Powerful Meaning Quotes

A great thinker does not necessarily have to discover a master idea but has to rediscover and to affirm a true but forgotten, ignored or misunderstood master idea and interpret it in all the diverse aspects of thought not previously done, in a powerful and consistent way, despite surrounding ignorance and opposition. This criterion we think would include all prophets and their true followers among the Muslim scholars. He is both a great and original thinker who brings new meanings and interpretations to old ideas, thereby providing both continuity and originality to the important intellectual and cultural problems of his time and through it, of mankind. Thus the brilliant interpretations of scholars and sages like al-Ghazali and Mulla Sadra then, and Iqbal and al-Attas now, deserve to be recognized and acknowledged as manifesting certain qualities of greatness and originality. ~ Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud

The tape measures and weighing scales of the Victorian brain scientists have been supplanted by powerful neuroimaging technologies, but there is still a lesson to be learned from historical examples such as these. State-of-the-art brain scanners offer us unprecedented information about the structure and working of the brain. But don't forget that, once, wrapping a tape measure around the head was considered modern and sophisticated, and it's important not to fall into the same old traps. As we'll see in later chapters, although certain popular commentators make it seem effortlessly easy, the sheer complexity of the brain makes interpreting and understanding the meaning of any sex differences we find in the brain a very difficult task. But the first, and perhaps surprising, issue in sex differences research is that of knowing which differences are real and which, like the intially promising cephalic index, are flukes or spurious. ~ Cordelia Fine

The purpose in life is not just to work a
good-paying job but actually have
meaning and purpose to what you're doing
with your life
and deep inside the heart of every
American is the love honor courage and ideals that form the foundation of this country.
Love is not just a feeling
its a powerful force that drives us to act
there is no force more powerful than love
we must stand up and we must fight for
the soul of our culture We Have No Time to Waste. ~ Tulsi Gabbard

Dreaming isn't as simple as it seems. On the contrary, it can be quite dangerous. When we dream, we put powerful engines in motion and can no longer hide the true meaning of our life from ourselves. When we dream, we also make a choice of what price to pay. Now. The longer I take, the more suffering I'll cause us both. ~ Paulo Coelho

My problem is that I still believe that love actually does exist when clearly it doesn't. Love today is just an Idea, a word that people toss around and with time has broken it's meaning. The real mean of love now a days is "APPRECIATION" a word that should be use to describe the feeling that most people have, but is not powerful enough to get someone into bed! ~ Jonathan Antonio Tom

More powerful than drugs, than God or death or fear itself, are stories. With less instinct than any flatworm, we look for them to tell us what to do, how to behave, how we're going to end up. There're plenty of atheists in foxholes, but none without a personal mythology that gives them meaning. When life seems long and meaningless, stories make it short and exciting, make every accident into a test, into enemy action, into a Plot. ~ Anonymous

Scripture has at its core such a powerful mythology that even the residue of that mythology is still sufficient to serve as an exacting control mechanism for some people. It provides, first of all, a theory about the meaning of life and therefore rules on how one is to conduct oneself. ~ Neil Postman

What are humans meant to do; why are we here? Are we a mutation on the earth destroying its host? Are we a cancer destined to kill what supports us? I think not. So exploring this question is a powerful exercise in meaning; what is the meaning of human existence? ~ David W. Earle

He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague ... He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightening on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

The earth is alive. There are places on the earth that are very powerful. Meaning that on another dimensional level, there is an interfacing dimension where there is a crossover point between dimensions and a tremendous amount of energy is passing back and forth. ~ Frederick Lenz

The powerful questions of life produce a dynamic dualism, which interplay creates the operatic structure that we must operate. Can the flesh and spirit coexist? Can inner despair and renewed optimism reside under the same roof? Can we harness humankind's wretchedness in order to broker its salvation? Should all people seek out perfection or work to accept their fallibility? Should I eschew pain or embrace suffering? Do I cave into the meaningless of my life or actively rebel against the patent absurdity of human existence? ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Magic must have meaning to hold power. You must believe in your
magic or it is useless. Focus is the key. Focus your mind and your spirit.
You must have a strong will to do what you must. Doubt causes weakness.
Weakness causes doubt. Fear cripples us. Believe in your power and you
will become powerful. ~ Cynthia Stacey

In the year 2024 the most important single thing which the cinema will have helped in a large way to accomplish will be that of eliminating from the face of the civilised world all armed conflict. Pictures will be the most powerful factor in bringing about this condition. With the use of the universal language of moving pictures the true meaning of the brotherhood of man will have been established throughout the earth. ~ D.W. Griffith

We can start working with time, if you wish, till you can fly the past and the future. And then you will be ready to begin the most difficult, the most powerful, the most fun of all. You will be ready to BEGIN to fly up and know the meaning of kindness and of love ~ Richard Bach

That which should distinguish the suffering of believers from unbelievers is the confidence that our suffering is under the control of an all-powerful and all-loving God. Our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good. ~ Jerry Bridges

And I think a long time ago there were big stories. Stories so big you could live your whole life in them. The Powerful Hands of the Gods and Fate. The Journey to Enlightenment. The March of Socialism. But they all died or the world grew up or grew senile or forgot them, so now we're making up our own stories. Little stories. But we've each got one. ~ Mark Ravenhill

