Life is too short to waste.
It will soon be dark;
Up! mind thine own aim, and
God speed the mark! [ Emerson ]

Wooing thee,
I found thee of more value
Than stamps in gold or sums in sealed bags;
And it is the very riches of thyself
That now I aim at. [ William Shakespeare ]

One cannot take true aim at things too high. [ Proverb ]

The man who consecrates his hours
By vigorous effort, and an honest aim.
At once he draws the sting of life and death;
He walks with nature; and her paths are peace. [ Young ]

O happiness! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whatever thy name;
That something still which prompts the eternal sigh
For which we bear to live, or dare to die. [ Pope ]

Would you hurt a woman worst, aim at her affections. [ Lew Wallace ]

Truth dwells not in the clouds; the bow that's there
Doth often aim at, never hit the sphere. [ George Herbert ]

A good archer is not known by his arrows but his aim. [ Proverb ]

Speaking without thinking is shooting without taking aim. [ Spanish Proverb ]

In our fine arts, not imitation, but creation, is the aim. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

Beauty is the ultimate principle and the highest aim of art. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

If your aim is to give a piece, be sure you give it in pieces. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

What is failure except feebleness?
And what is it to miss one's mark except to aim widely and weakly? [ Ouida ]

If there is a virtue in the world which we should always aim, it cheerfulness. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]

There are different kinds of love, but they have all the same aim: possession. [ N. Roqueplan ]

The aim of education should be rather to teach us how to think, than what to think. [ James Beattie ]

Their methods various, but alike their aim; the sloven and the fopling are the same. [ Young ]

The maxims tell you to aim at perfection, which is well; but it's unattainable, all the same. [ Bayard Taylor ]

The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of reproof if the archer can but take a proper aim. [ Goldsmith ]

The aim of all intellectual training for the mass of the people should be to cultivate commonsense. [ J. Stuart Mill ]

Rigour pushed too far is sure to miss its aim, however good; as the bow snaps that is bent too stiffly. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

Whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at, let us keep fire out of the one and frost out of the other. [ Addison ]

The abandoning of some lower end in obedience to a higher aim is often made the very condition of securing the lower one. [ J. C. Sharp ]

Duty is the end and aim of the highest life; the truest pleasure of all is that derived from the consciousness of its fulfillment. [ Samuel Smiles ]

Many are ambitious of saying grand things, that is, of being grandiloquent. Eloquence is speaking out - a quality few esteem, and fewer aim at. [ Hare ]

Literature positively has other aims than this of amusing from hour to hour; nay, perhaps this, glorious as it may be, is not its highest or true aim. [ Carlyle ]

Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim. [ Mazzini ]

Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip. But only crow-bars loose the bull-dog's lip; Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields, Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields. [ O. W. Holmes ]

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. [ Chesterfield ]

Without some strong motive to the contrary, men united by the pursuit of a clearly defined common aim of irresistible attractiveness naturally coalesce; and since they coalesce naturally, they are clearly right in coalescing and find their advantage in it. [ Matthew Arnold ]

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions. [ Burke ]

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim, the very roughness only stimulates the climber to steadier and steadier steps, till that legend of the rough places fulfills itself at last, per aspera ad astra, over steep ways to the stars. [ Bishop W. C. Doane ]

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim, the very roughness only stimulates the climber to steadier and steadier steps, till that legend of the rough places fulfills itself at last, "per aspera ad astra", over steep ways to the stars. [ Bishop W. C. Doane ]

Love to make others happy; yes, surely at all times, so far as you can. But at bottom that is not the aim of any life. Do not think that your life means a mere searching in gutters for fallen creatures to wipe and set up.... In our life there is no meaning at all except the work we have done. [ Carlyle ]

Remember always in painting, as in eloquence, the greater your strength the quieter will be your manner and the fewer your words; and in painting, as in all the arts and acts of life, the secret of high success will be found, not in a fretful and various excellence, but in a quiet singleness of justly chosen aim. [ Ruskin ]

I suppose as long as novels last, and authors aim at interesting their public, there must always be in the story a virtuous and gallant hero; a wicked monster, his opposite; and a pretty girl, who finds a champion. Bravery and virtue conquer beauty; and vice, after seeming to triumph through a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last volume, when justice overtakes him, and honest folks come by their own. [ Thackeray ]

It is the saying of an old divine, Two things in ray apparel I will chiefly aim at - commodiousness and decency; more than these is not commendable, yet I hate an effeminate spruceness as much as a fantastic disorder. A neglected comeliness is the best ornament. It is said of the celebrated Mr. Whitfield that he always was very clean and neat, and often said pleasantly that a minister of the gospel ought to be without a spot. [ J. Beaumont ]