Search For Meaning Quotes

Life, just like the stars, the planets and the galaxies, is just a temporary structure on the long road from order to disorder. But that doesn't make us insignificant, because we are the Cosmos made conscious. Life is the means by which the universe understands itself. And for me, our true significance lies in our ability to understand and explore this beautiful universe. ~ Brian Cox

Man actually needs the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. ~ Joseph Campbell

The tension between religion and science is an old problem. In the fourth century, Christians and scientists were deadlocked over the matter of the earth's shape. Saint Augustine, a wise man who knew the difference between the outer life and the inner life, wrote: 'What concern is it of mine whether heaven is like a sphere and the earth is enclosed by it and suspended in the middle of the universe, or whether heaven like a disk above the earth covers it over on one side? These facts would be of no avail for my salvation.' Augustine attached little importance to science and left it alone. If a reading of the Bible conflicted with a scientific view that was certain truth, he humbly admitted that he had interpreted the Bible erroneously. He could afford to be humble, for in his inmost convictions he looked upon science the way a master looks upon his pet, as a creature with intelligence but lacking in higher understanding, and something irrelevant to the search for meaning in life. ~ Ronald W. Dworkin

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer [ ... ] his unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Nothing changes everything. ~ Jonathan Marcus

The novel used to feed our search for meaning. Quoting Bill. It was the great secular transcendence. The Latin mass of language, character, occasional new truth. But our desperation has led us toward something larger and darker. So we turn to the news, which provides an unremitting mood of catastrophe. This is where we find emotional experience not available elsewhere. We don't need the novel. Quoting Bill. We don't even need catastrophes, necessarily. We only need the reports and predictions and warnings. ~ Don DeLillo

even admirable human desires for love, for belonging, and for meaning can be manipulated by unscrupulous individuals to benefit themselves ~ Noah Berlatsky

There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Mortals search for what they are unable to give, what they lack within themselves. ~ Emma Raveling

For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

And sure enough, there it was,
not the sought-after needle, but,
to my agreeable astonishment,
the haystack in the field by the lane. ~ Robert Kroetsch

We don't widely accept the idea that bad things happen for uncontrollable reasons because of fear. How could that be? If that is true, we can't make sense of it with our cognitive brains. And that is scary. If that is true, there is no way for us to control those things while in human form. And that is scary. So we search for meaning, a less scary understanding. And we usually end up assuming the victim is to blame. ~ Elisabeth Corey

Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

One of the credos of my life is taken from Viktor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who was a psychiatrist and author. In his highly influential book, Man's Search for Meaning, he related that after the war someone asked him if he 'hated the German race.' He responded that he did not because in his view, 'There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.' That is how I divide the world. Not between Muslim and non-Muslim, black and white, or American and non-American, but between the decent and indecent. The issues I raise about Islam are not about the decency of Muslims, but about whether Islam in its traditional Islamist configuration is more or less likely than the American value system to produce good societies. ~ Dennis Prager

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It may happen that we miss people that we took care of more than we miss those who took care of us, because the desire to love and the search for meaning, together, are stronger than the desire to be loved. ~ Luigina Sgarro

The search for meaning was the cornerstone of human disquiet ~ Blake Crouch

Most important pursuit in history: the search for meaning. ~ John Green

Consciously or not, we are all on a quest for answers, trying to learn the lessons of life. We grapple with fear and guilt. We search for meaning, love, and power. We try to understand fear, loss, and time. We seek to discover who we are and how we can become truly happy. ~ Elisabeth Kubler Ross

I just didn't know where I fit in - I didn't seem to fit in my parent's generation. I didn't seem to fit in my own generation. Little by little, this took me into a spiritual search for understanding; a search for meaning and fulfillment. ~ Radhanath Swami

On Philosophy:
It's the search for meaning that has value, not the meaning itself.
All problems are solvable if a problem is a question that can't be shown not to have a solution.
To those with burning passion, follow it; to those of lessor passion, fill a need. ~ Kalifer Deil

Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Teaching involves a search for meaning in the world. Teaching is a life project, a calling, a vocation that is an organizing center of all other activities. Teaching is past and future as well as present, it is background as well as foreground, it is depth as well as surface. Teaching is pain and humor, joy and anger, dreariness and epiphany. Teaching is world building, it is architecture and design, it is purpose and moral enterprise. Teaching is a way of being in the world that breaks through the boundaries of the traditional job and in the process redefines all life and teaching itself. (p. 130) ~ Nancy Fichtman Dana

