Objectives and Vision Quotes
Top 30 Objectives and Vision Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
(Ophelia in Hamlet)
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616),
English playwright, pictured right.
No 2
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
American civil rights campaigner, pictured right.
The American film maker, Walt Disney (1901-1966),
pictured right, adds:
All our dreams come true, if we have the courage to pursue them
Prospero in Shakespeare's
(pictured right) The Tempest also
comments:
We are such stuff as dreams are made on.
No 3
Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? [said Alice, pictured right]
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.
- Lewis Carroll (pictured right below), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
This exchange is the basis of a paraphrase:
If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
No 4
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer,
- Peter Drucker, pictured right, The Practice of Management (1954)
To do this Drucker says in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices (1973), the organization must have another purpose:
To enable ordinary human beings to do extraordinary things.
Theodore (Ted) Levitt, pictured right, in The Marketing Imagination (1983) agrees:
The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer
No 5
Profit is not a cause. It is the result - the result of performance of the business in marketing, innovation and
productivity.
- Peter Drucker, pictured right, The Practice of Management (1954)
Charles Handy, pictured right, in his 1994 book
The Empty Raincoat (The Age of Paradox
in America) says something similar:
The principal purpose of a company is not to make a profit, full stop. It is to make a profit in order to
continue to do things or make things, and to do so ever better and more abundantly.
No 6
Hitch your wagon to a star.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82),
the American philosopher, pictured right.
The American poet, Langston Hughes (1902-67), pictured right, says something similar in his
1994 poem Dreams:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
But Theodore Roosevelt
(1858-1919), the American president, pictured right, advises us to mix our dreams with reality:
Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
Dreams also carry responsibilities:
In dreams begins responsibility.
- W. B. Yeats (1865–1939), Irish writer, pictured right
They must also be the right dreams:
He had the wrong dreams.
(Biff in the 1949 play Death of a
Salesman, taking about his father, Willy Loman)
- Arthur Miller (1915-2005), pictured right, American writer.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962),
American human rights campaigner, pictured right, also comments:
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams
No 7
If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live,
- Martin Luther King (1929–68), American civil
rights leader, pictured right.
No 8
The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our
aim too low and achieving our mark.
- Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian painter,
sculptor, architect and poet, pictured right.
The English writer, William Blake (1757-1827), pictured right, says something similar in his
poem, Great Things Are Done
Great things are done when men and mountains meet;
This is not done by jostling in the street.
No 9
Where there is no vision, the people perish
(Proverbs 29:18)
- the Bible.
No 10
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.,
(from his 1854 book Walden)
- Henry David Thoreau
(1817-62), pictured right, American philosopher.
No 11
To bring happiness to the millions
- Walt Disney (1901-1966), pictured right, American
film maker (his mission and vision).
Other good visionary mission statements are:
The International Red Cross:
To improve the lives of vulnerable people by mobilizing the power of humanity.
Honda:
Quality for the world from our hands and minds.
Amazon.com:
To be the earth’s most customer centric company, to build a place where people can come to find and discover
anything they might want to buy online.
No 12
Purpose, especially if considered worth accomplishing, is the most powerful incentive to accomplishment.
- Kenneth Andrews, pictured right,The Concept of Corporate
Strategy (1971)
No 13
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win the glorious triumphs, even though checked by failure than to
rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in that great twilight that knows
neither victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), American
president, pictured right.
No 14
Life is a daring adventure or nothing.
- Thomas Paine
(1737-1809), English philosopher (pictured right)
Helen Keller (1880-1968), pictured right,
the American campaigner for the disabled, said something similar:
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
No 15
Be daring, be first, be different, be just.
- Anita Roddick (1942- 2007),
pictured right, the founder of the British cosmetics retailer, The Body Shop
No 16
My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable, challenges and trying to rise above
them,
- Richard Branson (1950- ), pictured right,
founder of the British company, Virgin.
No 17
Listen to your heart and let it carry you in the direction of your dreams,
- Michael Dell (1965- ), pictured right,
American computer maker.
No 18
I will democratize the automobile.
- Henry Ford (1863-1947), American car maker, pictured
right.
No 19
Believe you can change the world.
- William (Bill) Hewlett
(1919-2001), pictured right, American co-founder of Hewlett-Packard (HP).
No 20
We can only have one future, and it will be made of our dreams, if we have the courage to challenge
convention.
- Soichiro Honda (1906-91), pictured right,
Japanese co-founder of Honda.
No 21
The thing you can’t buy is dedication, devotion, loyalty – feeling you are participating in a cause or a
crusade.
- Herb Kelleher (1931-), pictured right, American
boss of Southwest Airlines 1982-2001.
No 22
Men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective.,
- Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997),
pictured right, Russian-born British philosopher
No 23
If you board the wrong train, it s no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45),
pictured right, German minister and theologian
No 24
He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900), pictured right, German philosopher.
No 25
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are
difficult.
- Seneca (c.4 BC-65 AD), pictured
right, Roman philosopher.
No 26
Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision,
- Muhammad Ali (1942- ), pictured right, American
boxer.
No 27
Make the world better.
- Lucy Stone (1818-93), pictured
right, American suffragette.
No 28
Man’s main task is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
-Erich Fromm (1900-80), pictured right,
German-born American psychiatrist and philosopher.
No 29
It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.
(Dumbledore in the 1997 novel Harry Potter and The Philosopher's
Stone)
- J.K. Rowling (1965- ), English writer,
pictured right.
No 30
The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.
(from the song Over the Rainbow)
- Dorothy (Judy Garland, pictured right, in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz).
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