Top Priorities Quotes

My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation. ~ Michelle Bachelet

Many of us place top priority not on becoming Christ like in the middle of our problems but on finding happiness ... I must firmly and consciously by an act of my will reject the goal of becoming happy and adopt the goal of becoming more like the Lord ... ~ Larry Crabb

As adults, if our top priorities are constantly directed toward the acquisition of more and better worldly goods, it will not take long to increase our love in those directions. The purchase of a larger house or a nicer car or a more expensive boat may cause us to sacrifice our resources and develop an unwise love for these symbols of success and pleasure. We learn to love that which we serve, and we serve that which we love. ~ Marvin J. Ashton

Fitness has always been one of the top priorities in my life because that's the way I grew up, with soccer being the sport of choice. ~ Ziggy Marley

I have made education a top priority of this Administration because when we get it right, when every child learns, America will be a more hopeful place. ~ George W. Bush

One of my top priorities in Congress is to reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. ~ Lincoln Diaz-Balart

I marched with you in the streets of Chicago to meet our immigration challenge. I fought with you in the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform. And I will make it a top priority in my first year as President. ~ Barack Obama

Because I am all too human, I don't always do the right thing, so how can I expect others to perform perfectly on the issues that are my top priority? I don't mean that we shouldn't try to do our best, but judgment and recrimination are such heavy weights. I find that accepting that we are all fallible lightens my load. ~ Karen Dawn

You can't move so fast that you try to change the mores faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing, but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself. ~ Denis Waitley

With climate change and health crises rightfully receiving international attention, the time has come to focus on hunger as a top priority. WHO regards hunger and malnutrition as the gravest threat to public health, and climate change threatens to further destabilise already fragile food-production systems. ~ Josette Sheeran

To hell with housework, our top priority has always been between our legs. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Education, in K-12, technical college and universities needs to be a top priority in Wisconsin. ~ Tom Barrett

Child labour is an issue of grave importance. It must become a top priority for all governments of the world. How can the world move into the twenty-first century with children still being exploited for their labour and denied their basic right to an education? ~ Craig Kielburger

When you have too many top priorities, you effectively have no top priorities. ~ Stephen Covey

As Governor of North Carolina for two terms, I made improving education a top priority. ~ Michael F. Easley

Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority. ~ William Arthur Ward

Promoting job creation and economic growth in the Hudson Valley is one of my top priorities in Congress. ~ Sue Kelly

Citizens must pressure the American Hospital Association, the American Public Health Association, the Centers for Disease Control and other relevant governmental agencies to make greening our hospitals and medical centers a top priority so that they themselves don't create even more illness. ~ Andrew Weil

I have made it a top priority for my administration to deepen cooperation with Israel across the whole spectrum of security issues - intelligence, military, technology. ~ Barack Obama

The fact that the price of gasoline has declined some in recent weeks must not allow Americans to be lulled into a false sense of security. Energy independence must rank along with border security as the top priorities of the United States. ~ Virgil Goode

As president of the United States, my top priority will be to keep America safe. We're going to go after the terrorist networks. We're going to go after Osama bin Laden. We are not going to live in fear in this country. ~ Wesley Clark

I always tell young athletes the same thing, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do, what must your top priority be? Running.' ~ Haile Gebrselassie

According to the 'food waste pyramid,' ensuring that food is eaten by people is the top priority. Failing that, the next best thing is to feed it to farm animals. ~ Tristram Stuart

How did [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said, 'My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.' ~ John Hagee

The mark of a great man is one who knows when to set aside the important things in order to accomplish the vital ones. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life. ~ Stephen Covey

Good things happen when you get your priorities straight. ~ Scott Caan

I do not want two classes of citizens in this country. I want everybody to prosper. That's going to be a top priority. ~ Barack Obama

Our Party's Songun-based revolutionary leadership, Songun-based politics, is a revolutionary mode of leadership and socialist mode of politics that gives top priority to military affairs, and defends the country, the revolution and socialism and dynamically pushes ahead with overall socialist construction by dint of the revolutionary mettle and combat capabilities of the People's Army. ~ Kim Jong Il

I come to this debate, Mr. Speaker, as one at the end of 10 years in office on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, where stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was one of my top priorities. I applaud the President on focusing on this issue and on taking the lead to disarm Saddam Hussein. ... Others have talked about this threat that is posed by Saddam Hussein. Yes, he has chemical weapons, he has biological weapons, he is trying to get nuclear weapons. ~ Nancy Pelosi

The top priority is leaving no child behind. We want accountability in the system, and we want schools to recognize they have a responsibility to teach students. ~ Andrew Card

The key to a good life is this: If you're not going to talk about something during the last hour of your life, then don't make it a top priority during your lifetime. ~ Richard Carlson

In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one's final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or "It's O.K." or "I'm sorry" or "I love you."

