Popular quotes about Aim! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I think we got off the track, as many societies do, who follow successfully one aim, and yet are not capable of seeing at what point the pursuit of this aim prevents them from following a more total aim. That is to say, they get into a blind alley.
Erich FrommDon't aim at success โ the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run โ in the long run, I say โ success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
Viktor E. FranklAs Venus within Eros does not really aim at pleasure, so Eros does not aim at happiness. We may think he does, but when he is brought to the test it proves otherwise... For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms.
C. S. LewisTo aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.
Oliver GoldsmithUpon a given body to generate and superinduce a new nature or new natures is the work and aim of human power. To discover the Form of a given nature, or its true difference, or its causal nature, or fount of its emanation... this is the work and aim of human knowledge.
Francis BaconYou aim for what you want and if you don't get it, you don't get it, but if you don't aim, you don't get anything.
Francine ProseHere is tragedy - and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum.
H. L. MenckenNo, this customary aim of research by excavators is completely foreign to the historical work with which I am occupied... my sole and only aim is to be able to establish a historical fact, on which I disagree with some eminent historians and geographers.
Heinrich SchliemannThe aim of all those who live in God is to please our Lord Jesus Christ and become reconciled with God the Father through receiving the Holy Spirit, thus securing their salvation, for in this consists the salvation of every soul. If this aim and this activity is lacking, all other labour is useless and all other striving is in vain. Every path of life which does not lead to this is without profit.
Symeon the New TheologianThe first aim of a good college is not to teach books, but the meaning and purpose of life. Hard study and the learning of books are only a means to this end. We develop power and courage and determination and we go out to achieve Truth, Wisdom and Justice. If we do not come to this, the cost of schooling is wasted.
John B. WatsonIn order to put an end to the occupation, you must make peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people. This is the real aim, this is the real task.
Uri AvneryThe Jesuits are a MILITARY organization, not a religious order. Their chief is a general of an army, not the mere father abbot of a monastery. And the aim of this organization is power - power in its most despotic exercise - absolute power, universal power, power to control the world by the volition of a single man. Jesuitism is the most absolute of despotisms - and at the same time the greatest and most enormous of abuses.
Napoleon BonaparteIt must be the aim of education to teach the citizen that he must first of all rule himself.
Winthrop W. AldrichMy aim is to create a happy society with genuine friendship. Friendship between Tibetan and Chinese peoples is very essential.
Dalai LamaMichael Moore's first big film "Roger & Me" has an extremely powerful scene in which a family in Flint, Michigan is evicted right around Christmas. That was an inspiration to me to document the stories of people living on the edge as they're happening. My aim in "A House Divided" was to explore the urgent challenges of housing inequity in New York through the eyes of Norman Lear.
Solly GranatsteinFor my part, in everything I do, I aim to strengthen democracy in Germany and beyond. The United States is also a strong democracy. As we are seeing in Poland, for example, and also in Hungary, it is important that we have counterweights in democratic systems, and I believe they are still strong in America.
Angela MerkelEvery young man should aim at independence and should prepare himself for a vocation; above all, he should so manage his life that the steps of his progress are taken without improper aids; that he calls no one master, that he does not win or deserve the reputation of being a tool of others, and that if called to public service he may assume its duties with the satisfaction of knowing that he is free to rise to the height of his opportunity.
Charles Evans HughesMy aim in photography is always to convey a mood and not to impart local information. This is not an easy matter, for the camera if left to its own devices will simply impart local information to the exclusiveness of everything else.
Alvin Langdon CoburnSo make it your aim and lifelong habit, when you see someone who's serving, to be reminded of the sacrifice of the Savior, for apart from His sacrifice there is no serving.
C. J. MahaneyIf you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It makes you go into detail that you can avoid. It takes a lot of energy out of you but that's the only way you finally actually achieve excellence. So in that sense, being finicky is essential.