The overall theme of theology can be twofold: the search for meaning and the responsibility one has to the others. ~ Namsoon Kang

[Your] search for meaning in the world ... can only really be fulfilled by the greater purpose that has sent [you] here in the first place. ~ The New Message From God

Not that long ago I wrote in a poem that 'life is so filled with meaning, there is no reason to try to reduce it'. That is how I feel and have felt like for years. Some sense of meaninglessness can come from an attack from others, at times subconscious, slowly but surely eroding one's self-respect and therefore sense of self, on all the meanings, infinite as they are, that are already right there. You can even be "raised" to do this self-destructive work yourself. The so called absurdity of life is a construction that creates a template for meaninglessness in itself. Humans revolting in this way against self-made systems. Perhaps to remove some responsibility of being human, because it is, wrongly, seen as a burden. What is truly a burden is to feel as if nothing in life is important. It is also the easiest thing to do. If you don't find meaning in for instance seeing a black squirrel running up the trunk of a tree, you probably won't find any meaning in travelling to the end of the world. It is a kind of explanatory greed this "search for meaning" that can literally destroy a world, and it is the equivalent of replacing the deepest of life's mysteries with a nice looking garage. To numb before being looked at and experienced as a kind of totally lost "translation" is how the written language can be used at its worst. Meaning is already everywhere, expressing, unfolding itself, living and dying, changing and breathing. The noise distracting from that is what is meaningless bu ~ Rune Kjær Rasmussen

The inexorable search for a stanza of meaning hangs like a thundercloud over the troposphere of humankind's prosaic existence. A dithering sense of loss engulfs us. Humankind's unattainable desire to achieve a slice of perfection generates a suspenseful haze of doom. A lingering stab of incompleteness coupled with the tantalizing riddles of fate are inalterably interlinked and imbued in all thinking people's tormented soul. This cross coalescence of unattainable longing melds with the mystic tinged edges of uncertainty, spawned by the unanswerable questions posed by fate, fomenting a dialectical dissonance that distinguishes and ultimately exemplifies the arc of humankind's plaintive subsistence. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Anybody who has done high school physics knows Newton's Third Law. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. You push against a wall; it pushes back against you. I love the poetry hidden in these truths, in the many laws we've discovered that underpin the universal fabric. We search for meaning ever hungrier, perhaps even with desperation: the symmetry in the equations freaks us out; for all we know, there is just us on this lonely little marble in the inky void. ~ Sean J Halford

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Where you go when you travel is as important as where you are in your life when you do. ~ Joyce Rachelle

Sometimes we whisper it quietly and other times we shout it out loud in front of a mirror. I hate how I look. I hate how my face looks my body looks I am too fat or too skinny or too tall or too wide or my legs are too stupid and my face is too smiley or my teeth are dumb and my nose is serious and my stomach is being so lame. Then we think, I am so ungrateful. I have arms and legs and I can walk and I have strong nail beds and I am alive and I am so selfish and I have to read Man's Search for Meaning again and call my parents and volunteer more and reduce my carbon footprint and why am I such a self-obsessed ugly asshole no wonder I hate how I look! I hate how I am! ~ Amy Poehler

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. ~ Erich Fromm

Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and the author of Man's Search for Meaning, wrote that human beings create meaning in three ways: thought their work, though their relationships, and by how they choose to meet unavoidable suffering. Every life brings hardship and trial, and every life also offers deep possibilities for meaningful work and love ... I've learned that courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin. ~ Eric Greitens

Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it. ~ Baruch Spinoza

Who are we to say getting incested or abused or violated or any of those things can't have their positive aspects in the long run? … You have to be careful of taking a knee-jerk attitude. Having a knee-jerk attitude to anything is a mistake, especially in the case of women, where it adds up to this very limited and condescending thing of saying they're fragile, breakable things that can be destroyed easily. Everybody gets hurt and violated and broken sometimes. Why are women so special? Not that anybody ought to be raped or abused, nobody's saying that, but that's what is going on. What about afterwards? All I'm saying is there are certain cases where it can enlarge you or make you more of a complete human being, like Viktor Frankl. Think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good that it happened? No, of course not. But did you read Viktor Frankl? Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning? It's a great, great book, but it comes out of his experience. It's about his experience in the human dark side. Now think about it, if there was no Holocaust, there'd be no Man's Search for Meaning… . Think about it. Think about being degraded and brought within an inch of your life, for example. No one's gonna say the sick bastards who did it shouldn't be put in jail, but let's put two things into perspective here. One is, afterwards she knows something about herself that she never knew before. What she knows is that the most totally terribl ~ David Foster Wallace

But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place: the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work. I ~ James C. Collins

Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It's something that I had been pushing down my whole life. The search for meaning, I guess, the whispering of the soul. ~ Ricky Williams

Lightness and weightiness are both linked to a philosophy of life. They are choices in life. Heaviness can be the embodiment of a sense of responsibility, the expression of maturity, the result of profound meditation or the emanation of a search for meaning in life. Weightiness, however, may also lead to a feeling of oppression, when it is felt as a burden, an unbearable burden. Then time has come to let loose and things can finally lose their gravity. ( "The unbearable heaviness of being" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

You have a generation that is saying we are tapping out of religion in many ways. But what they are not saying is that we are tapping out of a serious search for meaning in life. ~ Erwin McManus

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The search for meaning is really the search for the lost chord. When the lost chord is discovered by humankind, the discord in the world will be healed and the symphony of the universe will come into complete harmony with itself. ~ John O'Donohue

Moral certainty, clear standards, and a commitment to spiritual ideals will set you apart in a world that searches for meaning. ~ Mitt Romney

Love is the fundamental building block of all human relationships. It will greatly impact our values and morals. Love is the important ingredient in one's search for meaning. ~ Gary Chapman

Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Don't fill your bowl With food from every boiling pot you see. Not every joke is humorous, So don't search for meaning Where there isn't one. ~ Rumi

I promise from now on to always make time for at least one more. One more chapter before I turn out the light and float off to sleep. One more kiss before I sink into this sea of words and search for meaning to bring back up with me. One more stretch and one more wiggle of my toes before I jump out of bed; and one more moment in meditation before I re-emerge. One more full, deep breath and one more look at the sunset. One more touch, one more smile, one more moment of stillness, of gratitude, of simplicity, of love. From now on, I'll always make room for one more because you never know when one more is all you'll ever have. ~ Cristen Rodgers

The only Sundance [2011] film about cults that could actually have life as a cult film, THE WOODS has the greatest comic insight into why our current culture might inspire a search for meaning in the first place. ~ Karina Longworth

Somewhere I heard a victorious "Yes" in answer to my question of the existence of ultimate purpose. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The universe is a cruel, uncaring void. The key to being happy isn't a search for meaning. It's to just keep yourself busy with unimportant nonsense, and eventually, you'll be dead. ~ Mr Peanutbutter (bojack Horseman)

In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth, to explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design. ~ Barbara Tuchman

The absurdist is concerned with the search for meaning in the Universe. He believes this search to be meaningless
hence the disintegration of plot, character, and language in absurdist drama. Order is a falsehood that we, God, those who came before us, have imposed on a random universe. However, the absurdist is confronted with a curious paradox: though he believes the Universe to be meaningless, he cannot abandon the search for meaning
or he will die. ~ Walter Wykes

So, to summarise: Science is the search for explanation. Religion is the search for meaning. Meaning is not accidental to the human condition because we are the meaning-seeking animal. To believe on the basis of science that the universe has no meaning is to confuse two disciplines of thought: explanation and interpretation. The search for meaning, though it begins with science, must go beyond it. Science does not yield meanings, nor does it prove the absence of meanings. The meaning of a system lies outside the system. Therefore the meaning of the universe lies outside the universe. The belief in a God who transcends the universe was the discovery of Abrahamic monotheism, which transformed the human condition, endowing it with meaning and thereby rescuing it from tragedy in the name of hope. For if God created the physical universe, then God is free, and if God made us in his image, we are free. If we are free, then history is not a matter of eternal recurrences. Because we can change ourselves, we can change the world. That is the religious basis of hope. There are cultures that do not share these beliefs. They are, ultimately, tragic cultures, for whatever shape they give the powers they name, those powers are fundamentally indifferent to human fate. They may be natural forces. They may be human institutions: the empire, the state, the political system, or the economy. They may be human collectivities: the tribe, the nation, the race. But all end in tragedy because none at ~ Jonathan Sacks