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system's expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what's most important to them ~ Atul Gawande

Beyond reducing individual use, one of our top priorities must be to move from fossil fuels to energy that has fewer detrimental effects on water supplies and fewer environmental impacts overall. ~ David Suzuki

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Tourism is a top priority activity for federal government, which is why it invests an average of over 2,500 million dollars a year in infrastructure works and integral projects that promote Mexico's culture and natural attractions. ~ Vicente Fox

Military inclusion has never been a central demand from trans populations, who consistently name criminalization, immigration enforcement, poverty and joblessness as top priorities. ~ Dean Spade

I fully support the goal of species protection and conservation and believe that recovery and ultimately delisting of species should be the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's top priority under ESA. ~ Dennis Cardoza

Whoever decides to dedicate their life to politics knows that earning money isn't the top priority. ~ Angela Merkel

The arrangements that couples make in order to maintain civility in the midst of their journey to divorce are often most elaborate when the professed top priority is to protect a child. ~ John Irving

Courtney isn't independent. No 12-year-old truly is. Instead, Courtney has transferred her natural dependence from her parents, where it should be, to her same-age peers, where it shouldn't be. Courtney's top priorities now lie in pleasing her friends, being liked by her friends, being accepted by same-age peers. Her parents have become an afterthought, a means to other ends. ~ Leonard Sax

Our Government's top priority remains jobs and economic growth. Today's announcement demonstrates our commitment to ensuring the continued success of western Canadian businesses and entrepreneurs in the apparel and textile sector. ~ Michelle Rempel

Better, then, to go light on the sexual particulars, and think instead of who's winning and who's losing at any given point. How is power being exchanged here? I want to say, "Who's on top?" But that would of course be sleazy, and just generally beneath me ... ~ Michael Cunningham

So he bought tickets to the Greyhound and they climbed, painfully, inch by inch and with the knowledge that, once they reached the top, there would be one breath-taking moment when the car would tip precariously into space, over an incline six stories steep and then plunge, like a plunging plane. She buried her head against him, fearing to look at the park spread below. He forced himself to look: thousands of little people and hundreds of bright little stands, and over it all the coal-smoke pall of the river factories and railroad yards. He saw in that moment the whole dim-lit city on the last night of summer; the troubled streets that led to the abandoned beaches, the for-rent signs above overnight hotels and furnished basement rooms, moving trolleys and rising bridges: the cagework city, beneath a coalsmoke sky. ~ Nelson Algren

Comparing and contrasting is a valuable human skill - and not just during high school English exams. Our ability to rank-order things is invaluable in making choices and setting priorities. ~ Martha Beck

There are a lot of reasons why everyone in the known universe has a boyfriend except for me. I can list the top five on command, just in case anyone's ever interested. No one ever has been, but that's no reason not to be prepared. ~ J.J. Howard

The positive thing is that today we can realize that a Mexican film it is positioned in the top 5 of the box office during more than one month and that Mexicans are taking into consideration that Mexican films can be enjoyed with the family, instead of going to see Transformers and that our films looks like something that are necessary to support. ~ Alfonso Herrera

A controlling relationship can start with over-the-top romantic gestures and gifts, and great protestations of you 'being the only one' and their love being a special kind of 'you and me against the world', often disconcertingly early in a relationship. There may be a charm campaign aimed at you and even friends and family, your other potential allies and 'protectors'. Suddenly or gradually there are rules, or flashes of mystifying rage or sulking designed to modify your behaviour to what they want you to do. Then the 'nice' person reappears, and all is well, he's romantic and doting again, before the next flashpoints of anger or rage or sullen tension. This is not a 'return to the good times'. It's the classic cycle of abuse, recognised ~ Kaz Cooke

President Obama is determined that our foreign and national security policies not play into al-Qa'ida's strategy or its warped ideology. Al-Qa'ida seeks to terrorize us into retreating from the world stage. But President Obama has made it a priority to renew American leadership in the world, strengthening our alliances and deepening partnerships. ~ John O. Brennan

O Lord, if I could fly to my people and tell them of your goodness at the top of my voice, oh how many souls would be won! ~ Josephine Bakhita

