Quotes about Intention

Three things are required for a war to be just. Indeed, the first requirement is that the ruler at whose command the war is to be waged have the lawful authority to do so. . . . Second, there needs to be a just cause to wage war, namely, that the enemy deserve to have war waged against it because of some wrong it has inflicted. . . . Third, those waging war need to have a right intention, namely, an intention to promote good and avoid evil.

With every moment of your time, every decision about how you spend your energy and your money, you are making a statement about what really matters to you.

fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes

Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

anticipatory anxiety has to be counteracted by paradoxical intention; hyper-intention as well as hyper-reflection have to be counteracted by dereflection; dereflection, however, ultimately is not possible except by the patient's orientation toward his specific vocation and mission in life.16 It is not the neurotic's self-concern, whether pity or contempt, which breaks the circle formation; the cue to cure is self-transcendence!

Don't aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as he unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and he same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge.

fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes.

paradoxical intention" on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes.

What is actually man's concern is not to fulfill himself or to actualize himself but to fulfill meaning and to realize value. And only to the extent to which he fulfills concrete and personal meaning of his own existence will he also fulfill himself. Self-fulfillment occurs by itself; not through intention but as effect.

Upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable—I am what I am, and intend to be it.