It [the mind] can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven. In our constant search for meaning in this baffling and temporary existence, trapped as we are within our three pounds of neurons, it is sometimes hard to tell what is real. We often invent what isn't there. Or ignore what is. We try to impose order, both in our minds and in our conceptions of external reality. We try to connect. We try to find truth. We dream and we hope. And underneath all of these strivings, we are haunted by the suspicion that what we see and understand of the world is only a tiny piece of the whole. ~ Alan Lightman

What do you call the Hrothgar-wrecker when Hrothgar has been wrecked? ~ John Gardner

Oddly then, in our search for meaning, we often assign victims too much blame for their assaults, and offenders too little. Our inconsistencies do not seem to trouble us, but they are truly puzzling. After all, if the offender is not to blame for his behavior, why would the victim be, no matter what she did our didn't do? Our views make sense, however, if you think that we are trying to reassure ourselves that we are not helpless and, that, in any case, no one is out to get us. ~ Anna C. Salter

the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, he wrote about how he survived a Nazi concentration camp by creating a Why every day: a reason to live, to try - a reason not to give up. It would have been much easier to give up, Frankl noted, and most did. ~ Robert J. Langone

Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I went into Grace's den and picked up a book I'd bought from Amazon, Man's Search for Meaning. It had been written in 1946 by an Austrian of Jewish descent named Viktor Frankl. It was probably the first academic, intellectual approach to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although he hadn't used that terminology. ~ Scott Pratt

My focus on silence is to be understood as an intrinsic part of the body's search for meaning amongst the noisy assaults of everyday life ... What quilts have brought to the viewing of art generally is this intervening layer of silence, of collected thought and concerted attention. ~ Radka Donnell

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man's search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I loved acting, which was never about money, the fame. It was about a search for meaning. It was painful. ~ Kim Novak

The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load that is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So, if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Fortunately, however, during times of comparative ease, periods before or after acute experiences of suffering, we can reflect on suffering, seeking to develop an understanding of its meaning. And the time and effort we spend searching for meaning in suffering will pay great rewards when bad things begin to strike. But in order to reap those rewards, we must begin our search for meaning when things are going well. A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can't grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon. So ~ Dalai Lama XIV

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The task is not to search for meaning, but to bring meaning to every situation you are in. ~ Alberto Villoldo

Mostly we tell the story of our lives, or mostly we're taught to tell it, as a quest to avoid suffering, though if your goal is a search for meaning, honor, experience, the same events may be victories or necessary steps. Then the personal matters; it's home; but you can travel in and out of it, rather than being marooned there. The leprosy specialist Paul Brand wrote, "Pain, along with its cousin touch, is distributed universally on the body, providing a sort of boundary of self," but empathy, solidarity, allegiance
the nerves that run out into the world
expand the self beyond its physical bounds. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Life's shrouded crossing seems to jump off with a hunger to take a blood-quickening journey, a desire to search for enchantment over the next hillock. We launch our feral voyage with a primitive pulsation to explore unknown lands and a desire to become acquainted with both village people and sophisticated ancient civilizations. Along the way, we will meet friends and foes. In our lightest moments, we will make love to a beautiful mate under a canopy of stars. In the darkest hours, we will fret about how to evade danger and scheme how best to conquer our enemies. The rainbow of experiences that we endure will undoubtedly bemuse, bruise, batter, and occasionally sully us. These hard on the hide shards of experience will also reveal our polychromatous character. By undertaking vivid encounters in the wilderness, with any luck, we will discover a numinous interior world. With immersion into a myriad of life shaping experiences, an undeterred person will stumble onto a path leading to personal illumination. The passage of liberation that a crusader must inevitably endure leads to a shocking psychological transformation, a spiritual overhaul allowing the seeker to finally overcome infantile images and febrile delusions that would otherwise continue to derail their fervent urge to forge an emergent personality, acquire wisdom, and attain bliss. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

