Meaning Purpose Quotes

The more you create authentic power, the more the characteristics of authentic power become yours, and the more meaning, purpose and joy enter your life. ~ Gary Zukav

The world is full of disappointment," I said.
"Yes," she said, "I heard him say that. And every creature is simply trying to get what it wants, and to make their way through a difficult world. Do you believe that?"
"No," I said. "There's more than that."
"Like what?"
"Like good books," I said, "and good people. And good librarians, who are almost both at once. ~ Lemony Snicket

When we are courageous enough to begin exploring the 'Why's" and the 'Who's' of life, the 'How's' and 'What's' of life start to come into focus as well. " ~ Mac MacKenzie

It seems that rather than abandon their worldview, many young people are abandoning their lives altogether. I am disturbed to see the number of suicides and suicide attempts by those between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. Many of their suicide notes report they had lost meaning, purpose and a sense that life held any value.

This is no longer just about philosophy. This is about the very real lives we are all trying to make sense of here on Earth. ~ Jon Morrison

The psychology of individual creativity is about at least three different things. First, creativity is about thinking differently. Second, creativity is about feeling differently. Third, creativity is about focusing, or committing, differently. ~ Max McKeown

We all encounter random phenomena, arbitrary occurrences, chance meetings, and eerie coincidences. When we attach our own meaning to these events, we are feeding meaning into the random; we are choosing something arbitrary and assigning our own deeper purpose to it. The problem, though, is that we do this selectively. ~ Michael Vito Tosto

Happy people don't make history. Happy people make children, then die. ~ Neil Hilborn

At its best, this is my calling. At its worst, it is a mad compulsion that I just can't shake. ~ Zoe Klein

If work is to make a life the purpose of the organization might need to shift to include a greater degree of meaning. ~ Dan Pontefract

humans are creatures who give meaning to meaningless actions, and derive purpose from it. ~ Kinoko Nasu

I don't care what anyone says, the stars give you hope on a dark and gloomy night. ~ Nikki Rowe

I seek to use the tools of the mind to overcome a narcissistic self and attain self-mastery. I aspire to engage in self-cultivation by making practical usage of the process of enduring privations, overcoming challenges, and rejecting illicit temptations in order to gain fortitude, courage, and wisdom. I shall reflect upon grievous personal mistakes and embrace the concept of repentance as a lifelong growth process through which humankind conscientiously learns to make better choices by forsaking vice, immorality, and wickedness. I must also unreservedly embrace fate by perceiving everything that happens in life including suffering and loss as good, and affirm a life filled with indignity, sorrow, and tragedy. I can only discover happiness – a meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, and essential value of existence – by living with dignity in the face of absurdity. When we affirm all aspects of being, we enjoy a tranquil existence. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Being an atheist means you have to realise that when you die, that really is it. You've got to make the most of what you've got here and spread as much influence as you can. I believe that you only live through the influence that you spread, whether that means having a kid or making music.
... I don't believe in heaven or hell, I don't really believe in that version. ~ Matthew Bellamy

A reason for living can be a great obstacle in life. ~ Marty Rubin

The need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution. ~ Stephen Covey

After all, a man's life, when all is said and done, should serve some greater purpose than that of a hero in a cautionary tale. ~ Judd Trichter

Don't be led away to think this part of the world important and that unimportant. Every corner of the world is important. No man knows whether this part or that is most so, but every man may do some honest work in his own corner. ~ Thomas Hughes

No matter how ruined man and his world may seem to be, and no matter how terrible man's despair may become, as long as he continues to be a man his very humanity continues to tell him that life has a meaning."
...
"Our life, as individual persons and as members of a perplexed and struggling race, provokes us with the evidence that it must have meaning. Part of the meaning still escapes us. Yet our purpose in life is to discover this meaning, and live according to it. We have, therefore, something to live for. The process of living, of growing up, and becoming a person, is precisely the gradually increasing awareness of what that something is. This is a difficult task, for many reasons. ~ Thomas Merton

