Quotes on Priorities
Our great business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Thomas Carlyle
Tweet
True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.
Edward Humphrey
Tweet
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
Lin Yu Tang
Tweet
The most important part of every business is to know what ought to be done.
Lucius Columell
Tweet
It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, 'What are we busy about?'
Henry David Thoreau
Tweet
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Jonathan Kozol
Tweet
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
Benjamin Franklin
Tweet
This is the context.
There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.
Freya Stark
Tweet
Decide what your priorities are and how much time you'll spend on them. If you don't, someone else will.
Harvey Mackay
Tweet
The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes.
Harold B. Lee
Tweet
To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is still wiser who, from among the things he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best.
William Gladstone
Tweet
No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?
Lee Iacocca
Tweet
What counts can't always be counted; what can be counted doesn't always count.
Albert Einstein
Tweet
Go to your checkbook and see what you spend money on. In an instant, you will know what is important to you because your money goes toward it.
Larry Winget
Tweet
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
Robert Service
Tweet
Spend time with those you love. One of these days you will say either, "I wish I had," or "I'm glad I did."
Zig Ziglar
Tweet
When you achieve complete congruence between your values and your goals, like a hand in a glove, you feel strong, happy, healthy, and fully integrated as a person. You develop a kind of courage that makes you completely unafraid to make decisions and take action. Your whole life improves when you begin living your life by the values that you most admire.
Brian Tracy
Tweet
If you continually ask yourself, "What's important now?", you won't waste time on the trivial.
Lou Holtz
Tweet
Don't waste your breath proclaiming what's really important to you. How you spend your time says it all.
Eric Zorn
Tweet
Keep in mind that you are always saying 'no' to something. If it isn't to the apparent, urgent things in your life, it is probably to the most fundamental, highly important things. Even when the urgent is good, the good can keep you from your best, keep you from your unique contribution, if you let it.
Stephen Covey
Tweet
Things that are given to us for nothing we place little value on. Things that we pay money for, we value. The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that's really worthwhile in life came to us free. Our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country - all these priceless possessions are free. But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if a home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing can never be replaced.
Earl Nightingale
Tweet
It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.
Mary O'Connor
Tweet
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.
Zig Ziglar
Tweet
It's incredibly easy to get caught up in an activity trap, in the busy-ness of life, to work harder and harder at climbing the ladder of success only to discover it's leaning against the wrong wall. It is possible to be busy - very busy - without being very effective.
Stephen Covey
Tweet
This is the source.
No matter how many personal productivity techniques you master, there will always be more to do than you can ever accomplish in the time you have available to you, no matter how much it is.
Brian Tracy
Tweet
You can get control of your tasks and activities only to the degree that you stop doing some things and start spending more time on the few activities that can really make a difference in your life.
Brian Tracy
Tweet
Your ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop.
Brian Tracy
Tweet
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Tweet
The essence of the best thinking in the area of time management can be captured in a single phrase: Organize and execute around priorities.
Stephen Covey
Tweet
This is the source.
Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most people to accept, because our [America] culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
Timothy Ferriss
Tweet
This is the source.
Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.
Timothy Ferriss
Tweet
This is the source.
Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective - doing less - is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
Timothy Ferriss
Tweet
This is the source.
Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life...If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.
Saint Teresa
Tweet
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.
Margaret Young
Tweet
[I]n all my years of private practice I've never heard one of my young clients (the children) mention "quality time." All a child knows is that he wants your time and your attention, whether it's to watch him do somersaults and cartwheels or to take him for a Big Mac. In trying to find time for your children, don't worry too much about how much "quality" is in it. Give them all the time you can and the quality will take care of itself.
Kevin Leman
Tweet
Not that I would not, if I could, be both handsome and fat and well-dressed and a great athlete, and make a million a year; be a wit, a bon-vivant, and a lady-killer, as well as a philosopher; a philanthropist, statesman, warrior, and African explorer, as well as a 'tone-poet' and saint. But the thing is simply impossible. The millionaire's work would run counter to the saint's; the bon-vivant and the philanthropist would trip each other up; and the philosopher and the lady-killer could not well keep house in the same tenement of clay. So the seeker of his truest, strongest, deepest self must review the list carefully, and pick out the one on which to stake his salvation.
William James
Tweet
Life is like a giant smorgasbord of more delicious alternatives than you can ever hope to taste. So you have to reject having some things you want in order to get other things you want more.
Ray Dalio
Some people fail at this point, afraid to reject a good alternative for fear that the loss will deprive them of some essential ingredient to their personal happiness. As a result, they pursue too many goals at the same time, achieving few or none of them.
So it's important to remember: it doesn't really matter if some things are unavailable to you, because the selection of what IS available is so great.
Tweet
This is the source.
It's more important to do big things well than to do small things perfectly.
Ray Dalio
Tweet
This is the source.
The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main metric: my energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities.
Scott Adams
Tweet
This is the source.
Orient yourself properly. Then—and only then—concentrate on the day. Set your sights at the Good, the Beautiful, and the True, and then focus pointedly and carefully on the concerns of each moment. Aim continually at Heaven while you work diligently on Earth. Attend fully to the future, in that manner, while attending fully to the present. Then you have the best chance of perfecting both.
Jordan Peterson
Tweet
Find something you like? Get a new inspiring quote every day!
Get the free Daily Quote by email:
You should follow me on twitter here.