293 Vision Quotes

Do not quench your inspiration and your imagination; do not become the slave of your model.

I must continue to follow the path I take now. If I do nothing, if I study nothing, if I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it - keep going, keep going come what may. But what is your final goal, you may ask. That goal will become clearer, will emerge slowly but surely, much as the rough draught turns into a sketch, and the sketch into a painting through the serious work done on it, through the elaboration of the original vague idea and through the consolidation of the first fleeting and passing thought.

Dreams grow holy put in action; work grows fair through starry dreaming, But where each flows on unmingling, both are fruitless and in vain.

It is pleasant to be admitted into the birth-chamber of a great idea destined to be translated into action.

Socialism, on the contrary, extends its function to the description of society as it should be, and the discovery of the means of making it what it should be.

I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.

The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.

American foreign policy must be more than the management of crisis. It must have a great and guiding goal: to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic peace.

The artist begins with a vision - a creative operation requiring effort. Creativity takes courage.

The reward of renunciation is some good greater than the thing renounced. To renounce with no vision of such a good, from fear or in automatic obedience to a formula, is to weaken the springs of life, and to diminish the soul's resistance to this world.

I write scripts to serve as skeletons awaiting the flesh and sinew of images.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it.

You have to give people something to dream on.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.

I want to see us build a country that is at ease with itself, a country that is confident and a country that is able and willing to build a better quality of life for all its citizens.

And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.

There is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

Devotion, fervor, longing! Those are my pillars. We have to be the bridge to the future.

Imagination is the eye of the soul.

Every screenwriter worthy of the name has already directed his film when he has written his script.

The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.

As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!

The best vision is insight.

A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.

Enhance and intensify one's vision of that synthesis of truth and beauty which is the highest and deepest reality.

My eyes close and uncomprehendingly see the dream in the infinite space that stretches away, elusive, before me.

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done.

When conventions are old, there's quite a good reason, it's not arbitrary. So Picasso discovered that, as it were, and I'm sure that for him that was probably almost as exciting as discovering Cubism, rediscovering conventions of ordinary appearance, one-point perspective or something. The purists think you're going backwards, but I know you'd go forward. Future art that is based on appearances won't look like the art that's gone before. Even revivals of a period are not the same. The Renaissance is not the same as ancient Greece; the Gothic revival is not the same as Gothic. It might look like that at first, but you can tell it's not. The way we see things is constantly changing. At the moment the way we see things has been left a lot to the camera. That shouldn't necessarily be.

How difficult it is to learn not to see like cameras, which has had such an effect on us. The camera sees everything at once. We don't. There's a hierarchy. Why do I pick out that thing, that thing, that thing?

Wilson was a visionary who liked to identify himself with 'forward-looking man'; Harding ... was as old-fashioned as those wooden Indians which used to stand in front of cigar stores.... Wilson thought in terms of the whole world; Harding was for America first. And, finally, whereas Wilson wanted America to exert itself nobly, Harding wanted to give it a rest.

I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light. All calm, as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world And all her train were hurled.

The dreamers are the saviours of the world. As the visible world is sustained by the invisible, so men, through all their trials and sins and sordid vocations, are nourished by the beautiful visions of their solitary dreamers. Humanity cannot forget its dreamers; it cannot let their ideals fade and die; it lives in them; it knows them as the realities which it shall one day see and know.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such a condition of things can never obtain: 'ask and receive.' Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you 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.

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. Gifts, powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized. The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, this you will become.

Imagine there's no countries, It isnt hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one, I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will be as one.

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

With aching hands and bleeding feet We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day and wish't were done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built do we discern.

The gaze should be large and broad. This is the twofold gaze 'Perception and Sight'. Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things. It is important in strategy to know the enemy's sword and not to be distracted by insignificant movements of his sword. You must study this. The gaze is the same for single combat and for large-scale combat.

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Bai?'s bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them.

The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title. To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food.

It is not realistic or hardheaded to solve problems and take action unguided by ultimate moral aims and values, although we all know some who claim that it is so. In my judgment, it is thoughtless folly. For it ignores the realities of human faith and of passion and of belief - forces ultimately more powerful than all of the calculations of our economists or of our generals. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

What is more, let anyone laugh and taunt if he so wishes. I am not keeping silent, nor am I hiding the signs and wonders that were shown to me by the Lord many years before they happened, [he] who knew everything, even before the beginning of time.

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!

He passed the flaming bounds of place and time: The living throne, the sapphire-blaze, Where angels tremble, while they gaze, He saw; but blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.

When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, 'But why do you want to build an amusement park? They're so dirty.' I told her that was just the point - mine wouldn't be.

Here in Florida ... we have something special we never enjoyed at Disneyland - the blessing of size. There's enough land here to hold all the ideas and plans we can possibly imagine.

It's something that will never be finished. Something that I can keep developing... and adding to.

Think beyond your lifetime, if you want to do something truly great. Make a fifty-year master plan. A fifty-year master plan will change how you look at the opportunities in the present.

When we opened Disneyland, a lot of people got the impressions that it was a get-rich-quick thing, but they didn't realize that behind Disneyland was this great organization that I built here at the Studio, and they all got into it and we were doing it because we loved to do it... We did it, in the knowledge that most of the people I talked to thought it would be a financial disaster - closed and forgotten within the first year.

The youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.

