see also Vision; Possibilities
- All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.--William Faulkner
- All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.--Walt Disney
- All successful people men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.--Brian Tracy
- 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
- Ask yourself, "How long am I going to work to make my dreams come true?" I suggest you answer, "As long as it takes.--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine May 27, 2003)
- At a time when opportunism is everything, when hope seems lost, when everything boils down to a cynical business deal, we must find the courage to dream. To reclaim romance. The romance of believing in justice, in freedom, and in dignity. For everybody.--Arundhati Roy (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire)
- Before your dreams can come true, you have to have those dreams.--Joyce Brothers
- Believe in what you feel inside,
Give your dreams the wings to fly.
You have everything you need,
if you just believe.--Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri ("Believe")
- The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.--Paul Valery
- The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.--Oprah Winfrey
- Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books--they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future, and a past.--Esther Meynell
- Bravery and adventure! That's the ticket! Don't sit and gather moss. Get up, get out, do what you dream of doing, and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work, and you don't need to made that particular mistake again, but at least you won't get old wondering what if you had.--Garrison Keillor (A Christmas Blizzard)
- Commit yourself to a dream . . . Nobody who tries to do something great but fails is a total failure. Why? Because he can always rest assured that he succeeded in life's most important battle--he defeated the fear of trying.--Robert H. Schuller
- Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the "right stuff" to turn our dreams into reality.--James Womack
- Don't be afraid of the space between your dreams and reality. If you can dream it, you can make it so.--Belva Davis
- Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.--Anonymous
- The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes with a sharp stick called truth.--Dan Rather (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
- Dream big dreams! Imagine that you have no limitations and then decide what's right before you decide what's possible.--Brian Tracey (The Treasury of Quotes)
- Dream big dreams, then put on your overalls and go out and make the dreams come true.--Fred Van Amburgh
- The dream is not the destination but the journey.--Diane Sawyer
- The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality.--Toni Cade Bambara
- A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.--Joseph Campbell
- Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall 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
- Dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets.--Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
- Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.--Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
- The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.--Anais Nin
- A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.--John Lennon
- Dreamers are the saviors of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trails and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the visions of their solitary dreamers.--James Allen
- The Dreamers Prayer: Lord, maker of desires and dreams, hold me close to the heart of thy spirit so that by the grace of thy almighty hand I will be able to fulfill the reason you placed me here on this earth by following and accomplishing my dreams.--Conway Stone
- Dreaming is not an accident. It is not a wistful idea you hope will come true. Dreaming is not the stuff of long-haired hippies wistfully running along a beach. No! Dreaming is a sophisticated tool used by the elite of our society to make themselves and this world a better place. People like Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity, Warren Buffet, Col. Sanders and Walt Disney all started with a dream. The dreams started small, but like the trickle of water that eventually formed the great Grand Canyon, Dreams are powerful!--Conway Stone
- Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.--Dale E. Turner
- Dreams are the touchstones of our character.--Henry David Thoreau
- Dreams get you into the future and add excitement to the present.-Robert Conklin
- Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them.--Josie Bisset
- Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough, You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.--Sir James M. Barrie
- Dreams, ideas, and plans not only are an escape, they give me purpose, a reason to hang on.--Steven Callahan
- Either you let your life slip away by not doing the things you want to do, or you get up and do them.--Roger Von Oech
- Empower your dreams with deadlines.--H. Jackson Brown (?) (Life's Little Instruction Calendar, 1999)
- Enough! It's time to grow up. If we want to play adult games--living our Dream--we must play by adult rules. One of the primary adult rules: We are individually responsible for our own lives.--John-Roger and Peter McWilliams (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)
- Even if you can't just snap your fingers and make a dream come true, you can travel in the direction of your dream, every single day and you can shorten the distance between the two of you.--Douglas Pagels
- Every dreamer works in violent disagreement with their times.--Conway Stone
- Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.--Harriet Tubman
- The excitement, the true excitement, was always in starting again. Nothing's worse than an accomplished task, a realized dream.--Marilyn Harris
- Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.--Louisa May Alcott
- First, when everybody tells you that you are being idealistic or impractical, consider the possibility that everybody could be wrong about what is right for you. Look inside yourself the way nobody else can. Will the pursuit of your dream hurt anybody? Do you stand at least a fair chance of success? If you fail, will you be seriously damaged or merely embarrassed? If you succeed, will it change your life for the better? When you can persuade yourself that your dream is worthwhile and achievable--then you say thank you to the doubters and take the plunge … How much better to know that we have dared to live our dreams than to live our lives in a lethargy of regret.--Gilbert E. Kaplan
- Follow your dreams, for as you dream you shall become.--Anonymous
- For most of us, dreams come true only after they do not matter, Only in childhood do we ever have the chance of making dreams come true when they mean everything.--Lois Wyse (Far From Innocence)