J. R. D. TataAnarchism is really a synonym for socialism. The anarchist is primarily a socialist whose aim is to abolish the exploitation of man by man. Anarchism is only one of the streams of socialist thought, that stream whose main components are concern for liberty and haste to abolish the State.
Daniel GuerinBut life has no smooth roads for any of us. And in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim, the very roughness only stimulates the climber to sturdier and steadier steps, till that other legend of the rough places fulfils itself at last; "per aspera ad astra;" over steep ways to the stars.
William Croswell DoaneIt will be an ill day when our brethren take to bragging and boasting and call it 'testimony to the victorious Christian life.' We trust that holiness will be more than ever the aim of believers, but not the boastful holiness which has deluded some of the excellent of the earth into vain glory, and under which their firmest friends shudder for them.
Charles SpurgeonPoetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity... but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.
George ChapmanI really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
Lord ChesterfieldIf I had any doubts at all about the justice of my dislike for Shakespeare, that doubt vanished completely. What a crude, immoral,vulgar, and senseless work Hamlet is. The whole thing is based on pagan vengeance; the only aim is to gather together as many effects as possible; there is no rhyme or reason about it.
Leo TolstoyThen you realize that the preparation and the planning of this small army of people trying to head to the single aim of creating a work that's going to excite people is very risky. Of course, the odds are that it's not going to work out because there are too many possibilities of it going wrong.
Ciaran HindsDo not waste time trying to overcome your weaknesses and failures. Simply raise your consciousness, transcend and free your thoughts from limitation and illusion, and find within the very center of your being a wholeness and completeness! Cease wallowing in your imperfections and never accept limitations! Aim high, and you will get there. It is only your thoughts that hold you back.
Eileen CaddyYou're always looking for somebody to love you, be accepted, and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much. Number one: They're trying to please whoever signed them to a contract. Number two: They're trying to appease a gigantic audience and they get this false magnification of love. I came from a thing which nowadays would be the exception to the rule. I came from a mother and father who always made me secure in my beliefs, and that's where the love came from. Which made me look at everything else as procedure.
Chuck DWe want everything in a hurry because our primary aim must be survival in the short term. Long term thinking has seemed like a luxury in human history because lives were shorter, but with our increased longevity we have to figure out what to DO with all our time, and to pace ourselves to achieve things that we want. Hobbes might have been right when he originally wrote that life is 'nasty, poor, brutish and short', but today we are AWASH with time.
Tom Butler-Bowdon"My aim is to institute perpetual adoration," spoke St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe, Franciscan priest and founder of the Knights of the Immaculata. For he said that this is "the most important activity," and "if half of the Brothers would work, and the other half pray, this would not require too much."
Maximilian KolbeOur aim was to insure repeat business based on the system's reputation rather than on the quality of a single store or operator.
Ray KrocSuccess, in whatever form it takes, is a tricky thing - once you've achieved your goal, then what? Where do you aim?
Arabella WeirMan can will nothing unless he has first understood that he must count on no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.
Jean-Paul SartrePerfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
W. Somerset MaughamMy God! The English language is a form of communication! Conversation isn't just crossfire where you shoot and get shot at! Where you've got to duck for your life and aim to kill! Words aren't only bombs and bullets โ no, they're little gifts, containing meanings!
Philip RothThere is nothing like a fixed, steady aim, with an honorable purpose. It dignifies your nature, and insures your success.
Nelson MandelaOf course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.
Joan DidionThe understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.
Arthur EddingtonI know the situation of the Commonwealth generally, and I know that the aim should be to make the Commonwealth much more relevant to the poorer countries.
Mahathir MohamadThere are so many incredible women on TV right now. Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Ellen Pompeo. These are really incredible female leads that are on network TV. Hopefully, with what I do, and the generation of actors I'm working with, that'll make the lives of other girls coming in after me even better. I hope to aim for that.
Priyanka ChopraOh, China. How I have missed you.' 'And I have missed you, Eliza. But don't worry, next time my aim will be better.
Derek Landy