When working on my choreography I am not always receptive to outside suggestions or opinions. I believe that if you have something in mind in the way of a creation, such as a new dance, a sequence, or an effect, you are certain to come up with inaccurate criticism and damaging results if you go around asking for opinions

Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness-

You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not?

I couldn't possibly have become a member of this institute if I hadn't founded it myself.

'You sound like a man with a vision. Care to pass that bong over this way?' (2004)

Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc.

Selfishness is blind.

There now ensued a series of incidents which transported me to the opposite extremes of ecstasy and horror; incidents which I tremble to recall and dare not seek to interpret. No sooner had I crawled beneath the overhanging foliage of the palm, than there dropped from its branches a young child of such beauty as I never beheld before. Though ragged and dusty, this being bore the features of a faun or demigod, and seemed almost to diffuse a radiance in the dense shadow of the tree. It smiled and extended its hand, but before I could arise and speak I heard in the upper air the exquisite melody of singing; notes high and low blent with a sublime and ethereal harmoniousness. The sun had by this time sunk below the horizon, and in the twilight I saw an aureole of lambent light encircled the child's head. Then in a tone of silver it addressed me: 'It is the end. They have come down through the gloaming from the stars. Now all is over, and beyond the Arinurian streams we shall dwell blissfully in Teloe.' As the child spoke, I beheld a soft radiance through the leaves of the palm tree, and rising, greeted a pair whom I knew to be the chief singers among those I had heard. A god and goddess they must have been, for such beauty is not mortal; and they took my hands, saying, 'Come, child, you have heard the voices, and all is well....'

A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without vision is but drudgery. A vision with a task is the hope of the world.

Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!

You see things as they are and ask, 'Why?' I dream things as they never were and ask, 'Why not?'

If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.

There's a hole in the sky with a big eyeball Calling me: 'Come up and be a kite, On a diamond flight!'

You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision, there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well.

Leaders must be optimists. Their vision was beyond the present and set on a future of real peace and true freedom.

I see, not feel, how beautiful you are!

O young Mariner, You from the haven Under the sea-cliff, You that are watching The gray Magician With eyes of wonder, I am Merlin, And I am dying, I am Merlin Who follow The Gleam.

Once at the croak of a Raven who crost it, A barbarous people, Blind to the magic, And deaf to the melody, Snarl'd at and cursed me. A demon vext me, The light retreated, The landskip darken'd, The melody deaden'd, The Master whisper'd 'Follow The Gleam.'

The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love. He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill, He saw thro' his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will, An open scroll, Before him lay; with echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame: The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing'd with flame, Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue...

Good Eats was, if nothing else, original. I can't always say that it's good, but I do think it's original. And I think that's something that comes from one person being allowed to exercise their vision, be it twisted or otherwise -- that's usually where great innovations come from.

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu: voyelles, Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes!

Je dis qu'il faut etre voyant, se faire voyant. Le poete se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonne dereglement de tous les sens.

Je me suis baigne dans le Poeme De la Mer... Devorant les azurs verts.

J'ai vu le soleil bas, tache d'horreurs mystiques, Illuminant de longs figements violets, Pareils a des acteurs de drames tres-antiques.

He saw in a vision his eldest son (then a child and at London) appear unto him with the mark of a bloody cross on his forehead, as if it had been cutted with a sword, at which amazed he prayed unto God, and in the morning he came to Mr. Camden's chamber to tell him, who persuaded him it was but an apprehension of his fantasy at which he should not be disjected; in the meantime comes there letters from his wife of the death of that boy in the plague. He appeared to him (he said) of a manly shape, and of that growth that he thinks he shall be at the resurrection.

What you do if someone doesn't understand your song, is to keep on singing your song.

Ambition: 'Yearning for the seemingly impossible is the path to human progress.'

Imagination: 'Many of our scientific realities have been born from our hopeful vision, will and emotional determination; forged from fantasy with the tools of reason, logic and science serving only as the mold into which the molten fruition of our minds are poured.'

Watch his beautiful, compact body as it pirouettes or pretzels in tortured permutations or, even more elegantly, stands in repose as everything goes crazy around it. Watch his mind as it contemplates a hostile universe whose violent whims Buster understands, withstands and, miraculously, tames. Watch his camera taking his picture (Keaton directed or supervised all his best films); it is as cool as the star it captured in its glass... The medium was still in its infancy; comics were pioneering the craft of making people laugh at moving images. Keaton, it turns out, knew it all - intuitively.

Science fiction. You're right, it's crazy. In fact, it's even worse than that, it's nuts. You wanna hear something really nutty? I heard of a couple guys who wanna build something called an airplane, you know you get people to go in, and fly around like birds, it's ridiculous, right? And what about breaking the sound barrier, or rockets to the moon? Atomic energy, or a mission to Mars? Science fiction, right? Look, all I'm asking is for you to just have the tiniest bit of vision. You know, to just sit back for one minute and look at the big picture. To take a chance on something that just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history: of history.

Chris has a very penetrating and unique artistic vision that, when melded with ours, makes for a unique band chemistry. It's such a different vibe than any of us has ever experienced before. There's a great deal of camaraderie.

Each gleaming point of light is like a seed Dilating swiftly to coiling fires. Each cloud becomes a rapidly dimming face, Each hurrying face records its strange desires.

I know exactly what you've come here to say, Kaltenbrunner. But believe me, if I were not convinced that I'll build up Linz again with your help, as you see it in this model here, I would blow my brains out this very day. You must have faith. I still have ways and means of bringing the war to a victorious conclusion.