We have been cut off from our souls in the West, and because romantic love has become our religion, we think we can find fulfillment through this extraordinary and powerful force that draws us into an illusion of permanence. Passion makes us feel alive, makes us sing, makes us feel in touch with something powerful and wonderful, just as it would if we followed this meaning in life in a more spiritual practice. In the West it is often through such relationships, through another human being, that we search desperately for something, not knowing it is to be found within ourselves. ~ Sarah Bartlett

[H]e found poetry more comforting than Scripture - and his ability to forge from his life a cogent, powerful tale of living with death. ~ Paul Kalanithi

It was a very costly love. A very powerful love. A very rugged, painful love. The meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this love. "God so loved ... " And wonder of wonders, God gives this costly love to an undeserving world of sinners, like us. ~ John Piper

The being of God is being-itself. The being of God cannot be understood as the existence of a being alongside others or above others. If God is a being, he is subject to the categories of finitude, especially to space and substance. Even if he is called the "highest being" in the sense of the "most perfect" and the "most powerful" being, this situation is not changed. When applied to God, superlatives become diminutives. They place him on the level of other beings while elevating him above all of them. Many theologians who have used the term "highest being" have known better. Actually they have described the highest as the absolute, as that which is on a level qualitatively different from the level of any being - even the highest being. Whenever infinite or unconditional power and meaning are attributed to the highest being, it has ceased to be a being and has become being-itself. Many confusions in the doctrine of God and many apologetic weaknesses could be avoided if God were understood first of all as being-itself or as the ground of being. The power of being is another way of expressing the same thing in a circumscribing phrase. Ever since the time of Plato it has been known - although it often has been disregarded, especially by the nominalists and their modern followers - that the concept of being as being, or being-itself, points to the power inherent in everything, the power of resisting nonbeing. Therefore, instead of saying that God is first of all being-itself, it ~ Paul Tillich

There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power (as "the powerful," "the masters," "the commanders") or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as "the rich," "the possessors" (this is the meaning of 'Arya,' and of corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic). ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Technologies are not merely aids to human activity, but also powerful forces acting to reshape that activity and its meaning. ~ Langdon Winner

Bliss is doing that which fulfills you. Action that touches you deeply and fully. Bliss is active. Bliss is...following your dreams, desires, or heart. Bliss is that deep, fulfilling, sustainable, driving need you have. That thing that is the true "you."Your bliss is your life's purpose. Your bliss gives your otherwise meaningless life meaning. When you are following your bliss you are powerful and empowered. You are focused and the universe is waiting to help you. ~ Angie Karan

I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking. ~ Paul Simon

I came to realize that this was about more than not offering up what some of his opponents craved - the picture of the angry black man, or the lectures on race that fuel a sense of grievance among white voters. Obama also didn't want to offer up gauzy words to make well-meaning white people feel better. The fact that he was a black president wasn't going to bring life back to an unarmed black kid who was shot, or alter structural inequities in housing, education, and incarceration in our states and cities. It wasn't going to change the investment of powerful interests in a system that sought to deny voting rights, or to cast people on food stamps working minimum wage jobs as "takers," incapable of making it on their own. The "last person who ever thought that Barack Obama's election was going to bring racial reconciliation and some "end of race" in America was Barack Obama. That was a white person's concept imposed upon his campaign. I know because I was once one of them, taking delight in writing words about American progress, concluding in the applause line "And that is why I can stand before you as president of the United States." But he couldn't offer up absolution for America's racial sins, or transform American society in four or eight years. ~ Ben Rhodes

When Akira had recited the haiku to me the first time, I had been confused, thinking it compared love to storm clouds because they were capricious and fleeting. Perhaps love was capricious and fleeting, but that was not the true meaning of the poem. The true meaning was this: that love, when it came, was powerful enough to transform everything. Anything. Even the unchanging, ever-changing face of the Moon herself. ~ Zoe Marriott

Everything counts for gain when we are cosmically awake. Nothing counts, unless we are awake. No enjoyments last, no successes satisfy, no gains have meaning unless accomplished in a state of wakefulness. ~ Henry David Thoreau

In preparing for this ceremony," Kai said, setting the bouquet on the mantel behind him, "I did some research and learned that the word Alpha has held many meanings across history. Alpha can refer to the first of something," said Kai, "or the beginning of everything. It can be attributed to a particularly powerful or charismatic person, or it can signify the dominant leader in a pack of animals, most notably, of course, wolves." His serious expression tweaked briefly into a teasing smile. "It has meanings in chemistry, physics, and even astronomy, where it describes the brightest star in a constellation. But it seems clear that Ze'ev and Scarlet have created their own definition for the word, and their relationship has given this word a new meaning for all of us. Being an Alpha means that you'll stand against all adversity to be with your mate. It means accepting each other, both for your strengths and your flaws. It means forging your own path to happiness and to love. ~ Marissa Meyer

