George C. Marshall Quotes

It is time that we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship

Stick to your true north - build greatness for the long term.

We can't float through life. We can't be incidental or accidental. We must fix our gaze on a guiding star as soon as one comes upon the horizon and once we have attached ourselves to that star we must keep our eyes on it and our hands upon the plow. It is the consistency of the pursuit of the highest possible vision that you can find in front of you that gives you the constancy, that gives you the encouragement, that gives you the way to understand where you are and why it's important for you to do what you can do.

You've got to think about big things while you're doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.

Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.

Success is all about persistence and doing the right thing for the long term.

Indeed, follow your star if you want to head north and it's the North Star. But if you want to head north and it's Mars, you had better follow somebody else's star.

Everybody overestimates what you can do in a day and underestimates what you can do in months of work.

If I focus on the short-term goals, then the long-term goals are going to be in my favor.

A traveller, lost on a desert plain, feels that the recognition of one star, the Pole star, is of itself a great acquisition.

We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land - nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution.

Look for the stars, you'll say that there are none; / Look up a second time, and, one by one, / You mark them twinkling out with silvery light, / And wonder how they could elude the sight!

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

Having a mental snapshot of where you are, where you are going, and what you are moving toward is incredibly powerful.

The wind is never for the sailor who knows not to what port he is bound.

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.

A pilot's business is with the wind, and with the stars, with night, with sand, with the sea. He strives to outwit the forces of nature. He stares with expectancy for the coming of the dawn the way a gardener awaits the coming of spring. He looks forward to port as a promised land, and truth for him is what lives in the stars.

What matters is where you want to go. Focus in the right direction!

Those who first invented and then named the constellations were storytellers. Tracing an imaginary line between a cluster of stars gave them an image and an identity. The stars threaded on that line were like events threaded on a narrative. Imagining the constellations did not of course change the stars, nor did it change the black emptiness that surrounds them. What it changed was the way people read the night sky.

Psycho-babble is that language spoken by sailors who have become so interested in navigating their way around their boat that they have forgotten to read the stars and sea. They may be able to get from the galley to the head but will be lost in their journey from point to port.

If you don't have a vision, you can never be focused in a direction.

I know the stars are my home. I learned about them, needed them for survival in terms of navigation. I know where I am when I look up at the sky. I know where I am when I look up at the Moon; it's not just some abstract romantic idea, it's something very real to me. See, I've expanded my home.

The result of the voyage does not depend on the speed of the ship, but on whether or not it keeps a true course.