"Be above it! Make the world serve..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.
More by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“The day of fortune is like a harvest day,We must be busy when the corn is ripe.[Ger., Ein tag der Gunst ist wie ein Tag der Ernte,Man muss geschaftig sein sobald sie reift.]”
“When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.”
“Does not man lack the force at the very point where he needs it most? And when he soars upward in joy, or sinks down in suffering, is not checked in both, is he not returned again to the dull, cold sphere of awareness, just when he was longing to lose himself in the fullness of the infinite.”
More on Self Mastery
“Achieve self-mastery over your thoughts, and constantly direct them toward your goals and objectives. Learn to focus your attention on the goals that you want to achieve and on finding ways to achieve those goals.”
“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
“Treasures and armies do not make a king. A true king is a king within himself.”
More on Purpose
“I'm inspired by the people I meet in my travels--hearing their stories, seeing the hardships they overcome, their fundamental optimism and decency. I'm inspired by the love people have for their children. And I'm inspired by my own children, how full they make my heart. They make me want to work to make the world a little bit better. And they make me want to be a better man.”
“For us is the life of action, of strenuous performance of duty; let us live in the harness, striving mightily; let us rather run the risk of wearing out than rusting out.”
“Every person has unique gifts, and those gifts give him or her the power and the opportunity to accomplish great things, if he or she learns how to use those gifts and channel them in the right direction.”