I highly recommend Marci Alboher's One Person/ Multiple Careers. It includes lots of practical strategies for living the slash. Malcom Gladwell is also a constant source of inspiration for me. In his book Outliers, Gladwell proposes that there are three criteria for meaningful work - complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward - and that these can often be found in creative work.2 These criteria absolutely fit with what cultivating meaningful work means in the context of the Wholehearted journey. Last, I think everyone should read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist3 - I try to read it at least once a year. It's a powerful way of seeing the connections between our gifts, our spirituality, and our work (slashed or not) and how they come together to create meaning in our lives. ~ Brene Brown

Metaphors are one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal as a presenter. In today's fast-paced world of communication, a well-thought-out metaphor acts as a shortcut to meaning. ~ Bruna Martinuzzi

Churchgoers all across the nation say the Holy Spirit has entered them. They claim that God has given them a supernatural ability to follow Christ, put their sin to death, and serve the church. Christians talk about being born again say that they they were dead but now have come to life. We have become hardened to those words, but they are powerful words that have significant meaning. Yet when those outside the church see no difference in our lives, they begin to question our integrity, out sanity, or even worse, our God. And can you blame them? ~ Francis Chan

The myth of Oedipus . . . arouses powerful intellectual and emotional reactions in the adult-so much so, that it may provide a cathartic experience, as Aristotle taught all tragedy does. [A reader] may wonder why he is so deeply moved; and in responding to what he observes as his emotional reaction, ruminating about the mythical events and what these mean to him, a person may come to clarify his thoughts and feelings. With this, certain inner tensions which are the consequence of events long past may be relieved; previously unconscious material can then enter one's awareness and become accessible for conscious working through. This can happen if the observer is deeply moved emotionally by the myth, and at the sametime strongly motivated intellectually to understand it. ~ Bruno Bettelheim

I know in my heart the dream will be realized. I choose to believe. And choosing is a powerful thing. It's available to you at every moment. You can choose understanding over anger, believing over nonbelieving, action over inaction. It gives meaning to every choice we make. ~ Yolanda King

Imparting trust, the real meaning of delegation, is a powerful thing. ~ Scott Berkun

Ideas more than once have prevailed against naked power. Guns and aircraft alone do not make a state powerful. Unless force is backed up by the will of the great body of people it loses its meaning. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

Thank you, for creating this vast and flexible playground. Thank you for creating one of the twentieth century's most popular myths, a gift that has brought billions of happy viewing hours at a critical time in world history, a time when perhaps, we need more than ever to blieve in honor, sacrifice, heart, and that special magic called life itself.
As long as I live I will never forget The Moment when Luke Skywalker flew so desperately into the Death Star's trench, John William's score soaring magnificently, and the audience overwhelmed by Industrial Light and Magic's mind-bending inaugural. At that pulse-pounding moment, a moment when it seemed the individual human being could have no point or purpose, no meaning in a universe so vast and cybernetic, we heard Obi-Wan Kenobi whisper that we should trust our feelings.
The Force flows through us. It controls us. We control it. Life creates it. It is more powerful than any Death Star.
Hundreds of millions of people said yes, and sighed, and applauded, and went home or turned off their videos feeling just a little more empowered than they did before the lights went down and the Twentieth Century-Fox fanfare came up.
No small feat.
May the Force be with you, Mr. Lucas.
And with us all. Always". ~ Steven Barnes

Th communique repeated the information. "He went to the body of his wife and wouldn't leave it, although she was dead."
How strange. why didn't he run and save his own hide? What made him go back? is it possible that he loved her? Is it possible that he wanted to hold her in his arms one last time? Is it possible that he needed to cry and grieve? Is it possible that he felt the stupidity of war? Is it possible that he felt the injustice of fate? Is it possible that he thought of children, born or unborn? Is it possible that he didn't care what become of him now?
It's possible. We don't know. Or at least we don't know for certain. But we can guess. His actions answer.
And so h sits alone in a prison. Not a "Russian" or a "Communist" or "solider" or "enemy" or any of these categories. Just-a-man who cared for just-a-woman for just-a-time more than anything else.
Here's to you, Nicolai Pestretsov, wherever you may go and be, for giving powerful meaning to the promises that are the same everywhere; for dignifying that covenant that is the same in any language - "for better or for worse, in good times and bad, in sickness and in health, to love and honor and cherish unto death, so help me God." You kept the faith; kept it bright - kept it shining. Bless you! ~ Robert Fulghum

The common meaning of gratitude is to be thankful for benefits received. While this is important, I feel that the energy of gratitude is one of the most powerful attracting forces in the universe. A heart filled with Thanksgiving, even when appearances tell us that we are mired in scarcity, conflict, and affliction, moves us to a higher frequency in consciousness and we soon witness reality shining through the illusion. ~ John Randolph Price

Medical science in particular will get exponentially better, especially once computers will be powerful enough to digitally simulate entire human brains, meaning medical experiments that would normally take years can be digitally run taking only hours. ~ Benjamin Stone

Perhaps there is a provisional solution to this epistemological mess, which is to be located in the phrase it is as if. This phrase is of course precisely the announcement of an analogy. And on reflection, it is admittedly a halting problem, but jumping out of it, there is something quite suggestive and powerful in this formulation, something very specifically human. Possibly this formulation itself is the deep diagnostic of all human cognition - the tell, as they say, meaning the thing that tells, the giveaway. In the infinite black space of ignorance, it is as if stands as the basic operation of cognition, the mark perhaps of consciousness itself. Human language: it is as if it made sense. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea. He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care for me.) When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry, he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags. Without him, I am only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace. He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. He has promised to wait for me... whenever... wherever - in case I need him. And I expect I will - as I always have. He is just my dog. ~ Gene Hill

