This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end, most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure, our less-than-ideal families - and even our politicians!" - Adlai Ewing Stevenson
"In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end, most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure, our less-than-ideal families - and even our politicians!" -
"In youth, everything seems possible; but we reach a point in the middle years when we realize that we are never going to reach all the shining goals we had set for ourselves. And in the end, most of us reconcile ourselves, with what grace we can, to living with our ulcers and arthritis, our sense of partial failure, our less-than-ideal families - and even our politicians!" -
"Your values are your belief systems about right and wrong, good and bad. Our values are the things we all fundamentally need to move toward... Our values change when we change goals or self-image... There is no real success except in keeping your basic values." - Anthony "Tony" Robbins
"People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals." - Anthony "Tony" Robbins
"Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment." - Anthony "Tony" Robbins
"Big goals can create a fear of failure. Lack of goals guarantees it." - Author Unknown NULL
"The primary cause of success in life is the ability to set and achieve goals. That’s why the people who do not have goals are doomed forever to work for those who do. You either work to achieve your own goals or you work to achieve someone else’s." - Brian Tracy
"There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines." - Brian Tracy
"The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them." - Denis E. Waitley
"People with goals succeed because they know where they're going." - Earl Nightingale
"In the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is "the last of human freedoms" - the ability to "choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances."" - Gordon Willard Allport
"The spirit of policy and that of bureaucracy are diametrically opposed… The essence of bureaucracy is its quest for safety; its success is calculability. Profound policy thrives on perpetual creation, on a constant redefinition of goals. Good administration thrives on routine, the definition of relationships which can survive mediocrity. Policy involves an adjustment of risks; administration, an avoidance of deviation." - Henry Kissinger, fully Henry Alfred Kissinger
"Everyone is biased, whether they know it or not, in possessing fundamental goals, purposes, and ends. If we understand that, we can be properly skeptical of all historians (and journalists and anyone who reports on the world) and check to see if their biases cause them to emphasize certain things in history and omit or give slight consideration to others." - Howard Zinn
"There is no a priori knowledge; hence there are no eternal absolutes; no timeless objective goals. Everything, truth included, is relative. Moreover, the present is the only reality we can ever truly know and use." - John Keats
"[Leaders] can express the values that hold the society together. Most important, they can conceive and articulate goals that lift people out of their petty preoccupations, carry them above the conflicts that tear a society apart, and unite them in the pursuit of objectives worthy of their best efforts." - John W. Gardner, fully John William Gardner
"Service is the rent each of us pays for living - the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time or after you have reached your personal goals." - Marian Wright Edelman
"Optimism is just a useful adjunct to wisdom. By itself it cannot provide meaning. Optimism is a tool to help the individual achieve the goals he has set for himself. It is in the choice of the goals themselves that meaning - or emptiness - resides. When learned optimism is coupled with a renewed commitment to the commons [common good], our epidemic of depression and meaninglessness may end." - Martin Seligman, Martin E. P. "Marty" Seligman
"We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve." - Maxwell Maltz
"We find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve." - Maxwell Maltz
"There are two main strategies we can adopt to improve the quality of life. The first is to try making external conditions match our goals. The second is to change how we experience external conditions to make them fit our goals better. For instance, feeling secure is an important component of happiness... risks are inevitable." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
"Harmony is usually achieved by evolutionary changes involving an increase in an organism’s complexity, that is, an increase in both differentiation and integration. (Differentiation refers to the degree to which a system (i.e., an organ such as the brain, or an individual, a family, a corporation, a culture, or humanity as a whole) is composed of parts that differ in structure or function from one another. Integration refers to the extent to which the parts communicate and enhance one another’s goals. A system that is more differentiated and integrated than another is said to be more complex.)" - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
"The paradox of rising expectations suggests that improving the quality of life might be an insurmountable task. In fact, there is not inherent problem in our desire to escalate our goals, as long as we enjoy the struggle along the way. The problem arises when people are so fixated on what they want to achieve that they cease to derive pleasure from the present. When that happens, they forfeit their chance of contentment." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
"In the lives of many people it is possible to find a unifying purpose that justifies the things they do day in, day out – a goal that like a magnetic field attracts their psychic energy, a goal upon which all lesser goals depend… Without such a purpose, even the best-ordered consciousness lacks meaning." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
"It is not a circular motion that returns to where one started, but rather, it resembles an ascending spiral, where concern for the self becomes steadily qualified by less selfish goals and concern for others becomes ore individualistic and personally meaningful." - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, native form is Csíkszentmihályi Mihály
"Sharpen your thinking about goal setting. Be realistic about the amount of time and effort that might be necessary. Make a commitment to excellence. Learn to distinguish between a goal and a wish. Prepare for ultimate goals by achieving your interim goals. Choose goals that will benefit others as well as yourself." - Norman Vincent Peale
"Happiness at last comes to those who never lose the excitement of going after new goals, who are forever wanting to achieve something better." - Norman Vincent Peale
"The most essential requirement for a happy marriage is soul unity - similarity of spiritual ideals and goals, implemented by a practical willingness to attain those goals by study, effort, and self-discipline." - Paramahansa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh
"The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health, or think positive thoughts." - Robin Sharma
"Experience has taught me that financial success, job success and happiness in human relations are, in the main, the result of (a) physical well-being; (b) constant effort to develop one's personal assets; (c) setting up and working toward a series of life goals; (d) allowing time for meditation and spiritual regeneration." - Roger Babson, fully Roger Ward Babson
"If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with full Enlightenment. The wise man strives to no goals but the foolish man fetters himself. There is one Dharma [Truth, Universal Law, elements of existence], not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. To seek Mind with discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes." - Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
"The most valuable thing you can ever own is your image of yourself as a winner in the great game of life, as a contributor to the betterment of mankind, as an achiever of worthy goals. Unless you have that image of yourself, nothing worth having will stay with you for long." - Tom Hopkins
"The leader is a great servant... The leader does not say, “Get going!” Instead he says, “Let’s go!” and leads the way... The leader uses his heart as well as his head... The leader is a self-starter... The leader can be led. He is not interested in having his own way, but in finding the best way. He has an open mind. The leader keeps his eyes upon high goals." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"Goals are dreams we convert to plans and take action to fulfill." - Zig Ziglar, born Hilary Hinton Ziglar
"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals." - Zig Ziglar, born Hilary Hinton Ziglar
"Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself. " - Denis E. Waitley
"Since the mind is a specific biocomputer, it needs specific instructions and directions. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them." - Denis E. Waitley
"The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one’s own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard — every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"We do not need to have an agreed set of goals before we do something ambitious!" - Freeman John Dyson
"The leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leaders and followers... Leaders, followers and goals make up the three equally necessary supports for leadership." - Garry Wills
"Your mind, while blessed with permanent memory, is cursed with lousy recall. Written goals provide clarity. By documenting your dreams, you must think about the process of achieving them. " - Gary Ryan Blair
"What you get by achieving your goals is to as important as what you become by achieving your goals. " - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"The goal is part of the desiring mind and bliss is a state of no-mind. Desiring is a barrier: non-desiring is the bridge. And all goals are egoistic because they are ambitions. Ambitions are shadows of the ego, and wherever ego is bliss is not. When the ego completely disappears, when not even a trace is left behind, bliss is found. Even to say that it is found is not exactly right, because it is our nature; we don't find it because we have never lost it in the first place. We have only become oblivious to it, we have become unconscious about it. We have gone into a deep sleep and we are dreaming all kinds of things. Because of our dreaming and sleep and unconsciousness, the bliss remains unexperienced. Otherwise it surrounds you." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL