Don’t follow your dreams advises Peter G Stromberg in a 2009 article on the psychologytoday.com website. Instead, Stromberg urges readers to “follow your aptitude.”

The follow your dream doctrine, according to the article, is a fantasy created so the economic system is not challenged. If the system was questioned, instead of going to the movies or “buying the promises” people would form political groups to address the economic and other inequalities in our society, writes Stromberg.

I see Stromberg’s point, but what if your dream is to address inequalities? Remember Martin Luther King’s dream? Also in terms of aptitude, King didn’t know he could lead boycotts and marches until he was already doing it. How do you know you have the aptitude for attaining your dream without trying? And why would you try without first having a dream?

Below are some quotes I collected about following your dreams. They are compiled form Walden.org, motivation-for-dreamers.com, sapphyr.net and my own personal collection.

*Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. ~Harriet Tubman

*I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . . In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. ~Henry David Thoreau

*Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now. ~Goethe

*The greatest thing about man is his ability to transcend himself, his ancestry and his environment and to become what he dreams of being. ~Tully C. Knoles

*If you can DREAM it, you can DO it. ~Walt Disney

*Your dreams can be realities. They are the stuff that leads us through life toward great happiness. ~Deborah Norville

*Here is the Divine Dichotomy...The way to ‘get there’ is to ‘be there’. Just be where you choose to get! It’s that simple. ~Neale Donald Walsch

*People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want. ~George Bernard Shaw

*Pick something that seems very unlikely or even unattainable. This stretch factor is one way that open space targets "grow" us. They have the power to light our inner fire and stretch our perspectives at the same time they get us stoked, jazzed, or revved up in the moment. And as they compel us to move toward them, doing so changes how we listen, invent, imagine, test new approaches, learn and expand our capacities from this level to the next. ~Robert K. Cooper

*As for me, I don't have to have the prize, but I absolutely must have the desire to win it--to set the standard and then maybe even go beyond. Without that desire, your limbs shrivel and your soul gets small. ~Rosie O'Donnell

*Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars. ~Les Brown

*Some goals are so worthy, it's glorious even to fail. ~Manoj Pandey