Francois de La Rochefoucauld Quotes

If you obsess about one thing, you're just going to miss the broader picture.

Those who give too much attention to trifling things become generally incapable of great ones.

Those who occupy their minds with small matters, generally become incapable of greatness.

Being obsessed by goals is bad for you. You should set goals, even ambitious goals, regularly. But focus on them only to the extent that they give you direction.

When I'm writing something and I'm really into it, that's all I can think about, and it becomes the most important thing in the world to me, and it may not be that, in reality.

I'm woefully one-track-minded.

If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.

Amid a multitude of projects, no plan is devised.

For most of my 20s I felt the need to focus solely on my goals and let nothing distract me.

It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.

It gives me a sense of tunnel vision.

If you spend your time thinking about competition, you're not accomplishing much.

Though acting offers would keep coming and going, and I would pick up only the ones that I find good, my hands are literally full with candles... I can't think beyond them.

Juggling too many things can disturb the balance and throw your personal or professional life off track.

If I fall into a city, I fall into a scene, and I just don't want to get distracted and enjoy myself too much. There's too much work to be done.

I don't really miss anything, I'm so focussed on what I have to do - I'm so focussed on my work - that I don't miss any creature comforts.

On one hand, I want to be successful and give my best to everything I do, but I don't want to be too consumed by anything.

I think that was one of my biggest worries. I didn't want to be so focused on soccer that it became my whole life.

Don't get the green disease of envy. Don't be fooled by success and money. Don't let anything come between you and your work.

Don't be like the preacher who thought about praying while making love with his life and thought about love while praying.

An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

A tendency to fly too straight at a goal, instead of circling around it, often carries one too far.

Understand however that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

He can feel no little wants who is in pursuit of grandeur.

We should, I believe, beware of the pitfalls described by Taine: 'Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree. A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room.' We have to get out of this room.