There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If you don't know what you want, you will probably never get it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Clarity about your desires is essential for achieving your goals.
This quote emphasizes the importance of having clear objectives in life. Without a defined vision or understanding of what one truly wants, it becomes significantly more challenging to attain any meaningful success. The implication is that awareness and intention are crucial components in the journey toward fulfillment and achievement.
Themes
GoalsDesireClaritySuccessIntentions
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about goal setting.
More from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
All quotes βOn the whole, I am on the side of the unregenerate who affirms the worth of life as an end in itself, as against the saints who deny it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Why should you row a boat race? Why endure the long months of pain in preparation for a fierce half hour that will leave you all but dead? Does anyone ask the question? Is there anyone who would not go through all the costs, and more, for the moment when anguish breaks into triumph or even for the glory of having nobly lost? Is life less than a boat race? If a man will give the blood in his body to win the one, will he spend all the might of his soul to prevail in the other?
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
Beware how you take away hope from another human being.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
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To name a thing is easy: the difficulty is to discern it before its appearance.
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