- For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.--Leonard da Vinci
- The frontiers of our dreams always converge with reality.--Gerd De Ley
- The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.--Eleanor Roosevelt
- God’s gifts put man’s best dreams to shame.--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Great things are done by people who think great thoughts and then go out into the world to make their dreams come true.--Ernest Holmes
- He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.--Albert Einstein
- Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die
Life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams go
Life is a barren field frozen in snow.--Langston Hughes
- Hold on to your dreams for they are, in a sense, the stuff of which reality is made. It is through our dreams that we maintain the possibility of a better, more meaningful life.--Leo Buscaglia
- Hope is a waking dream.--Aristotle
- Hope is not a dream but a way of making dreams become reality.--L.J. Suenens
- I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge
That myth is more potent than history
I believe that dreams are more powerful than facts -
That hope always triumphs over experience -
That laughter is the only cure for grief
And I believe that love is
stronger than death.--Robert Fulghum
- I dream, therefore I become.--Cheryl Grossman
- I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success - the earliest spark in the dreaming youth--if this; dream a great dream.--John A. Appleman
- I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.--Henry David Thoreau
- I learned that there were two ways I could live my life: following my dreams or doing something else. Dreams aren't a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. When I dream, I believe I am rehearsing my future.--David Copperfield
- I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.--Thomas Jefferson
- I see myself living a life where I am not bound by the opinions others have of me, one where I no longer concern myself with the judgments of others, one in which I believe in myself and my talents, skills and capabilities. I imagine, and therefore bring about, a life where I do not need to justify my existence, where I am free to be who I really am.--Michael Rawls (Friday's Inspiration, 2/6/09)
- The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing--where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do.--Phillips Brooks
- If one feels the need of something grand, something infinite, something that makes one feel aware of God, one need not go far to find it. I think that I see something deeper, more infinite, more eternal than the ocean in the expression of the eyes of a little baby when it wakes in the morning and coos or laughs because it sees the sun shining on its cradle.--Vincent van Gogh
- If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.--Ludwig Wittgenstein
- If reality can destroy dreams, then dreams can destroy reality.--Conway Stone
- If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it.--William Arthur Ward
- If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.--Tony Gaskins
- If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them!--Henry David Thoreau
- If you try to guard yourself against every unlikely danger, you'll never stretch beyond your comfort zone. Don't let the 'what-ifs' run your life. Follow your dreams and have at it.--Diane Conway (What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?)
- If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- In each of us there is a private hope and dream, which fulfilled, can be translated into benefits for everyone, and greater strength for our nation.--John F. Kennedy
- In order to make your dreams come true, you must awaken and take charge.--Natasha Newsome
- In our dreams lies our unfinished work for the world.--Joan Chittister (The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully)
- In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.--Henry David Thoreau
- Inside each of us are thoughts and beliefs that hinder our dreams from coming true.--Conway Stone
- It doesn't matter if we think we're fearless or if we do things while quaking. The important thing is to be true to our own dreams and live authentic lives.--Diane Conway (What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?)
- It is difficult to say what is impossible for the dream of yesterday is the reality of tomorrow.--Dr. Robert H. Goddard
- It is in the quiet crucible of your personal, private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.--Wintley Phipps
- It may be those who do most, dream most.--Stephen Leacock
- It must be born in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to not dream. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure but low aim is sin!--Helmut Schmidt
- It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.--Eric Hoffer
- I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.--Emily Bronte
- Keep thou thy dreams – the tissue of all wings
Is woven in them; from dreams are made
The precious and imperishable things,
Whose loveliness lives in, and does not fade.--Virna Sheard
- The key to happiness is having dreams; the key to success is making them come true!--James Allen
- Life is never easy for those who dream.--Robert James Waller ("Border Music")
- Living in dreams of yesterday, we find ourselves still dreaming of impossible future conquests.--Charles Lindbergh
- Living well must become intentional. Don’t stop dreaming what your life can yet be.–-Wayne Cordeiro
- Look, there are no shortcuts in golf, and there are no shortcuts in life. You have to work for it. Dream big and keep your dreams for yourself. Because the dreams that you have are those things that separate you from others. If you give up your dream, you give up hope. And without hope, you are nothing.--Tiger Woods
- Make no little plans. They have no Magic to stir Men's blood.--D.B. Hudson
- Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.--Elie Wiesel
- A man's dreams are an index to his greatness.--Zadoc Rabinowitz
- The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.--Arnold Schwarzenegger
- The more you can dream, the more you can do.--Michael Korda
- The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.--Kahlil Gibran
- Most people never run far enough on their first wind, to find out if they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.--William James
- ...my dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed--my dearest pleasure when free.--Mary Shelley
- My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.--Thomas Jefferson
- Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.-- Earl Nightingale
- No one has ever achieved anything from the smallest to the greatest unless the dream was dreamed first.--Laura Ingalls Wilder
- No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.--Jesse Jackson
- No vision and you perish;
No Ideal, and you're lost;
Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost.
