Quotes About Aspiration

If I was sure, I'd say. For your Momma, maybe. For all of us, maybe, but I don't think so. I think, maybe, it's reaching out for that school. Somehow. I'm not saying that's what you thought you were doing or what you even wanted to do. But it's how it turned out. And I'm sorry, the way it turned out. Because somebody's slapped your hand back good and hard. But I don't want you to stop reaching, just because it didn't come out the way it should have.

All of us yearn for the highest wisdom, but we have to rely on ourselves in the end.

But having more freedom she only became more profoundly aware of the big want. She wanted so many things. She wanted to read great, beautiful books, and be rich with them; she wanted to see beautiful things, and have the joy of them for ever; she wanted to know big, free people; and there remained always the want she could put no name to? It was so difficult. There were so many things, so much to meet and surpass. And one never knew where one was going.

Money one always wanted.

Make money! Make it! Out of nowhere. Wring it out of the thin air! The last feat to be humanly proud of!

All human beings are vines. But especially the idealist. He is a vine, and he needs to clutch and climb. And he despises the man who is a mere potato, or turnip, or lump of wood.

What is it then, that they want, that they are forever rampant and unsatisfied, the king of beasts and the defender of virgins? What is this Crown that hovers between them, unattainable?

Dogen's teaching: We practice because we do not yet know who or what we are. But as a result of many causes, including the suffering we experience and the longing engendered by that suffering, we aspire to know. That aspiration leads many people to begin the practice of zazen. Dogen expressed this beautifully when he said, "Wisdom is seeking wisdom." Perhaps we might paraphrase and say that wholeness is seeking wholeness, self is seeking self.

Those who give up dreams, do injury to their own hearts and cannot possibly enjoy a profound sense of fulfillment in the end.

You desire! You desire. You unmitigated ass.

In almost any subject, your passion for the subject will save you. If you care enough for a result, you will most certainly attain it. If you wish to be good, you will be good. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich. If you wish to be learned, you will be learned. Only then you must really wish these things and wish them with exclusiveness and not wish one hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.

When you seek friendships with those who are successful, there is no guarantee they will want success for you too. You might have to work to overcome being perceived as a relational leech. On the other hand, when you seek success for those who are already friends, you can just about guarantee that these same people will want success for you.

Every act you have ever performed since the day you were born was performed because you wanted something.

business to be paid a salary of over a million dollars a year

It was this desire for a feeling of importance that inspired Dickens to write his immortal novels. This desire inspired Sir Christoper Wren to design his symphonies in stone. This desire made Rockefeller amass millions that he never spent! And this same desire made the richest family in your town build a house far too large for its requirements. T

Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men?

There is in this world No such force as the force of A person determined to rise. The human soul Cannot be permanently chained.

Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the words I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way.

Four things make life worthy to most men: to move, to know, to love, to aspire.

And yet not a dream, but a mighty reality- a glimpse of the higher life, the broader possibilities of humanity, which is granted to the man who, amid the rush and roar of living, pauses four short years to learn what living means

There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.

this miserable trick the romantic plays upon himself: of setting just beyond his reach the very thing he prizes.

If you want to help the poor, demonstrate to them that they can become rich; prove it by getting rich yourself.

Do not wait for an opportunity to be all that you want to be.