The mind creates so many temptations - so alluring they are, so magnetic is their power - that unless you are in the power-field of someone whose magnetism is far more powerful than any other kind of temptation, it is impossible to reach. That is the meaning of disciplehood. ~ Rajneesh

Deronda ... gave himself up to that strongest effect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal meaning ... The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is the prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape from the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good to enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of gladness, a Gloria in excelsis that such Good exists; both the yearning and the exultation gathering their utmost force from the sense of communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long generations of struggling fellow-men. ~ George Eliot

You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It's more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that's all you get. You're probably not compatible with them for anything long term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don't plan long term because if we do we'll just get our hearts broken. It's best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it. I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. ~ Linda Tirado

Love, in all its fragile forms, is the one powerful, enduring force that brings real meaning to our everyday lives ... but the love I mean is the fire that burns inside us all, the inner warmth that prevents our soul from freezing in the winters of despair. ~ Bradley Trevor Greive

Emotional and psychological pain were to become, perhaps, the most powerful force in molding the course of my life. For some people, pain and hurt breed bitterness and cynicism. For others it causes them to look deeply into themselves and into life itself in an attempt to understand the meaning beneath seemingly capricious or arbitrary happenings. ~ Joseph Girzone

Diabolical error, when it has artfully colored its lies, easily clothes itself in the likeness of truth while very brief additions or changes corrupt the meaning of expressions; and confession, which usually works salvation, sometimes, with a slight change, inches toward death. ~ Pope Clement XIII

A mothers Love is as deep and powerful as any ocean, in the depths of it forgiveness forever is found for her wandering child. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

A change of perspective may be all it takes to transform a painful experience into a powerful growth experience. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

The word is a thing of mystery, so volatile that it vanishes almost on the lip, yet so powerful that it decides fates and determines the meaning of existence. A frail structure shaped by fleeting sound, it yet contains the eternal: truth. Words come from within, rising as sounds fashioned by the organs of a man's body, as expressions of his heart and spirit. He utters them, yet he does not create them, for they already existed independently of him. One word is related to another; together they form the great unity of language, that empire of truth-forms in which a man lives. ~ Romano Guardini

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

Taking the Bible seriously should mean taking politics seriously. The major voices in the Bible from beginning to end are passionate advocates of a different kind of world here on earth and here and now. Many American Christians are wary of doing this, for more than one reason. Some are so appalled by the politics of the Christian Right that they have rejected the notion that Christianity has anything to do with politics. Moreover, the word "politics" has negative associations in our time. Many think of narrowly partisan politics, as if politics is merely about party affiliation. Many also dismiss politics as petty bickering, as ego-driven struggles for power, even as basically corrupt. But there is a broader meaning of the word that is essential. This broader meaning is expressed by the linguistic root of the English word. It comes from the Greek word polis, which means "city." Politics is about the shape and shaping of "the city" and by extension of large-scale human communities: kingdoms, nations, empires, the world. In this sense, politics matters greatly: it is about the structures of a society. Who rules? In whose benefit? What is the economic system like? - fair, or skewed toward the wealthy and powerful? What are the laws and conventions of the society like? Hierarchical? Patriarchal? Racist? Xenophobic? Homophobic? For Christians, especially in a democratic society in which they are a majority, these questions matter. To abandon politics means leaving the structuring ~ Marcus J. Borg

Defeat? I do not recognize the meaning of the word. ~ Margaret Thatcher

Transcendental generosity is generally misunderstood in the study of the Buddhist scriptures as meaning being kind to someone who is lower than you. Someone has this pain and suffering and you are in a superior position and can save them - which is a very simple-minded way of looking down on someone. But in the case of the bodhisattva, generosity is not so callous. It is something very strong and powerful; it is communication.

Communication must transcend irritation, otherwise it will be like trying to make a comfortable bed in a briar patch. The penetrating qualities of external color, energy, and light will come toward us, penetrating our attempts to communicate like a thorn pricking our skin. We will wish to subdue this intense irritation and our communication will be blocked.

Communication must be radiation and receiving and exchange. Whenever irritation is involved, then we are not able to see properly and fully and clearly the spacious quality of that which is coming toward us, that which is presenting itself as communication. The external world is immediately rejected by our irritation which says, "no, no, this irritates me, go away." Such an attitude is the complete opposite of transcendental generosity.