I tend to avoid the shows that focus on politics, just to get a break from it all, i tried watching the first couple episodes of 'House of Cards,' but I thought it was way over the top. Members of Congress aren't anything like Frank Underwood. Most of us are far less interesting. ~ Paul Ryan

The coat was forties-style, made from Canadian beaver at a time when people didn't think about whether or not it was wrong to wear fur. Although Gloria would no longer wish to wear the skin of another animal on top of her own, the way she looked at it now, the beavers were already long dead and had lived the happy, uncomplicated life of Canadian beavers before the war. ~ Kate Atkinson

Your nipples are like Novocain."
"You're at a distinct advantage because I have no idea what controlled substance your nipples are like." He ran his tongue across his top teeth. ~ Debra Anastasia

And now that it's legit, I am gonna hammer you," Stitch's grin widened and in one abrupt move, he arched his hips and threw Zak over to his back while still holding on to his legs. "All night. And then the night after… and after…" He lapped at Zak's neck.
Every single nerve in Zak's body stood alert, as if waiting for Stitch's command. Zak moaned, feeling a rush of heat to his face, and rapidly pulled on the sides of Stitch's cut. The moment his lover's weight collapsed on top of him, he knew there wasn't anything he wanted more ~ K.A. Merikan

Let's be honest. There's not really any safe place to meet an aspiring head of a top-secret organization, trained in every manner of mind control and manipulation and bent on word domination by any means necessary. ~ Matt Kindt

There was something about the possession of a book that was important to me. Owning it gave me proprietary rights on the story. It meant that I could read as quickly or as slowly as I liked. No expectations, no deadlines, no proscriptions on bent spines or crumpled pages. I was not gentle on my books. I read while I ate, I read in the bathtub. At night, I rolled over on top of my books that had fallen between the covers as I dozed. For me, the worn pages and tattered covers were a sign of devotion. Like the Velveteen Rabbit, the books I read were only real when they were loved. And I understood that love was not always gentle. ~ Georgia Bell

[T]he economy remains the top issue for the electorate. ~ Karl Rove

And that's what I've been doing all my life - plodding along, singing my song, telling my tales in my own unhurried way. I have lived life at my own gentle pace, and if as a result I have failed to get to the top of the mountain (or of anything else), it doesn't matter, the long walk has brought its own sweet rewards; buttercups and butterflies along the way. Ruskin Bond Landour, March 2005 ~ Ruskin Bond

Health care is not just another commodity. It is not a gift to be rationed based on the ability to pay. It is time to make universal health insurance a national priority, so that the basic right to health care can finally become a reality for every American. ~ Edward Kennedy

Germany's amongst my top three places in the world I'd like to live. ~ Jonah Hill

Well, that was a huge step. We had an instruction set. We could move data around. We could do conditionals. We could do most of the things a simple chip can do. We had the visual cortex for our display. The auditory cortex for our speakers. The motor cortex for our input. On top of that, we could write any damn software we wanted. ~ Ramez Naam

Begin each day with God. It will change your priorities. ~ Elizabeth George

The FBI announced today that they are now looking for Osama bin Laden's financial adviser. You think this guy is in demand. How good can he be? his top client is living in a cave and driving a donkey. It doesn't sound like he is getting the best return on his investments to me. ~ Jay Leno

Aspire higher to attain excellence in whatever you do. But be careful when you reach the peak, where the only way is the way downwards. Maintain your standard! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

He squinted up at the sky and quickly rose to his feet, sheathing his knife. "Rosie," he beckoned to her but kept his eyes on the shadows that hung low brushing the top of the keep. "Rosie, come inside. There's a storm almost ready to hit."
She skipped over to him and slumped her shoulders, but he teased a grin out of her the next moment. "I'll fill your bucket for you if you set up the blanket house with Maire."
She shoved the bucket into his hands and entered the house, sing-songing for her sister. ~ Kate Willis

A clever man can see the world from a cave much better than a stupid man can from the top of a mountain! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The poor thing had cowered away from the sides of the pan, blackened on top, and developed drying cracks. It was inedible, better suited to the construction supply trade than to a dinner plate. A few dozen more of these and some mortar and she'd have that wall she wanted around her terrace. ~ J.R. Ward

All right, roger that. Don't get dead." "That's high on my list of priorities. ~ Evan Currie

Start from the beginning," Dylan says. "Tell me how you met. How he asked you out. Where he took you on the first date. Your first kiss. Tell me how he made you feel. Tell me how he loved you."
I sniff back my heartbreak and look up at him. "Why?"
"Because ... " he says, kissing the top of my head. "I plan on loving you like he did. ~ Jay McLean

To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese. ~ Tom Robbins

Then, while the other members of my family were waiting in the living room, my mom pulled me aside at the top of the stairs.

