Arthur Koestler Quotes

Direction, not intention determines your destination.

As the means, so the end.

A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there.

Anyone who has ever asked for directions knows you need two crucial pieces of information to get good results: a starting point and a destination.

Once we agree on the future, the present will be much easier. A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there. We have first to decide where we want to go, where we want to sail.

We're all pilgrims on the same journey - but some pilgrims have better road maps.

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

A leader is the one who can outline the broad vision and the direction, and say here's where we are going to go, here's why we need to go there, and here's how we are going to get there. A manager is the one who actually gets up under the hood and tunes the carburetor.

If one has no compass, when one doesn't know where one stands and where one wants to go, one can deduce that one has no leadership or interest in shaping events.

You have to know where you were going in order to get there.

I believe that the means you use will determine the end you receive.

A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.

['March'] is a path you must take if you want to move from one point to another point. If you want to make it down this very long and troublesome road, follow this path. Follow this message. Follow this map. And you will get there some day.

Objectives can be compared to a compass bearing by which a ship navigates. A compass bearing is firm, but in actual navigation, a ship may veer off its course for many miles. Without a compass bearing, a ship would neither find its port nor be able to estimate the time required to get there.

But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go.

Decide where you are going and how you are to get there. Then make a start from where you now stand.

Coaches need to have a vision.

When we are lost in the woods, the sight of a signpost is a great matter.

Every great decision creates ripples. Like a huge boulder dropping in a lake. The ripples merge and rebound off the banks in unforseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.

Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences.

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that.

Every year, something happens, and it turns me in a direction about where I need to go and what I need to do to give these guys direction.

We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree.

Vision is knowing who you are, where you're going, and what will guide your journey.