Peter F. Drucker:

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Arnold Toynbee:

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.

Bible:

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Proverbs 15:22, NIV translation

Brian Tracy:

There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing.

Carl Sandburg:

Nothing happens unless first a dream.

Daniel H. Burnham:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir people's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that your children and grandchildren are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.

Attributed to Daniel H. Burnham, 1910. Slightly modified by Jone Johnson Lewis.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

Light tomorrow with today!

Epictetus:

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

George Bernard Shaw:

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Gloria Steinem:

Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

J.R.R.Tolkien:

It will not do to leave a live dragon out of your plans if you live near one.

The Hobbit

John Lennon:

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

John Naisbitt:

Strategic planning is worthless -- unless there is first a strategic vision.

Louis Pasteur:

In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Mabel Newcomber:

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement.

Robert Burns:

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promis'd joy.

Thomas Alva Edison:

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.

W. Clement Stone:

When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.