debs
Not only must we be good but we must also be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me it is utterly basic yet it seems like it's a great secret.
Leon Uris
No pleasure philosophy no sensuality no place nor power no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purpose.
Minot Simons
The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going.
David Starr Jordan
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass " Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."
Harmon Killebrew
Be a life long or short its completeness depends on what it was lived for.
David Starr Jordan
If we could 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
Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live.
William P. Merrill
The poor man is not he who is without a cent but he who is without a dream.
Harry Kemp
Purpose is what gives life a meaning.
C. H. Parkhurst
Great minds have purposes others have wishes.
Washington Irving
If I had one wish for my children it would be that each of them would reach for goals that have meaning for them as individuals.
Lillian Carter
What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice the dress the look the very motions of a person define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
Billy Wilder
An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Make no little plans they have no magic to stir men's blood . . . Make big plans aim high in hope and work.
Daniel H. Burnham
It is no longer clear which way is up even if one wants to rise.
David Riesman
Winning isn't everything but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombardi
Accept the place the divine providence has found for you the society of your contemporaries the connection of events.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.
Don Marquis
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
I have learned to have very modest goals for society and myself things like clean air green grass children with bright eyes not being pushed around useful work that suits one's abilities plain tasty food and occasional satisfying nookie.
Paul Goodman
A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration.
Kurt Lewin
Once you say you're going to settle for second that's what happens to you in life I find.
John F Kennedy
The significance of a man is not in what he attains but rather in what he longs to attain.
Kahlil Gibran
We trust Sir that God is on our side. "It is more important to know that we are on God's side."
Abraham Lincoln
An honest God is the noblest work of man.
Charles J. Ingersoll
God is incorporeal divine supreme infinite Mind Spirit Soul Principle life Truth Love.
Mary Baker Eddy
A picket frozen on duty - A mother starved for her brood - Socrates drinking the hemlock And Jesus on the rood And millions who humble and nameless The straight hard pathway trod - Some call it Consecration And others call it God.
W. H. Carruth
Mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord.
Julia Ward Howe
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity When I give I give myself.
Walt Whitman
Commitment leads to action. Action brings your dream closer.
Marcia Wieder
You can't get rich sitting on the bench.
Phil Linz
Action is the only reality not only reality but morality as well.
Abbie Hoffman
Action is the antidote to despair.
Joan Baez
Acting can work a peculiar magic on the actor ... it can cure you (at least for the length of a performance) of a whole variety of ailments. Migraine headaches miserable colds or toothaches will suddenly disappear as you're up there going through your paces.
Barbara Harris
When I am idle and shiftless my affairs become confused when I work I get results ... not great results but enough to encourage me.
Edgar Watson Howe
The emotions are not always subject to reason ... but they are always subject to action. When thoughts do not neutralize an undesirable emotion action will.
William James
The ordinary man is involved in action the hero acts. An immense difference.
Henry Miller
You can't build a reputation on what you intend to do.
Liz Smith
It's where we go and what we do when we get there that tells us who we are.
Joyce Carol Oates
The things people discard tell more about them than the things they keep.
Hilda Lawrence
There is nothing to be gained by waiting for a better situation. You see where you are and you do what you can with that.
Jacob K. Javits
Begin somewhere you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.
Liz Smith
Who waits until the wind shall silent keep Will never find the ready hour to sow.
Helen Hunt Jackson
The best place to succeed is where you are with what you have.
Charles M. Schwab
We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.
Frank Tibolt
How many opportunities come along? If you wait for the right one that's wrong because it may never be right and what have you got to lose? Even if it's a disaster you've tried you've learned something you've had an adventure. And that doesn't mean you can't do it again.
Edward McCabe
The question for each man is not what he would do if he had the means time influence and educational advantages but what he will do with the things he has.
Frank Hamilton
So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties it may be too late.
Lee Iacocca
He who hesitates is last.
Mae West
I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act write speak be I'll be sending messages on a ouija board cryptic complaints from the other side.
Audre Lorde
My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season.
Mary Todd Lincoln
I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth.
Pearl S. Buck