Quotes About Priorities

Sixty-four percent say that being a father makes them a better employee, and, according to the Boston College Center for Work and Family, more dads say that having a flexible schedule that would allow them to spend more time with their family is of greater importance than career advancement or high income. In fact, according to monster.com, 82 percent of working dads searching for a job view companies more positively if they offer a flextime benefit.

A man of sixty has spent twenty years in bed and over three years in eating.

Which of us is not saying to himself--which of us has not been saying to himself all his life: "I shall alter that when I have a little more time"? We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.

Maria is the best reason to come home.

Even with my divorce and with everything, I don't need money.

I was very glad I could afford to say no. With the income from my businesses, I didn't need money from acting. I never wanted to be in a financially vulnerable position, where I had to take a part I didn't like.

I know I did the right thing by taking time off to raise my son. But it also came at a price. I turned down many opportunities over the years because I didn't want to leave him for long periods of time. And in Hollywood, as in any business, the calls stop coming when you don't answer.

I know I earn less at my primary school than you do, but I don't have to work as hard at my primary school.

Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.

Let's take a little quiz. 1. Do you define your self-worth in terms of your job title or professional position? 2. Do you quantify your own success in terms of money, power, or prestige? 3. Do you fail to see clearly—or are you uncomfortable with—what comes after your last professional successes? 4. Is your "retirement plan" to go on and on without stopping? 5. Do you dream about being remembered for your professional successes?

That's when it struck me: people who choose being special over happy are addicts.

With little else, work is all that is left to the workaholic, reinforcing the cycle.

From putting my career before the people in my life, deliver me. From distracting myself from life with work, deliver me. From my drive to be superior to others, deliver me. From the allure of the world's empty promises, deliver me. From my feelings of professional superiority, deliver me. From allowing my pride to supplant my love, deliver me. From the pains of withdrawing from my addiction, deliver me. From the dread of falling into decline and being forgotten, deliver me.

You can say this, too, but you need to start chipping away—managing your worldly wants—before more time passes.

It makes no sense in modern life to use our energies to have five cars, five bathrooms, or even five shirts, but we just . . . want them.

bucket list, however: it makes us focus on the limits of time and thus on how to use time well. The idea of the bucket list is to make sure you don't get to the end and say, "I'm not ready to die! I've never ridden in a hot-air balloon!

Consider J. S. Bach, whom we met earlier. He loved his work, and enjoyed his early success, but he knew what mattered most.

Wrapped up in their fear of falling behind, success-addicted workaholics—like all people controlled by their addictive behavior—leave little room in their lives for friends or family.

Love and friendships are enormously time-consuming, it's true. They crowd out all kinds of other things, like . . . well, let's be honest: for many readers of this book, they mostly crowd out work. If that's the case for you, and it's what is holding back the proper development of romance, parenting, and real friendships, you have your priorities unbalanced.

No one sighs regretfully on his deathbed and says, "I can't believe I wasted all that time with my wife and kids," "volunteering at the soup kitchen," or "growing in my spirituality." No one ever says, "I should have spent more time watching TV and playing Angry Birds on my phone." In my own life, nothing has given my life more meaning and satisfaction than my Catholic faith and the love of my

Yeah, I could go rock on the back porch and do crossword puzzles - but I've got six kids, ages 9 to 16, and someone in the family should work. That's me.

Academic qualifications are important and so is financial education. They're both important and schools are forgetting one of them.

I'm very clear about my priorities - quality and credibility is important to me. A film and a character that lives beyond my years is important to me. People's love is important to me.

As you get older, the quality of life is more important.