So the bodhisattva must experience the complete communication of generosity, transcending irritation and self-defensiveness. Otherwise, when thorns threaten to prick us, we feel that we are being attacked, that we must defe ~ Chogyam Trungpa

Visions of one powerful scene after another parade across his inner screen, each exploding with drama and meaning ~ Robert Ludlum

Lieutenant Chatrand: I don't understand this omnipotent-benevolent thing.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.
Lieutenant Chatrand: Exactly.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.
Lieutenant Chatrand: I understand the concept. It's just... there seems to be a contradiction.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness...
Lieutenant Chatrand: Exactly! Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't he?
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Would He?
Lieutenant Chatrand: Well... if God Loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Do you have children?
Lieutenant Chatrand: No, signore.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Imagine you had an eight-year-old son... would you love him?
Lieutenant Chatrand: Of course.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: Would you let him skateboard?
Lieutenant Chatrand: Yeah, I guess. Sure I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca: So as this child's father, you would give him so ~ Dan Brown

The very meaning of a leader is that people must follow him. If no one follows, you cannot be a leader even if you are the most intelligent, powerful and wealthy person in the world. Interestingly, you cannot become powerful or wealthy unless you are a leader. Further, anyone who acquires wealth or power automatically becomes a leader as people tend to follow such people. ~ Awdhesh Singh

Behind these practical studies lay powerful, intertwined, and potentially contradictory beliefs: that language provides a key to the rational, scientific understanding of the world and that language is more than human speech, that it claims a divine origin and is the means by which God created the cosmos and Adam named the beasts.

As we will see, both ideas strongly influenced the Inklings, whose leading members wrote many words about the meaning of words. For Owen Barfield, language is the fossil record of the history and evolution of human consciousness; for C. S. Lewis, it is a mundane tool that "exists to communicate whatever it can communicate" but also, as in That Hideous Strength, an essential part of our metaphysical makeup for good or ill; for Charles Williams, language is power, a field of force for the magician, a vehicle of prayer for the believing Christian; for Tolkien, language is a fallen human instrument and a precious divine gift ("O felix peccatum Babel!" he exclaimed in his essay "English and Welsh"), a supreme art, and, as "Word", a name for God. ~ Philip Zaleski

she was the kind of woman who couldn't live without meaning, powerful and real meaning, in her life. ~ Sierra Simone

Is it possible that power can conquer matter, that the soul makes a mightier truth than the body, that life has a meaning that survives life itself, that good survives evil as life survives death, that God, after all, is more powerful than the Devil? ~ Frigyes Karinthy

Causes of the advent of pessimism: the most powerful desires of life have been hitherto the most slandered, so that a curse weighs on life. For we comprehend that these self-same instincts are inseparable from life, and one therefore turns against life. Whereas the mass, which has no feeling at all for this conflict, flourishes, while the conflicted type miscarries and, as a product of degeneration, invites antipathy–that the mediocre, on the other hand, when they pose as the goal and meaning of existence, arouse nausea and indignation. And the individual, faced with this tremendous machinery, loses courage and submits. The herd, the mass, 'society', unlearns modesty and blows up its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way the whole of existence is vulgarised; and in so far as the mass is dominant it bullies the exceptions, so that they lose faith in themselves and become nihilists.

The question 'for what?', after a painful struggle, even victory. That something is a hundred times more important than the question of whether we feel well or not–and consequently whether others feel well or not. The predominance of suffering over pleasure, or its opposite (hedonism) are already signposts to nihilism. For in both cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or pain. But for any worthy man, the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. A suffering might predominate, and in spite of this, a powerful ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

It shows the truth - that the real meaning of a word is only as powerful or harmless as the emotion behind it. ~ Sarah Silverman

To be a pioneer of your own life, living an existence that has purpose and meaning you must first remove the past baggage that takes up space in all of your body, home and surroundings. Clean out the core soul clutter of built up three dimensional pathways to allow yourself the energy to overcome, heal and outgrow what no longer is. We are taught that our realities are a reflection of our thoughts and emotions and that we can alter anything with the law of attraction and i couldn't disagree more. Its so much deeper than that, it'd be insanity if it were that simple. Thoughts are powerful, i believe that much but without practical steps, vision and risks towards something that sets your soul on fire; changes and adverse situations to try distract you from your truth; words are just words and the meaning we give them can vary from person to person. We attract what we give focus to, we collide with the energy we hold within ourselves, we are constant mirrors of a bio product of the enviroment in which we have not only created but accepted or tolerated, regardless of what we percieve our circumstances to be. When you can sit with that truth and hold yourself accountable for your part in the unfolding of your journey you will come to a realization of self that will guide you all the way home. Becoming a pioneer is mastering self in few aspects within the human conciousness, be the change, let the way you live be your story. ~ Nikki Rowe

Our dreams and stories may contain implicit aspects of our lives even without our awareness. In fact, storytelling may be a primary way in which we can linguistically communicate to others - as well as to ourselves - the sometimes hidden contents of our implicitly remembering minds. Stories make available perspectives on the emotional themes of our implicit memory that may otherwise be consciously unavailable to us. This may be one reason why journal writing and intimate communication with others, which are so often narrative processes, have such powerful organizing effects on the mind: They allow us to modulate our emotions and make sense of the world. ~ Daniel J. Siegel

