42 Quotes On Life Priorities

In today's fast-paced world, it's all too easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of daily responsibilities and distractions, often losing sight of what truly matters. To help realign your focus and inspire a more purposeful life, we've curated a collection of the top 42 quotes on life priorities. These insightful words from thinkers, authors, and leaders across the ages serve as powerful reminders of the importance of staying true to our core values, nurturing relationships, and pursuing our passions. Whether you're seeking motivation or simply a moment of reflection, these quotes can guide you in prioritizing what truly brings joy and meaning to your life.

1. “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

2. “Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.” - Richard P. Feynman

3. “Action expresses priorities.” - Mahatma Gandhi

4. “Let my assure you, Brethren, that some day you will have a personal Priesthood interview with the Savior, Himself. If you are interested, I will tell you the order in which He will ask you to account for your earthly responsibilities.First, He will request an accountability report about your relationship with your wife. Have you actively been engaged in making her happy and ensuring that her needs have been met as an individual?Second, He will want an accountability report about each of your children individually. He will not attempt to have this for simply a family stewardship but will request information about your relationship to each and every child.Third, He will want to know what you personally have done with the talents you were given in the pre-existence.Fourth, He will want a summary of your activity in your church assignments. He will not be necessarily interested in what assignments you have had, for in his eyes the home teacher and a mission president are probably equals, but He will request a summary of how you have been of service to your fellowmen in your Church assignments.Fifth, He will have no interest in how you earned your living, but if you were honest in all your dealings.Sixth, He will ask for an accountability on what you have done to contribute in a positive manner to your community, state, country, and the world.” - David O. McKay

5. “I do not understand people who will lustily throw $40,000 at the shiny red automobile of their choice, but well up with tears and become outraged when they are asked to pay $5 for a damaged videotape. Either they are fucked up and their priorities are fucked up or I am fucked up and my priorities are fucked up. Because I am me, I think it is them.” - Don Borchert

6. “Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.” - Stephen R. Covey

7. “It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.” - Bruce Lee

8. “I always tend to assume there's an infinite amount of money out there."There might as well be, "Arsibalt said, "but most of it gets spent on pornography, sugar water and bombs. There is only so much that can be scraped together for particle accelerators.” - Neal Stephenson

9. “I do know that when I am 60, I should be attempting to achieve different personal goals than those which had priority at age 20.” - Warren Buffett

10. “We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom....Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.” - Peggy Noonan

11. “The only thing a cat worries about is what's happening right now. As we tell the kittens, you can only wash one paw at a time.” - Lloyd Alexander

12. “Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

13. “The life you have left is a gift. Cherish it. Enjoy it now, to the fullest. Do what matters, now.” - Leo Babauta

14. “That second man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself which debt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker! there is no other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's?” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

15. “And the second [thing about the CBS EVENING NEWS that stands out in the mind of Michael J. Fox] was something Katie did later in the interview, as the drugs kicked in and the tremors segued into the jerkiness of dyskinesias. Somewhere in the contortions of making a point, my left arm detached the microphone clip from my jacket lapel. With no fuss and hardly a break in conversation or eye contact, she calmly leaned over and refastened it. Neither of us commented on it, but it was such an empathetic gesture, so far from anything patronizing or pitying, a simple kindness that allowed me the dignity to carry on making a point more important than the superficiality of my physical circumstance......One thing was abundantly clear though, whether or not she was able to forget how much she liked me: with that single act of consideration, she made it abundantly clear how much she loved her father.” - Michael J. Fox

16. “The Christian's whole desire, at its best and highest, is that Jesus Christ be praised. It is always a wretched bastardization of our goals when we want to win glory for ourselves instead of for him.” - D.A. Carson

17. “Desires dictate our priorities, priorities shape our choices, and choices determine our actions.” - Dallin H. Oaks

18. “Of course it was a terrible thing, and the world would be a much better place without someone in it who could do that, but did that mean we had to miss lunch?” - Jeff Lindsay

