Aspiration Quotes

Most popular aspiration quotes

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde quote.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

attitude

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. - Helen Keller quote.
One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

determination

Hitch your wagon to a star. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Hitch your wagon to a star.

goals

Not failure, but low aim, is crime. - James Russell Lowell quote.
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

failure goals

Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long. - George Bernard Shaw quote.
Man can climb to the highest summits; but he cannot dwell there long.

achievement

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it;
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.

aim high

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I cannot reach them: but I can look up, and see their beauty; believe in them, and follow where they lead.
Aspiration is the twin angel to inspiration.  It unlocks the gates of joy. - James Allen quote.
Aspiration is the twin angel to inspiration.  It unlocks the gates of joy.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.  Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. - James Allen quote.
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.  Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

dreams

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. - James Allen quote.
He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

vision

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man by one which is lower than himself.  The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition.  Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. - Henry Ward Beecher quote.
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man by one which is lower than himself.  The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition.  Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, "Thus far and no farther." - Ludwig van Beethoven quote.
The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, "Thus far and no farther."

talent

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wing.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for?
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood.

planning

If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil. - Samuel Coleridge quote.
If a man is not rising upwards to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downwards to be a devil.

mankind

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence. - Joseph Conard quote.
To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

life as a journey purpose of life

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies.
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself. - William Faulkner quote.
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.  Try to be better than yourself.
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day. - Brendan Francis quote.
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.

fear

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. - Viktor Frankl quote.
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

struggle striving

Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration. - Sigmund Freud quote.
Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration.
I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of disillusion. Thus am I never dull. - John Galsworthy quote.
I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of disillusion. Thus am I never dull.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to. - Kahlil Gibran quote.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

understanding others

Leaders talk about communicating a vision as an instrument of change, but I prefer the notion of communicating an aspiration.  It's not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more. - Rosabeth Moss Kanter quote.
Leaders talk about communicating a vision as an instrument of change, but I prefer the notion of communicating an aspiration.  It's not just a picture of what could be; it is an appeal to our better selves, a call to become something more.
Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you get neither.
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself.  No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
Every man is in some sort a failure to himself.  No one ever reaches the heights to which he aspires.

failure

A fierce unrest seethes at the core
Of all existing things:
It was the eager wish to soar
That gave the gods their wings. - Don Marquis quote.
A fierce unrest seethes at the core
Of all existing things:
It was the eager wish to soar
That gave the gods their wings.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity. - John Milton quote.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity.
Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down. - Toni Morrison quote.
Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has drawn your soul aloft, what has mastered it and at the same time blessed it? - Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
Let the youthful soul look back on life with the question: what have you truly loved up to now, what has drawn your soul aloft, what has mastered it and at the same time blessed it?

purpose of life youth

The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly. - Friedrich Nietzsche quote.
The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts at lofty heights. - Peace Pilgrim quote.
Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts at lofty heights.
Peace Pilgrim Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words
We all run the risk of declining, if somebody does not rise to tell us that life is on the heights, and not in the cesspools. - George Sand quote.
We all run the risk of declining, if somebody does not rise to tell us that life is on the heights, and not in the cesspools.

inspirational life leadership

He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry quote.
He who bears in his heart a cathedral to be built is already victorious.
'Tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. - William Shakespeare quote.
'Tis but a base ignoble mind
That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity. - Robert Louis Stevenson quote.
An aspiration is a joy for ever, a possession as solid as a landed estate, a fortune which we can never exhaust and which gives us year by year a revenue of pleasurable activity.
Life's aspirations come
in the guise of children.

children

Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson quote.
Men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.

growth the self

Always aspire higher than you can. For, however high you aspire, you will never arrive more than halfway up the cliff of your aspiration. - Caitlin Thomas quote.
Always aspire higher than you can. For, however high you aspire, you will never arrive more than halfway up the cliff of your aspiration.
Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid. - Henry David Thoreau quote.
Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. - Henry David Thoreau quote.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do. - Marianne Williamson quote.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.

insecurity

A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration. - Kurt Lewin quote.
A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration.

goals

Faith is love taking the form of aspiration. - William Ellery Channing quote.
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration.

faith

Fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise... specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.

parenting

Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration. - Charles Warner quote.
Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.

family

It takes a certain level of aspiration before one can take advantage of opportunities that are clearly offered.
Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience. - Margaret Fuller quote.
Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience.
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion. - Franklin D. Roosevelt quote.
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.

selfishness

The world's people all share the earnest aspiration to have peace, stability, justice and cooperation.
To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self. - Charles Horton Cooley quote.
To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.

heroism

Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration.

vision

We must not, however, be like the leaders of the great romantic revolt who, in their eagerness to get rid of the husk of convention, disregarded also the humane aspiration.

revolution

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself. - Anna Jameson quote.
What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself.
You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration. - John Viscount Morley quote.
You cannot demonstrate an emotion or prove an aspiration.

emotion

You cannot escape the results of your thoughts. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.

thoughts

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent. - Carl Jung quote.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

parenting