Coming face to face with our dharma, our deepest life calling, scares most of us completely shitless. ~ Amy McTear

That life has no clear purpose or meaning is the best possible news for artists. ~ Marty Rubin

As the theologian Alan Jones has said:

One of our problems is that very few of us have developed any distinctive personal life. Everything about us seems secondhand, even our emotions. In many cases we have to rely on secondhand information in order to function. I accept the word of a physician, a scientist, a farmer, on trust. I do not like to do this. I have to because they possess vital knowledge of living of which I am ignorant. Secondhand information concerning the state of my kidneys, the effects of cholesterol, and the raising of chickens, I can live with. But when it comes to questions of meaning, purpose, and death, secondhand information will not do. I cannot survive on a secondhand faith in a secondhand God. There has to be a personal word, a unique confrontation, if I am to come alive. ~ M. Scott Peck

Develop all four intelligences. PQ (physical intelligence) which represents 70 trillion cells that fight disease and digest your breakfast. IQ (intellectual intelligence) EQ (emotional intelligence) the sensing and wisdom of the heart - - and SQ (spiritual intelligence) having to do with meaning, purpose and integrity around your selected value system and your believed source. When combined, they change the world for good. ~ Stephen Covey

The only substance that goes in and never leaves, are words ~ Natasha Tsakos

But beyond a basic minimum, the relationship between income and happiness is slight. Research bears out Maslow's analysis that the higher needs are love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation. The most significant determinants of happiness are strong and rewarding personal relationships, a sense of belonging to a community, being valued by others and living a meaningful life. These are precisely the things in which religion specialises: sanctifying marriage, etching family life with the charisma of holiness, creating and sustaining strong communities in which people are valued for what they are, not for what they earn or own, and providing a framework within which our lives take on meaning, purpose, even blessedness. ~ Jonathan Sacks

There are many things that you can avoid by just knowing something. Knowledge of self is the most notable knowledge I pursue. By knowing myself, I avoided dead dreams and a meaningless life. ~ Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

The gospel is good news for losers, not winners. It's for those who long to be freed from the slavery of believing that all of their significance, meaning, purpose, and security depend on their ability to "become a better you." The gospel tells us that weakness precedes usefulness - that, in fact, the smaller you get, the freer you will be. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Give a reason for your existence and make a life out of it. ~ Nikki Rowe

He continued to stroke its back and scratch its ears, but after a minute or two he realized he was seeking something from the dog that it could not provide: meaning, purpose, relief from despair. ~ Dean Koontz

In this era where you can be anything you want to be, it is very alluring to miss the most important mark in life - fulfillment and meaning; Remember that, what you can do may not be necessarily what you are called to do ~ Bernard Kelvin Clive

The most fragile, unhappy people destine themselves to live lives of constantly reminding themselves to be happy. ~ Criss Jami

The spiritual journey is an adventure of exploration that gradually starts to open up before us when we are ready to begin asking the questions, "Who am I? and "Who are you? ~ Mac MacKenzie

There is no map of the soul because we make it up as we go ... ~ John Geddes

To ask, 'How do you do it?' is already starting off on the wrong foot. When reaching for the stars, there does not have to be a 'how' if there is a big enough 'why'. ~ Criss Jami

A part of me genuinely wanted to be the worst because I was so sick of everyone fighting to be the best. ~ Criss Jami

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you're already in heaven now. ~ Jack Kerouac

Let's live our lives with great meaning and purpose in the attempt to influence the world to whatever degree our circumstance allows. ~ Chris Matakas

We live our days in the microscopic, but something within us calls us to dream in the cosmic – every one of us. And within us exists those two worlds: the world as it is and the world as we think it ought to be. ~ A.J. Darkholme

The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable. If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal. ~ Carl Sagan

While we all share God's powerful DNA, we're also individual expressions of God. Meaning, there's no one else quite like you. So set the intention now to become clear on exactly what strengths and talents make you unique. When you know who and what you are, you reclaim your power and you feel empowered to move forward with clarity, confidence, and conviction, along with a joyful sense of divine purpose. ~ Rebecca Rosen