19. “The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.” - Steven Pressfield

20. “... and people who have kids, people with husbands and jobs and mortgages, don't much want to hear about other people's paintings.” - Michele Young-Stone

21. “Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.” - Criss Jami

22. “Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.” - Tahir Shah

23. “The most important thing in life is knowing the most important things in life.” - David F. Jakielo

24. “You need to make time for your family no matter what happens in your life” - Matthew Quick

25. “The problem in today’s economy is that people are typically starting a family at the very time they are also supposed to be doing their best work. They are trying to be productive at some of the most stressful times of their lives. What if companies took this unhappy collision of life events seriously? They could offer Gottman’s intervention as a benefit for every newly married, or newly pregnant, employee.” - John Medina

26. “Life is too short to try and glue together broken plates that were cheap in the first place.” - Cory Basil

27. “Sometimes you suffer for the things that are important to you.” - Marta Acosta

28. “I miss your smile… but I miss mine more.” - Laurel House

29. “Enttäuschung und Frustration werden [...] alle erleben, die sich wie im Märchen danach sehnen, Glück in einem Schlaraffenland zu finden ... Nur, dass unser Schlaraffenland nicht ein großer Berg von süßem Brei ist ... wir haben andere Fantasien und Bilder von Fülle und Erfülltheit in einem imaginären Schlaraffenland, das nur eben unglücklicherweise niemals dort ist, wo wir tatsächlich leben. Vielmehr leben wir mit der Hoffnung auf ein Glück, das uns das Schicksal irgenwann einmal gewähren müsse. [...] So können wir das Schlaraffenland je nach unserer eigenen Fasson ausgestalten - und wir tun es. Privat und auch gesellschaftlich.Doch sobald wir anfangen, uns mit diesem Glücksmodell anzufreunden, und gespannt darauf warten, wie im Lotto das große Los zu ziehen, werden wir auf einem Weg sein, wo das Glück ganz bestimmt nicht zu uns findet! Wir bleiben hungrig und ungesättigt. Denn geheimnisvollerweise ist das Glück dort, wo wir Bezogenheit leben - selbst in dem unspektatulärsten Tun des Alltags.” - Joachim Gauck

30. “It's all right. I'm not upset. After all, they were just things. When you've lost your mother and your father, you can't care so much about things, can you?” - Kazuo Ishiguro

31. “There are so many more important things to worry about than how you're perceived by strangers.” - Dennis Lehane

32. “The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen R. Covey

33. “I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.” - Masanobu Fukuoka

34. “Address the solvable first, instructs the father by way of teaching his son crisis management. That way, he counsels, there is less distraction to tackle more daunting issues.” - Brian Herbert

35. “Our minds are susceptible to the influence of external voices telling us what we require to be satisfied, voices that may drown out the faint sounds emitted by our souls and distract us from the careful, arduous task of accurately naming our priorities.” - Alain De Botton

36. “The essence of the charge made against the modern high-status ideal is that it is guilty of effecting a gigantic distortion of priorities, of elevating to the highest level of achievement a process of material accumulation that should instead be only one of many factors determining the direction of our lives under a more truthful, more broadly defined conception of ourselves.” - Alain De Botton

37. “When the urgent crowds out the important, people urgently accomplish nothing of value.” - Orrin Woodward

38. “I'm not at all contemptuous of comforts, but they have their place and it is not first.” - E.F. Schumacherm

39. “They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status - but rarely for your wisdom.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

40. “May our eyes focus rightly on Christ ... before the need to please others, before church, and before the busyness of Christian life. Those things will surely have their place, but they will be most valuable if put in their proper position.” - Traci LaRussa

41. “You have everything you need today to do what God has for you to do today.” - Shelley Hendrix

42. “Do not postpone what's important to you simply because others don't share your priorities” - Hemal Jhaveri