50 Intention Quotes

I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I do know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?,' rather He will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?

The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.

Every program has two purposes: The one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't.

A man is an artist only at certain moments, by an effort of will. Objects have the same appearance for everybody.

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.

Love the battle between chaos and imagination. Remember: Acting is living truthfully in imaginary circumstances. Remember: Acting is the way to live the greatest number of lives. Remember: Acting is the same as real life, lived intentionally. Never forget: The Fruit is out on the end of the limb. Go there.

I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art you're an idiot.

The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose.

The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.

I told them that anything they do for their brothers and sisters is good if they do it with a good thought...

It's all been a bad joke that just ran out of control. I got into food for fun but the business got a mind of its own. Now - my good Lord - look where it has gotten me. My products are on supermarket shelves, in cinemas, in the theater. And they say show business is odd.

It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.

The success of love is in the loving - it is not in the result of loving. Of course it is natural in love to want the best for the other person, but whether it turns out that way or not does not determine the value of what we have done.

I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action - that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen 'something' ought to be done to stay and prevent it.

He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good

You must do over the same subject ten times, a hundred times. In art nothing must appear accidental, even a movement.

You are not an accident. p. 22

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and had better come first. Purity means singleness. God is one. The Wand is not a Wand if it has something sticking to it which is not an essential part of itself. If you wish to invoke Venus, you do not succeed if there are traces of Saturn mixed up with it.

Intention: 'A single lie can forever destroy your reputation, a single truth the reputation of another. Not all truths should be spoken, not all lies reviled. Intention is often more important than truth, for truth is regularly a device of choice by those of ill intent.'

Intention: 'The test of a belief is not exclusively in the belief itself, but also in the intentions and actions of those who embrace it.'

Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving.

Shaw knows at any moment, on any subject, what he thinks, what you will think, what others have thought, what all this thinking entails; and he takes the most elaborate pains to bring these thoughts to light in a form which is by turns abstract and familiar, conciliatory and aggressive, obvious and inferential, comic and puzzling. In a word, Shaw is perhaps the most consciously conscious mind that has ever thought - certainly the most conscious since Rousseau; which may be why both of them often create the same impression of insincerity amounting to charlatanism. Yet it is by excess of honesty that Shaw himself lent color to his representation as an inconsequential buffoon bent on monopolizing the spotlight.

I've never set out to teach anyone anything. It's been more of an expression of my views and feelings than sitting down and deciding 'What is today's message?' And I do think that, although I never, again, sat down consciously and thought about this, I do think judging, even for my own daughter, that children respond to that than to 'thought for the day.'

Like every writer, he measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measure him by what he conjectured or planned.

The Americans' very conviction that their goals are good blinds them to the consequences of their acts. To focus on intentions is to prolong a futile clash of inflamed self-righteousness; to focus on behavior and results could get us somewhere. I detect in Professor Chomsky's approach, in his uncomplicated attribution of evil objectives to his foes, in his fondness for abstract principles, in his moral impatience, the mirror image of the very features that both he and I dislike in American foreign policy. To me sanity does not consist of replying to a crusade with an anti-crusade. As scholars and as citizens, we must require and provide discriminating and disciplined reasoning on behalf of our values. --Stanley Hoffmann, March 1969 [207]

The parties, Fascist, or other, which bring about dictatorship want dictatorship. But John Smith who insists on certain policies which produce war does not want war. The first is the result of conscious intention duly carried into effect. The second is the result of an intention which miscarries, miscarries because of certain current errors and fallacies.

Movies make hash of the schoolmarm's approach of how well the artist fulfilled his intentions. Whatever the original intention of the writers and director, it is usually supplanted, as the production gets under way, by the intention to make money - and the industry judges the film by how well it fulfills that intention. But if you could see the 'artist's intentions' you'd probably wish you couldn't anyway. Nothing is so deathly to enjoyment as the relentless march of a movie to fulfill its obvious purpose. This is, indeed, almost a defining characteristic of the hack director, as distinguished from an artist.

One day I said to myself that it would be better to get rid of all that--melody, rhythm, harmony, etc. This was not a negative thought and did not mean that it was necessary to avoid them, but rather that, while doing something else, they would appear spontaneously. We had to liberate ourselves from the direct and peremptory consequence of intention and effect, because the intention would always be our own and would be circumscribed, when so many other forces are evidently in action in the final effect.

The barrier was only in my mind - which is true of this barrier as well. The more firmly I try to cross the barrier, the more firmly I'm rejected. Well, maybe it's the intention to cross the boundary that pushes me away

'I want a divorce!'

'A man has been entrusted to receive the Goal of creation by correcting himself. This action is called: 'Which has been created by the Creator to be done.' This correction is the obtaining of the 'intention to bestow.' Only in the degree of obtaining such an intention does a man become capable to receive what has been ordained for him by the Creator.'

There is no art when one does something without intention.

Before I speak, I have something important to say.

'Andabamos sin buscarnos pero sabiendo que andabamos para encontrarnos.'

To serve is beautiful, but only if it done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

Bonam quippe intentionem, hoc est, rectam in se dicimus, operationem vero non quod boni aliquid in se suscipiat, sed quod ex bona intentione procedat. Unde et ab eodem homine cum in diversis temporibus idem fiat, pro diversitate tamen intentione eius operatio modo bono modo mala dicitur.

The reason authors almost always put a dedication on a book, Annie, is because their selfishness even horrifies themselves in the end.

'I'll open up a can of whoop ass on you!'

I want to make a poem of my life.