"Before it gets too crazy, I need to tell you something," she said...

"Elizabeth, what this man has done is terrible. There aren't any words that are strong enough to describe how wicked and evil he is! He has taken nine months of your life that you will never get back again. But the best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy. To move forward with your life. To do exactly what you want. Because, yes, this will probably go to trial and some kind of sentencing will be given to him and that wicked woman. But even if that's true, you may never feel like justice has been served or that true restitution has been made.

"But you don't need to worry about that. At the end of the day, God is our ultimate judge. He will make up to you every pain and loss that you have suffered. And if it turns out that these wicked people are not punished here on Earth, it doesn't matter. His punishments are just. You don't ever have to worry. You don't ever have to even think about them again. ...

"You be happy, Elizabeth. Just be happy. If you go and feel sorry for yourself, or if you dwell on what has happened, if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away. So don't you do that! Don't you let him! There is no way he deserves that. Not one more second of your life. You keep every second ~ Elizabeth Smart

The amazing thing about becoming a parent is that you will never again be your own first priority. ~ Olivia Wilde

hierarchies are lies. Because no one needs the alpha. He gets to the top by puffing and bluffing until we all believe he belongs there. When your power is built on ignorance, you don't want people talking to each other. ~ Isaac Marion

Organize priorities so that God is first in our lives. ~ John H. Groberg

Where are you staying?
Our house. He shifted closer and I stopped breathing.
Not good. I really needed to breathe and leaned back further in my chair to put space between me and his stubble darkened chin, his oh-so-kissable mouth, his windblown hair, his...his...everything.
For the zillionth time, I wondered what the statute of limitations was on stupid decisions. Marrying him had to top the list. ~ Sue Barr

No we talked about matter- most notably quarks, those tiniest possible components of everything.They come in six flavors, you know: up, down, top, bottom, charm and strange. I'll admit those talks helped me, and when i read about the sea quarks, I understood why. They contained particles of matter and antimatter, and where the two touch exists this constant stream of creation and annihilation. Scientist call this place "the sea," and it's what pitches inside of me as I hurry away from Mr. Byles, ignoring his furrowed brow, his worried frown.
I am of the sea.
I am of instability.
I am of harsh, choppy waves roiling with all the up-ness, down-ness, top-ness, bottom-ness contained within my being.
I am of charm and strange.
Annihilation.
Creation.
Annihilation. ~ Stephanie Kuehn

I agree with Peter Drucker that the culture and legal systems of the United Statesare especially favorable to shareholder interests, compared to other interests and compared to most other countries. Indeed, there are many other countries where any good going to public shareholders has a very low priority and almost every other constituency stands higher in line. ~ Charlie Munger

I expect that would be a very different world with very different priorities. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

I know the rules. I've been living here longer than you have."
He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. "Hardly."
"Born and raised. You're a transplant." I nudge him again, a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle my stomach. "Country bumpkin!" I squeal, as he grabs out and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing.
"City slicker," he says, rolling over on top of me, and then kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color, floating. ~ Lauren Oliver

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed. ~ Howard Zinn

To write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale. ~ Virginia Woolf

When our time is limited and we are uncertain about how best to serve our priorities, we are forced to deal with the fact that both the experiencing self and the remembering self matter. We do not want to endure long pain and short pleasure. Yet certain pleasures can make enduring suffering worthwhile. The peaks are important, and so is the ending. ~ Atul Gawande

I've been around long enough now that people who don't get into the outrageousness, the over-the-top stuff, they know not to buy my books anymore. ~ Matthew Reilly

Fairchild Parent rewarded Fairchild Child's success the way all East Coast companies of the era did: it kept a sizable chunk of the profits to fund other company operations, and it promoted the people at the top of the division to a fancier position and a better salary for a job well done. Back in New Jersey, it didn't cross anyone's mind that this was exactly the wrong response to an egalitarian company that shared both risk and reward among all of its employees, whose executives had moved to California precisely to get away from the Old World of business, and which needed to plow most of its profits back into product development to stay ahead of the competition in a fast-moving take-no-prisoners industry. ~ Michael S. Malone