I personally cannot discern a shred of evidence for '[intelligent] design.' If 97% of all creatures have gone extinct, some plan isn't working very well! ~ Irven Devore

To say that my existence is entirely inconsequential is to utterly ignore the amazing reality that life is a masterful story penned by a brilliant God who wrote me into the story in such a way that my absence would literally diminish the whole of the story. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

To be young and to experience the feeling of being alive is a sweet feeling. To feel alive and to have a purpose and a goal to that life is better still. ~ James Rozoff

Our lives are programmed at conception and are endowed with purpose and meaning. ~ Jeane Dixon

Vision gives meaning to grace just as hunger gives meaning to food. ~ Paul Bamikole

The beautiful truth about service is that we are afforded countless opportunities to be its vehicle. Every interaction with another is an opportunity to serve. From simply letting someone into your lane in traffic, to holding a door, to a kind smile. This is all service. I am humbled by this simple truth. We are given the opportunity to express the most meaningful use of our lives every time we interact with another sentient being. ~ Chris Matakas

The purpose of life is to live. The meaning of life is whatever you choose. The secret to life is balance in all things ... ~ James A. Murphy

Reason begets honesty, and honesty, if given its head, begets confidence; so consequently, there is a sort of grand authority in the stances of those who know why they are standing. ~ Criss Jami

So many years of being lonely and discounted, no one ever truly seeing me, the person that I really am. The Gabriella I so desperately wanted to be. Yet somehow he broke through the walls and barriers and penetrated my frail, dejected heart. He loves me for all that I am and what I will become, even though it scares us both to death. He accepts the darkest parts of me and doesn't try to change me, in all my shattered complexity. Meeting him has given this facade of my life new meaning. He's given me purpose, strength. He's given me love. Dorian has given me everything and, in turn, is everything to me. Designed by the Divine Power especially for me. ~ S.L. Jennings

How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can't. Evolution is simply a theory about the process and patterns of life's diversification, not a grand philosophical scheme about the meaning of life. It can't tell us what to do, or how we should behave. And this is the big problem for many believers, who want to find in the story of our origins a reason for our existence, and a sense of how to behave. ~ Jerry A. Coyne

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. ~ Chris Hedges

... And that has remained an important mental landscape for me, a reference point. It teaches me something - or tries to. People need things like that to go on living - mental landscapes that have meaning for then, even if they can't explain them in words. Part of why we live is to come up with explanations for these things. That what I think. ~ Haruki Murakami

The key to living a purposeful life lies in identifying how best you can be a vehicle for God's divine love and light. ~ Rebecca Rosen

It's so essential to happiness to speak your truth out loud - because this sharing of your core pain is what creates a necessary healing shift - from negative beliefs about the world - to positive beliefs - and frees you up to be able to fully view life with meaning, purpose and connection with others. ~ Karen Salmansohn

The true meaning and purpose of life is to give some meaning and purpose to your life. ~ Steven Redhead

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.
A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things - whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous. ~ George R R Martin

If I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? ~ Stephen Crane

God made you for a reason and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives. ~ Rick Warren

In this fallen world, and in their fallen lives, those who are alienated from God are a part of this age, which is now passing. It has no future and there are intimations of that in the depths of human consciousness where a tangle of contradictions lie, for we are made for meaning but find only emptiness, made as moral beings but are estranged from what is holy, made to understand but are thwarted in so many of our quests to know. These are the sure signs of a reality out of joint with itself. This is what, in fact, points to something else. These contradictions are unresolved in the absence of that age to come which is rooted in the triune God of whom Scripture speaks. He it is who not only sustains all of life, directing it all to its appointed end, but who also is the measure of what is enduringly true and right, and the fountain of all meaning, purpose, and hope. ~ John Piper

If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter. ~ Edmund Burke

Sacrifice is not setting oneself up to die. It is liberating oneself to live. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

How could there be a stone unturned in the quest to understand your life's purpose? So many well entrenched systems already exist and some have done so for thousands of years. Still we are all inquisitive creatures by nature and I aim to feed your voracious appetite and stoke the ever-burning fires of controversy by introducing you to Life Cycles."

