Who really said it

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals

Q: Did Henry David Thoreau say "What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals"?

No. This is a signature line of motivational author 'Zig' Ziglar. Quote Investigator found the earliest form in Ziglar's 1974 book Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (retitled See You at the Top in 1975), where he wrote "what you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them." The smoother "achieving your goals" phrasing is a later restatement of Ziglar's own idea. There is no evidence Henry David Thoreau ever wrote it.

Not Henry David Thoreau — actually Zig Ziglar Zig Ziglar 1926–2012 · American salesman & motivational author

Disputed In copyright

This is a signature line of motivational author ‘Zig’ Ziglar. Quote Investigator found the earliest form in Ziglar’s 1974 book Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (retitled See You at the Top in 1975), where he wrote “what you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them.” The smoother “achieving your goals” phrasing is a later restatement of Ziglar’s own idea. There is no evidence Henry David Thoreau ever wrote it.

Last verified 14 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals” Zig Ziglar, paraphrased from See You at the Top (1975) — often misattributed to Henry David Thoreau

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Henry David Thoreau. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Zig Ziglar (Ziglar, Inc.) and his publishers). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Zig Ziglar — American salesman & motivational author. Theme: "What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it really comes from

Author: Zig Ziglar (1926–2012)
Earliest source: Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974); retitled See You at the Top (1975)
Original wording: “…what you get by reaching your goals is not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them.”
Traced by: Quote Investigator (2016)

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

The popular “achieving your goals” form is a polished restatement; Ziglar’s earliest documented wording used “reaching your goals… not nearly so important as what you become by reaching them.”

Quote Investigator: the full origin trace

How we verified this

Quote Investigator located the earliest match in Zig Ziglar’s 1974 Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles, later reissued as See You at the Top (1975).
QI notes Ziglar returned to the idea repeatedly, e.g. “what you get by reaching your objective is not as important as what you become by reaching that objective,” and in 2012 credited the line to himself in Inspiration from the Top.
Per QI, the Thoreau credit surfaced only in a 2011 online post and a Goethe credit in a 2005 self-help book — both unsupported.

In copyright

The line originates in Zig Ziglar’s books of the 1970s — Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974) / See You at the Top (1975) — and every documented source is well after 1931, so the wording is in copyright. It is not a public-domain Thoreau text.

Fact-check

How Thoreau got the credit

This is a modern motivational maxim that later got draped over famous 19th-century names to lend it gravitas. Quote Investigator untangled the chain.

Henry David Thoreau unsupported

According to Quote Investigator, the Thoreau attribution appears only in a 2011 online post — nearly 150 years after Thoreau’s death (1862) — with no basis in any of his writings.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe unsupported

QI notes a 2005 self-help book credited Goethe (d. 1832); like the Thoreau version, it has no substantive supporting evidence.

The originator is motivational author Zig Ziglar, whose 1970s books contain the earliest documented forms of the saying, per Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it gets misattributed

The saying is a compact statement of Ziglar’s core theme: goals matter less for the prizes they hand you than for the person you have to become to reach them. It reads like timeless wisdom, which is exactly why it drifts toward names like Thoreau and Goethe.

Ziglar himself smoothed the wording over the years — from “reaching your goals… not nearly so important” toward the tighter modern form — so no single ‘canonical’ sentence exists, which further loosens it from its true source.

The prize isn’t the point; who you become chasing it is.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Growth Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: full origin tracequoteinvestigator.com

Documents the earliest matches in Ziglar’s 1974/1975 books and debunks the Thoreau and Goethe credits.

Zig Ziglar (Wikipedia)en.wikipedia.org

Biography of the true author and his book See You at the Top.

Zig Ziglar (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Collected Ziglar quotations for cross-reference.

Henry David Thoreau (Wikiquote)en.wikiquote.org

Thoreau’s sourced and misattributed quotations, for comparison.

The real author

Zig Ziglar

1926–2012 · American salesman & motivational author

Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar was an American salesman turned motivational speaker whose 1975 book See You at the Top became a self-improvement bestseller. His folksy, goal-focused aphorisms — this among them — circulated so widely that they were often re-credited to older, more literary names.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Quote Investigator

Garson O’Toole (Quote Investigator), “What You Get By Reaching Your Goals Is Not Nearly So Important As What You Become By Reaching Them,” December 6, 2016, tracing the saying to Zig Ziglar, Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974) / See You at the Top (1975).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals’?” Last verified 14 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/what-you-get-by-achieving-your-goals-is-not-as-important-as