But what does America have to do with ancient Israel? Israel was unique among nations in that it was conceived and dedicated at its foundation for the purposes of God. Ok..But there was one other - a civilization also conceived and dedicated to the will of God from its conception...America. In fact, those who laid its foundations...the Founding Fathers. No, long before the Founding Fathers. Those who laid America's foundations saw it as a new Israel, and Israel of the New World. And as with ancient Israel, they saw it as in covenant with God? Meaning? Meaning its rise or fall would be dependent on its relationship with God. If it followed His ways, America would become the most blessed, prosperous, and powerful nation on earth. From the very beninng they foretold it. And what they foretold would come true. America would rise to heights no other nation had ever known. Not that it was ever without fault or sin, but it would aspire to fuilfill its callings. What calling? To be a vessel of redemption, an instrument of God's purposes, a light to the world. It would give refuge to the world's poor and needy, and hope to its oppressed. It would stand against tyranny. It would fight, more than once, against the dark movements of the modern world that threatened to engulf the earth. ~ Jonathan Cahn

Emily felt the sweet strains of paranoia drifting back. They told her to look over her shoulder, and when she did, they told her to check the lock on the door, and when she did that, they told her that her fears had meaning and depth, and that she was right to feel them. Each shadow meant something different and strange, an unfamiliar animal or a line of weapons. These visions were terrifying, but after they went away, she felt a strange kind of peace that those things existed in the world, that her world was powerful enough to conjure them. My world, she thought. ~ Amelia Gray

Your voice is powerful. Your voice has meaning. If it didn't, people wouldn't work so hard to silence you.
Remember that. ~ Kameron Hurley

In your walks about London you will sometimes see bent, haggard figures that look as if they had recently been caught in some powerful machinery. They are those fellows who got mixed up with Catsmeat when he was meaning well. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Much of what we do arises from automatic programming that bypasses conscious awareness and may even run contrary to our intentions, as Dr. Schwartz points out:
The passive side of mental life, which is generated solely and completely by brain mechanisms, dominates the tone and tenor of our day-to-day, even our second-to-second experience. During the quotidian business of daily life, the brain does indeed operate very much as a machine does.
Decisions that we may believe to be freely made can arise from unconscious emotional drives or subliminal beliefs. They can be dictated by events of which we have no recollection. The stronger a person's automatic brain mechanisms and the weaker the parts of the brain that can impose conscious control, the less true freedom that person will be able to exercise in her life. In OCD, and in many other conditions, no matter how intelligent and well-meaning the individual, the malfunctioning brain circuitry may override rational judgment and intention. Almost any human being when overwhelmed by stress or powerful emotions, will act or react not from intention but from mechanisms that are set off deep in the brain, rather than being generated in the conscious and volitional segments of the cortex. When acting from a driven or triggered state, we are not free. ~ Gabor Mate

Story creates meaning. Coincidence, then, would seem our enemy, for it is the random, absurd collisions of things in the universe and is, by definition, meaningless. And yet coincidence is a part of life, often a powerful part, rocking existence, then vanishing as absurdly as it arrived. The solution, therefore, is not to avoid coincidence, but to dramatize how it may enter life meaninglessly, but in time gain meaning, how the anti-logic of randomness becomes the logic of life-as-lived. ~ Robert McKee

Sex endows the individual with a dumb and powerful instinct, which carries his body and soul continually towards another, makes it one of the dearest employments of his life to select and pursue a companion, and joins to possession the keenest pleasure, to rivalry the fiercest rage, and to solicitude an eternal melancholy. What more could be needed to suffuse the world with the deepest meaning and beauty? ~ George Santayana

It is difficult to return to the places of one's early happiness. The young girls in the flower of their youth
still laugh and chatter on the seashore, but he who watches them gradually loses his right to love them,
just as those he has loved lose the power to be loved. This melancholy is the melancholy of Proust. It was
powerful enough in him to cause a violent rejection of all existence. But his passion for faces and for the
light attached him at the same time to life. He never admitted that the happy days of his youth were lost
forever. He undertook the task of re-creating them and of demonstrating, in the face of death, that the past
could be regained at the end of time in the form of an imperishable present, both truer and richer than it
was at the beginning. The psychological analysis of Remembrance of Things Past is nothing but a potent
means to an end. The real greatness of Proust lies in having written Time Regained, which resembles the
world of dispersion and which gives it a meaning on the very level of integration. His difficult victory, on
the eve of his death, is to have been able to extract from the incessant flight of forms, by means of
memory and intelligence alone, the tentative trembling symbols of human unity. The most definite
challenge that a work of this kind can give to creation is to present itself as an entirety, as a closed and
unified world. This defines an unrepentant work of art. ~ Albert Camus

The scientific creation story has majesty, power and beauty. and is infused with a powerful message capable of lifting our spirits in a way that its multitudinous supernatural counterparts are incapable of matching. It teaches us that we are the products of 13.7 billion years of cosmic evolution and the mechanism by which meaning entered the universe, if only for a fleeting moment in time. Because the universe means something to me, and the fact that we are all agglomerations of quarks and electrons in a complex and fragile pattern that can perceive the beauty of the universe with visceral wonder, is, I think, a thought worth raising a glass to this Christmas. ~ Brian Cox