After all you cannot be a quiet revolutionary. ~ Neil Killion

He should be happy because he can think about the unhappiness of others!
He's stupid if he doesn't know other people's unhappiness is theirs,
And isn't cured from the outside,
Because suffering isn't like running out of ink,
Or a trunk not having iron bands!

There being injustice is like there being death. ~ Alberto Caeiro

For the Romans, gravitas denoted a man's metaphorical "heaviness" - a strength of purpose, sense of authority, depth of character, and commitment to the task at hand that together formed a structure sturdy enough to bear the weight of his significant responsibilities ~ Brett McKay

Race was a word that bred arrogance, danger and violence. When had incitement to race served a peaceful purpose? Race was a fuel and it needed only a match to light it. Any match - my hostility, your ambition, a third person's advantage. ~ Nayantara Sahgal

If you're going to do anything make it meaningful. ~ Akiroq Brost

Although I think the word "pleasure" is unknown to you. More precisely, its practical meaning". #MilanoVeneziani. #ItalianPassion ~ Olga Goa

Selfless acts are a source of profound meaning for your self and your life. ~ Ron Kaufman

Sapiens rule the world because only they can weave an intersubjective web of meaning: a web of laws, forces, entities and places that exist purely in their common imagination. This web allows humans alone to organise crusades, socialist revolutions and human rights movements. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin. ~ Voltaire

P R E S I D E N T Y O S H I D A'S T E N S P A R T A N R UlE S Hideo Yoshida's quest for management excellence was no doubt driven by his visions for Japanese marketing and media, but also by an overall worry about Japan's economic prospects after World War II. As a result, he developed a set of business and work principles, or rules, which he called the "Ten Spartan Rules": difficult work.5. Once you begin a task, complete it. Never give up.6. Lead and set an example for your fellow workers.7. Set goals for yourself to ensure a constant sense of purpose.8. Move with confidence. It gives your work force and substance.9. At all times, challenge yourself to think creatively and find new solutions.10. When confrontation is necessary, don't shy away from it. Confrontation is often necessary to achieve progress. These traditional work rules still guide Dentsu's employees, and are carried around in their notebooks ~ Anonymous

O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade. Let not the keeness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment
let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

At one point I suggested he go to a well-regarded waxing parlor in town for what they indelicately call the "sack, back, and crack." He struggled to absorb the full meaning of this, but after a few seconds he smiled a nervous smile and said, "In for a penny ... ~ Christopher Hitchens

The teachers want we to be perfect (Nobody is perfect, perfection doesn't exist) - if it exists what's the purpose we to be on this planet when we are not perfect?
However in some subjects it's not quite, it's not possible to focus and get a better grade than this! ~ Deyth Banger

I think one purpose is very clear among corporations and business leaders: make profits, deliver high return for stockholders, conquer markets, service consumers and create jobs. But in today's world, demands from corporations and leaders are much more than that. We need to understand what people really want at the very end. ~ Vicente Fox

It's very, very subtle stuff, changing words and giving them a whole different meaning - it creates an artificial reality," said Walter. "What happens is this new linguistic system undermines your ability to even monitor your own thoughts because nothing means what it used to mean. I couldn't believe that I could get taken over like that. I was the most independent-minded idiot that ever walked the planet. But that's what happened. ~ Janet Reitman

You only gain in life when you multiply ~ Sunday Adelaja

If you want to take the meaning of the word integrity and reduce it to its simplest terms, you'd conclude that a man of integrity is a promise keeper. When he gives you his word. You can take it to the bank. His word is good. ~ Bill McCartney

You do not need to think about a month, you need to plan the day ~ Sunday Adelaja

One is often so busy doing life that it is easy to avoid evaluating whether you are putting your energy in the direction you value most. ~ Deborah Day