One rarely knows where to begin the search for meaning, though by necessity, we can only start where we are. ~ Anne Lamott

I'm at a crossroads. I believe I only have one chance to pick the proper direction. ~ Destin Bays

What unites us is our despair. Do other people wish to know that someone else walked this earth with a similar batch of questions and frustration? Am I alone trussed with a long suppressed scream lodged within my breast shouting out in the vacant darkness of night, "Who am I, where am I, and where shall I go with this dreaded case of hopelessness, self-doubt, and self-loathing that is weighing me down, making me crazy, and blindsiding any chance to discover personal happiness?" On many occasions, I felt like surrendering to life, no longer willing to endure the physical aches and devastating emotional blows that human life requires. Lost, exiled, and living in alienation from the entire world I searched for a reentry port to a meaningful life. I must work; honest toil is good for the body, mind, and spiritual health of human beings. I shall go to the grave utterly spent from living an authentic life of giving the better part of oneself to the world. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Alls I'm - or think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good it happened? No way. But did you ever read Victor Frankl? Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning? It's a great, great book. Frankl was in a camp in the Holocaust and the book comes out of that experience, it's about his experience in the human Dark Side and preserving his human identity in the face of the camp's degradation and violence and suffering total ripping away his identity. It's a totally great book and now think about it, if there wasn't a Holocaust there wouldn't be a Man's Search for Meaning. ~ David Foster Wallace

The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Keeping what you have is hard like searching for what you've lost. ~ Auliq Ice

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Spirituality is not just about religion, or church attendance, or fidelity to one or other legal requirement. Spirituality is understood to be an innate wisdom of the human heart that enlivens a zest for life, a search for meaning and purpose, a love for all that is good and beautiful, a passion to create a better world, a sensitivity to the life-energy (God, if you wish) that permeates the entire cosmos. ~ Diarmuid O'Murchu

I did not know I was on a search for passionate aliveness. I only knew I was lonely and lost and that something was drawing me deeper beneath the surface of my life in search of meaning. There is a hunger in people to go to those deep depths; to know that our lives are sacred; that our hearts are truly capable of love. It is a yearning to be all the we can be. A longing for what is real. ~ Anne Hillman

Thou art but a feeble flower in the garden of the universe, yet thou hath a purpose much greater than thyself. ~ Raneem Kayyali

Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering ~ Viktor E. Frankl

We must live life in the present as shaped by the past. The option to begin afresh does not exist. The past days and nights were the sacrificial coals that fired an internal furnace. The dying embers fueled my present being. I need to locate new nutrients to revitalize an unfulfilled soul. I seek to unearth fresh energy sources and forge a renewed resoluteness to slog through the remainder of this gaseous and hard-pressed sojourn. Any prior personal inspiration for living righteously was lost on a remote outpost somewhere along the fractured trail. I go on because I must. I trust that if I industrially seek, I shall ascertain a purpose in life that currently eludes me. If I tread long enough, if I assiduously track sufficient true miles, I shall discover a purpose that fits me. I continue to push forward with an unbowed determination, navigate into the deep unknown with the confidence of an experienced admiral who knows that if he endures the gale forces of self-doubt and persist despite all setbacks that he will discover what he seeks. A person must rely upon personal consciousness as a guiding compass into penetrating the unalleviated obscurity that shrouds the way. I shall always resist the easy path, because it leads to an apocalyptic demise. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

There is a misconception of those who explore; it is not answers they seek, but the longing for another question. ~ Brian S. Woods

Materialism is not fundamentally an economic problem, but a cultural one ... a spiritual issue. It runs to the depths of our souls, and, for this reason, needs to be understood less in terms of budgets or fiscal cycles and more in terms of where we locate the sacred, of where we search for meaning and transcendence, and of how we think about justice, equality, and the future of our world. ~ Robert Wuthnow

We sin from a place of emptiness. We sin from a place of wanting to be filled up. The search for meaning drives many of our decisions, and ultimately it's the driving factor in our search for breathing room. ~ Josh Reich

Thinking ... is a soundless dialogue, it is the weaving of patterns, it is a search for meaning. The activity of thought contributes to and shapes all that is specifically human. ~ Vera John-Steiner

I was so sick that I found myself worrying about the future of man's soul, my own in particular. ~ Allen Ginsberg