Some hope, some dream to cling to,
Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to,
Some service that is high.--Harriet Du Autermont
- Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations.--Ralph Charell
- Nothing happens unless first a dream.--Carl Sandburg
- Nothing is as real as a dream. The world can change around you, but your dream will not. Responsibilities need not erase it. Duties need not obscure it. Because the dream is within you, no one can take it away.--Tom Clancy
- Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.--Terry Pratchett (Wyrd Sisters, 1988)
- The only limits are, as always, those of vision.--James Broughton
- The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.--Robert H. Schuller
- Only the dreamer shall understand realities, though, in truth, his dreaming must not be out of proportion to his waking!--Margaret Fuller
- Organize your life around your dreams - and watch them come true.--Unknown
- People need dreams, there's as much nourishment in 'em as food.--Dorothy Gilman (Caravan)
- People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.--Neil Gaiman
- People too weak to follow their own dreams will always find a way to discourage yours.--Bob Mayer (on Twitter 7/14/11)
- People's dreams are made out of what they do all day. The same way a dog that runs after rabbits will dream of rabbits. It's what you do that makes your soul, not the other way around.--Barbara Kingsolver (Animal Dreams)
- The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.--James Michener
- Self-esteem must be earned! When you dare to dream, dare to follow that dream, dare to suffer through the pain, sacrifice, self-doubts, and friction from the world, you will genuinely impress yourself.--Dr. Laura Schlessinger
- So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.--Christopher Reeve
- Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.--Abraham Lincoln
- Surround yourself with the dreamers and the doers, the believers and thinkers, but most of all, surround yourself with those who see the greatness within you, even when you don’t see it yourself.--Edmund Lee (Lessons Learned in Life)
- Take your time, think a lot,
Think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow
But your dreams may not.--Cat Stevens
- That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.--Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, vol. 10)
- There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.--Douglas Everett
- There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream--whatever that dream might be.--Pearl S. Buck
- There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, "Yes, I've got dreams, of course I've got dreams." Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to hold them up and say, "How good or how bad am I?" That's where courage comes in.--Erma Bombeck
- There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.--Neil Gaiman
- There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?--Robert F. Kennedy
- There is no straight line to a dream.--Jack Welch (aka Neutron Jack)
- There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.--Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
- They may kill the dreamers, like they did Kennedy, King, Ghandi and Lincoln. But I am convinced that as long as you and I follow our God-given dreams, they will never kill the dream. -- Conway Stone The only hope we have is for Anonymous Americans to get in touch with their beliefs and values and follow their God-given dreams.--Conway Stone
- Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.--Edgar Allan Poe
- To accomplish great things, we must not only act but also dream. Not only plan but also believe.--Anatole France
- To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. Tha is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.--Bernard Edmonds
- To dream of the person you'd like to be, is a waste to the person you are.--Author unknown
- Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.--Neil Gaiman
- Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.--Mark Twain
- The uncommon man is merely the common man thinking and dreaming of success in larger terms and in more fruitful areas.--Melvin Powers
- The way I see it, there are two kinds of dreams.
One is a dream that's always going to be just that.....
A dream.
A vision that you can never really hold in your hand.
Then there's a dream that's more than a dream its like....
A map.
A map that you live by and follow for the rest of your days
Knowing that someday your going to stand on top of that
Mountain holding everything you thought of
Right
There
In
Your
Hand!--Robert Cooper
- We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams.--Jeremy Irons
- We don't have an eternity to realize our dreams, only the time we are here.--Susan Taylor
- We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who hope that their dreams will come true.--Woodrow Wilson
- We must nurture our dreams like we would a child. They are God-given and just as precious. Without ambition how would a child learn to ride a bicycle, play an instrument or whistle? We deny the spirit of God when we as adults settle for less than our dreams!--Conway Stone
- Welcome to reality! Our time is limited. We might as well get on with it; so why not choose now to live the life of our dreams?--Seth David Chernoff
- What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?.--Langston Hughes (from The Quotable Teacher, comp. by Howe)
- Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.--Goethe
- When a dream takes hold of you, what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life about what might have been.--Patch Adams (Gesundheit!)
- When you cease to dream you cease to live.--Malcolm S. Forbes
- Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.--Gloria Steinem
- The world needs people like you to dream of something great and then pursue it with all your heart.--Chris Widener
- Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible.--H. Robert Schuller
- You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.--Les Brown
- You are not an accident. You are one of a kind. Your big dream is from God, and its irreplaceable. And you were born to seize it and celebrate it every day of your life!--Bruce Wilkinson (You Were Born for This)
- You can often measure a person by the size of his dream.--Robert H. Schuller
- You gotta have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna make a dream come true?--Oscar Hammerstein II (South Pacific)
- You have to leave room in life to dream.--Buffy Sainte-Marie
- You know, when you grow up in the suburbs of Sydney or Auckland or Newcastle, like Ridley or Jamie Bell, well, the suburbs of anywhere. You know, a dream like this seems kind of vaguely ludicrous and completely unattainable. But this moment is directly connected to those childhood imaginings. And for anybody who's on the down side of advantage and relying purely on courage, it's possible. Thanks very much.--Russell Crowe
- You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.—James M. Barrie
- You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"--George Bernard Shaw
- You’re as young as your dreams, and as old as your cynicism.--Tony Campolo