Mindfulness as a practice provides endless opportunities to cultivate greater intimacy with your own mind and to tap into and develop your deep interior resources for learning, growing, healing, and potentially for transforming your understanding of who you are and how you might live more wisely and with greater well-being, meaning, and happiness in this world. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Money is a compensation for time spent ~ Sunday Adelaja

But to change all existence into a flow experience, it is not sufficient to learn merely how to control moment-by-moment states of consciousness. It is also necessary to have an overall context of goals for the events of everyday life to make senseTo create harmony in whatever one does is the last task that the flow theory presents to whose who wish to attain optimal experience; it is a task that involves transforming the entirety of life into a single flow activity, with unified goals that provide constant purpose. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

The necessity for struggle is one of the clever devices through which nature forces individuals to expand, develop, progress, and become strong through resistance ... We are forced to recognize that this great universal necessity for struggle must have a definite and useful purpose. That purpose is to force the individual to sharpen his wits, arouse his enthusiasm, build up his spirit of faith, gain definiteness of purpose, develop his power of will, and inspire his faculty of imagination to give him new uses for old ideas and concepts ... ~ Napoleon Hill

If our life lacks a constant magic it is because we choose to observe our acts and lose ourselves in consideration of their imagined form and meaning, instead of being impelled by their force. ~ Antonin Artaud

DAY 10 Thinking about My Purpose POINT TO PONDER: The heart of worship is surrender. VERSE TO REMEMBER: "Surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes." ROMANS 6:13B (TEV) QUESTION TO CONSIDER: What area of my life am I holding back from God? ~ Rick Warren

I come to a red light, tempted to go through it, then stop once I see a billboard sign that I don't remember seeing and I look up at it. All it says is 'Disappear Here' and even though it's probably an ad for some resort, it still freaks me out a little and I step on the gas really hard and the car screeches as I leave the light. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

I've always said there's no hope without endeavor. Hope has no meaning unless we are prepared to work to realize our hopes and dreams but in order to that we do need to have friends. We need those who believe in us. Friends are those who believe in us and who want to help us whatever it is that we are trying to achieve. ~ Aung San Suu Kyi

A row of trees far away, there on the hillside.
But what is it, a row of trees? It's just trees.
Row and the plural trees aren't things, they're names. ~ Alberto Caeiro

... consider the meaning of these images. Every time you're working with them, ask yourself: what do they mean? And, even more important, what do they mean to me? The more specific and personal something is, the more its universality emerges. ~ Fiona Wood

A name with meaning could bring up a child,
Taking the child out of the parents' hands.
Better a meaningless name, I should say,
As leaving more to nature and happy chance.
Name children some names and see what you do. ~ Robert Frost

As Sidda joined Vivi in staring out into the darkness of the fields, where hundreds of sunflowers grew, she thought: I will never fully know my mother, any more than I will ever know my father or Connor, or myself. I have been missing the point. The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others into our hearts? ~ Rebecca Wells

The inside jokes have already dissolved into unordered words with no punchline. The gifts have been reduced to objects whose saving grace is their monetary value, no meaning and all function. There are photographs, somewhere, but I'm not the person posed in them anymore and whoever that is sitting next to me, all dressed up in your costume and wearing your mask, well, that's not you either. ~ Stephanie Georgopulos

In which the meaning of myth, its value and expression are elaborated ~ Anonymous

Generate great impressions. This is a direct result of setting higher standards for yourself in your speech, dress, living environment, grooming, etiquette, study, research and commitment. ~ Archibald Marwizi

Human life has no meaning independent of itself. There is no cosmic force or deity to give it meaning or significance. There is no ultimate destiny for man. Such a belief is an illusion of humankind's infancy. The meaning of life is what we choose to give it. Meaning grows out of human purposes alone. Nature provides us with an infinite range of opportunities, but it is only our vision and our action that select and realize those that we desire. ~ Paul Kurtz

The world truly is my oyster, the difficulty is... I haven't discovered the ALL of the tools to shuck it yet. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.