Data matters. It's the very essence of what we care about. Personal data is not equivalent to a real person - it's much better. It takes no space, costs almost nothing to maintain, lasts forever, and is far easier to replicate and transport. Data is worth more than its weight in gold - certainly so, since data weighs nothing; it has no mass. Data about a person is not as valuable as the person, but since the data is so much cheaper to manage, it's a far better investment. Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, points out that a user's data can be purchased for about half a cent, but the average user's value to the Internet advertising ecosystem is estimated at $1,200 per year. Data's value - its power, its meaning - is the very thing that also makes it sensitive. The more data, the more power. The more powerful the data, the more sensitive. So the tension we're feeling is unavoidable. ~ Eric Siegel

the word, 'before,' has the meaning of what is right in front of you, as well as the idea of something that happened in the past....thus it is a word with a beautiful duality, and with in itself carries such a powerful meaning: live each moment before it is too late and you can no longer...and cherish all you have right before you now, because you never know when it will all be gone, all gone before you can even blink, *poof* just like that... ~ Bodhi Smith

Things do not have meaning. We assign meaning to everything. ~ Tony Robbins

The key to this risotto is Japanese peppers of all things?!"
"It's sharp, refreshing aroma highlights the mellow body of the cheese... while making the eel's umami flavor flash like an explosion!"
"And that one key ingredient that quietly ties it all together...
... is garlic!"
"Garlic?! In traditional Japanese cuisine?! That's almost unheard of!"
"Those are special smoked garlic chips a junior of mine made. They were smoked using wood from a walnut tree, which is known to emphasize seafood flavors well. By lightly crushing those chips and sprinkling them on as a topping, I added a pleasantly crunchy texture to the dish.
But the most critical feature of my dish... is that I broiled the eel using the Kansai region Kabayaki style. Unlike the Kanto region style, there's no steaming step. Leaving all that oil in gives the eel a more fragrant aroma with a heavier texture and stronger flavor...
... meaning it pairs much more naturally with a flavor as powerful as garlic. *Steaming the eel makes much of its natural oil seep out, leaving the flesh light and fluffy.*
But what makes these chips so extraordinary... is that they're infused with Ibusaki's earnest passion and the pure sweat of his helpers, Aoki and Sato. There's no way they could not be delicious!"
"Ew! Don't say they're infused with sweat! That's gross!"
"This much alone is already an impressively polished gourmet course. What's in store for us in that teapot?"
"That ~ Yuto Tsukuda

Our job, then, is two-fold: to focus on our own failings as writers. But also to speak more forcefully as advocates for literature. Books are a powerful antidote for loneliness, for the moral purposelessness of the leisure class. It's our job to convince the 95 percent of people who don't read books, who instead medicate themselves in front of screens, that literary art isn't some esoteric tradition, but a direct path to meaning, to an understanding of the terror that lives beneath our consumptive ennui. ~ Steve Almond

Human relations tend to be more difficult when you're dealing with someone who weighs 30 kilograms more than you do. That's when you worry about whether a well-meaning gesture could produce complications. We have no problems with countries like Madagascar or Bolivia, for example. But Germany is our neighbor and we have a shared past. Besides, Germany is powerful and ambitious and more than four times as large as we are. It makes complete sense that we would act cautiously. It's simply Realpolitik. ~ Vaclav Klaus

The word dysfunction has, I think, served its purpose and now has lost its meaning. Every family, like every person, is imperfect, after all. The idea that there is a family somewhere who functions, is an odd concept. In my youth I was running from my family to try to find out who I was-their influence distracted me. Now I see what a powerful hold they have, no matter what. ~ Susan Minot

Stephen King is a powerful guy, will powerful vocabulary. ~ Deyth Banger

What genuine painters do is to reveal the underlying psychological and spiritual conditions of their relationship to their world; thus in the works of a great painter we have a reflection of the emotional and spiritual condition of human beings in that period of history. If you wish to understand the psychological and spiritual temper of any historical period, you can do no better than to look long and searchingly at its art. For in the art the underlying spiritual meaning of the period is expressed directly in symbols. This is not because artists are didactic or set out to teach or to make propaganda; to the extend that they do, their power of expression is broken; their direct relations to the inarticulate, or, if you will, 'unconscious' levels of the culture is destroyed. They have the power to reveal the underlying meaning of any period precisely because the essence of art is the powerful and alive encounter between the artist and his or her world. (pg 52) ~ Rollo May

An author who integrates alien signs into the medial surface of his own texts - signs behind which we presume the existence of other powerful, submedial subjects "as authors" - does not increase the comprehensibility of that text. Yet nonetheless, he increases the magical effectiveness this text exudes. Such quotations lead us to presume that the text houses a dangerous, manipulative subject, a magician with enough power to manipulate the signs of other powerful magicians and able to use them strategically for his own purposes. Thus an author who quotes alien signs conveys a stronger impression of powerful authorship than one who ad- vocates precisely his so-called own ideas - which do not interest anybody precisely because they are only his own. It is also well known that one may not quote the same author too often, in which case quoting gradu- ally looses its magical power and begins to irritate the reader. The reason for this gradual decrease of a quote's magical effectiveness is that it looses its strangeness over time and gets integrated into the medial surface of a text, thereby becoming a proper part of it. In order to maintain their magical effect, quotes have to be exchanged constantly so as to continue to maintain the same appearance of foreignness and freshness. The quote functions as a magical fetish that lends the entire text a hidden, submedial power beyond its superficial meaning. ~ Boris Groys

