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About this quote

What does it mean?
Humans often prefer the journey over the destination, holding onto means while forgetting the end goal.
In plain terms
We prefer the journey and forget the final goal.
What can you take from it?
Remember the end goal when focusing on the means.

Where it applies

  • career planning
  • personal projects
  • education

Putting it to work

  • define clear end goals
  • avoid getting lost in process

Questions to consider

  • Are you focused on the means or the end?
  • What goal have you forgotten while chasing the means?

Another view

Sometimes the process is more valuable than the end result.

More from Eric Hoffer

  1. We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have …

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  2. We have rudiments of reverence for the human body, but we consider as nothing the rape of the human mind.

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  3. We almost always have something to prove when we act heroically. We prove to ourselves and others that we are not what we and others thought we were. Our real …

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