Everything on our earth - both the simple and the complicated questions, both the little human problems and the challenges of finding the great path to God, all the secrets of the past, the present, and the future ages - all can be resolved only by such mysterious, ineffably beautiful and omnipotent humility. And even if we cannot understand its truth and meaning, and even if it seems for now that we are not ready for this mysterious and all-powerful humility, nonetheless, that humility by itself will reveal itself to us through those incredible persons who are capable of possessing it. ~ Tikhon Shevkunov

I became totally absorbed into this forest existence. It was an unparalleled period when aloneness was a way of life; a perfect opportunity, it might seem, for meditating on the meaning of existence and my role in it all. But I was far too busy learning about the chimpanzees'lives to worry about the meaning of my own. I had gone to Gombe to accomplish a specific goal, not to pursue my early preoccupation with philosophy and religion. Nevertheless, those months at Gombe helped to shape the person I am today-I would have been insensitive indeed if the wonder and the endless fascination of my new world had not had a major impact on my thinking. All the time I was getting closer to animals and nature, and as a result, closer to myself and more and more in tune with the spiritual power that I felt all around. For those who have experienced the joy of being alone with nature there is really little need for me to say much more; for those who have not, no words of mine can even describe the powerful, almost mystical knowledge of beauty and eternity that come, suddenly, and all unexpected. The beauty was always there, but moments of true awareness were rare. They would come, unannounced; perhaps when I was watching the pale flush preceding dawn; or looking up through the rustling leaves of some giant forest tree into the greens and browns and the black shadows and the occasionally ensured bright fleck of blue sky; or when I stood, as darkness fell, with one hand on the still warm trun ~ Jane Goodall

People don't know anymore why we've had eight years of war. Why their children have died ... This entire war was just a big setup to destroy both the Iranian and the Iraqi armies. The former was the most powerful in the Middle East in 1980, and the latter represented a real danger to Israel. The West sold weapons to both camps and we, we were stupid enough to enter into this cynical game ... eight years of war for nothing! So now the state names streets after martyrs to flatter the families of the victims. In this way, perhaps, they'll find some meaning in all this absurdity. ~ Marjane Satrapi

By 1850, the pauper funeral had become perhaps the dominant representation of that vulnerability, of the possibility of falling irrevocably from the grace of society, of exclusion from the values of one's culture. It was an image that worked on the poor; they would, as one observer put it, "sell their beds out from under them sooner than have parish funerals." Anxiety about pauper burial did not, of course, stand alone in drawing - pushing might be the better verb - the poor into industrial civilization, but ignominious burial was one of the most powerful ways in which the relationship between money and standing was made manifest, a metaphor for the meaning of consumption, a vehicle for the creation of desire that made the new economic order possible. ~ Thomas W. Laqueur

In marked contrast to the relaxed, typically Latin attitude of the Dominicans the Protestant missionaries were still proceeding at full blast with the fight for souls. These North American evangelists of strictly fundamentalist inclination combined in a curious fashion strict adhesion to the literal meaning of the Old Testament With mastery of the most modern technology. Most of them came from small towns in the Bible Belt, armed with unshakably clear consciences and a rudimentary smattering of theology, convinced that they alone were the repositories of Christian values now abolished elsewhere. Totally ignorant of the vast world, despite their transplantation, and taking the few articles of morality accepted in the rural Amenca of their childhoods to be a universal credo, they strove bravely to spread these principles of salvation all around them.
Their rustic faith was well served by a flotilla of light aircraft, a powerful radio, an ultra-modern hospital and four-wheel-drive vehicles -- in short, all the equipment that a battalion of crusaders dropped behind enemy lines needed. ~ Philippe Descola

Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear, "Salaam." Then, red-faced, he turned away and walked to his own bed at the back of the barracks. Ender guessed that the kiss and the word were somehow forbidden. A suppressed religion, perhaps. Or maybe the word had some private and powerful meaning for Alai alone. ~ Orson Scott Card

God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God's power but mankind's freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning. ~ Peter Kreeft

When I was young and growing up overweight, I believed the "eaten" was more powerful than the "eater," meaning the food was more powerful than I was. ~ Daphne Oz

Oh, and get this. Gideon married Scarlet, the keeper of Nightmares." "You're kidding." Fickle Gideon? Married? Scarlet was gorgeous, yeah, and feisty as hell. Powerful, too. And Gideon had been a tad bit obsessed with her when she'd been locked in their dungeon. But marriage? Everyone in the fortress had lost IQ points, it seemed. "He couldn't have waited until I got back to sign on for double occupancy?" Strider mumbled. "What a great friend." "No one was invited to the ceremony, if you catch my meaning." "Well, the decision to get hitched is gonna give him nightmares." Strider snickered. "Get it? Nightmares?" "Har, har. You're a borderline fucktard, you know that?" "Hey, ~ Gena Showalter

Steps can be special and mysterious, taking on a metaphorical quality as they become a powerful way to define the truth. The concept of "taking one's first step" is often overrated. After
taking a first step, no one ever stops cold. It is the succession of steps moving forward with a purpose that has true meaning in our lives. ~ Patricia Vaccarino

The past is always with us. It echoes through every living moment, giving it depth and meaning beyond itself. Sometimes the past is so powerful, those echoes threaten to overwhelm the present. ~ Trish Feehan