purpose Quotes

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.”

“With what work at you occupied, and for what purpose are you purchased?”

“We were sent here for something. And we know that all things work together for good them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”

“Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

“We are all part of some great cycle, some pattern that it was only God’s purpose to understand.”

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”

“For what are we born if not to aid one another?”

“It is at moments like these that I know my what my purpose is in life. I am here to love you, to hold you in my arms, to protect you. I am here to learn from you and to receive your love in return. I am here because there is no other place to be.”

“Life passes by now like the scenery outside a car window. I breathe and eat and sleep as I always did, but there seems to be no great purpose in my life that requires active participation on my part...I do not know where I am going or when I will get there.”

“I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.”

“I think that one of these days...you’re going to have to find out where you want to go. And then you’ve got to start going there. But immediately. You can’t afford to lose a minute. Not you.”

“This fall I think you’re riding for—it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement’s designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn’t supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn’t supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started.”

“When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task.”

“He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.‘”

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.”

“One person, with good purpose, can, constitute the majority.”

“Sacrifice, you made one. I made one. We all make them. But you are angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost . . . You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life.”

“’The subjects will eventually recall and understand the purpose of the hard things we have done and plan to do to them. The mission of WICKED is to serve and preserve humanity, no matter the cost. We are, indeed, ‘good’”

“By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost.”

“With Jamie, everything was in the Lord’s plan . . . She always mentioned the Lord’s plan whenever you talked to her, no matter what the subject. The baseball game’s rained out? Must be the Lord’s plan to prevent something worse from happening. A surprise trigonometry quiz that everyone in class fails? Must be in the Lord’s plan to give us challenges.”

“The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the great thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted.”

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

“The willow submits to the wind and prospers until one day it is many willows—a wall against the wind. This is the willow’s purpose.”

“He felt an offense against what his mother called his instinct for rightness. It wasn’t that Reverend Mother lied to him. She obviously believed what she said. It was something deeper, something tied to his terrible purpose.”

“No other instinct can so satisfy without accomplishing its biological purpose, and no other instinct is so disconnected from its purpose.”

″‘And what exactly were you trying to accomplish?’ Haymitch asks in a very measured voice. ‘I’m not sure. I just wanted to hold them accountable, if only for a moment,’ says Peeta. ‘For killing that little girl.‘”

“‘But for what end, then, has this world been formed?’ said Candide. ‘To plague us to death,’ answered Martin.”

“Realistic thinking is based on what others think is possible—but they are not you and have no way of knowing your potential and purposes.”

“I realized that today I truly understood my purpose as Ellie: not just to Find people but to save them.

“My purpose, my whole life, had been to love him and be with him, to make him happy.”

“The reason for living was to get ready to stay dead a long time.”

“Happiness belongs to the class of things precious and final.”

“I had fulfilled my purpose and there was no reason for me to be a dog anymore. So whether it happened this summer or the next didn’t matter. Ethan, loving Ethan, was my ultimate purpose, and I had done it as well as I could. I was a good dog.”

“I wished to know the meaning of things. I am the meaning.”

“And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.”

“His body is a paradox of mass and lightness, crafted to slip through air with the ease of an arrow. His mind is impressed with a single command: run. He pursues speed with superlative courage, pushing beyond defeat, beyond exhaustion, sometimes beyond the structural limits of bone and sinew. In flight, he is nature’s ultimate wedding of form and purpose.”

“Commitment to the will of God - the purpose for which we are designed - offers freedom to become the person we are meant to be.”

“Freedom is a condition in which something can fulfill the purpose for which it is designed.”

“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

Cohn: “I can’t stand it to think my life is going so fast and I’m not really living it.” Jake: “Nobody ever lives their life all the way up except bull-fighters.”

“There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.”

“Religiofication”—the art of turning practical purposes into holy causes.

“Providentially. That is the word. For the fly had not been left behind by accident. No, the hand of Providence was in it. There are no accidents. All things that happen, happen for a purpose. They are foreseen from the beginning of time, they are ordained from the beginning of time.

“That last thing is what you can’t get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all.”

“O, [you], with your mind far away, thinking that death will not come, Entranced by the pointless activities of this life, If you were to return empty-handed now, would not your [life’s] purpose have been [utterly] confused? Recognize what it is that you truly need! It is a sacred teaching [for liberation]! So, should you not practice this divine [sacred] teaching, beginning from this very moment?”

“See, unlike the rest of the free world, I didn’t get here by accident. And if your parents have you for a reason then that reason better exist. Because once it’s gone, so are you.”

“The foundational truth is that work is good. If God does it, it must be all right. Work has dignity: there can be nothing degrading about work if God works. Work has purpose: there can be nothing futile about work if God works.”

“His voice was full of a ringing authority that I had only really heard once—the night he let me into the garden. He was much more attractive when he was using his status for a purpose.”

“Big Walter used to say, he’d get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the water standing in his eyes and say, ‘Seem like God didn’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams - but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.”

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

“The only religious opinion I feel sure of is this: self-awareness is not just a bunch of amino acids bumping together.”

“My schedule for today lists a six-hour self-accusatory depression.”

“I wanted to be a great man.”

“I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.”

“All said So-Is sight of the world, right there in front of my nose as I look, -- And looking at that valley in fact I also realize I have to make lunch and it wont be any different than the lunch of those olden men and besides it’ll taste good -- Everything is the same.”

“And as far as I can see the world is too old for us to talk about it with our new words -- We will pass just as quietly through life (passing through, passing through) as the 10th century people of this valley only with a little more noise and a few bridges and dams and bombs that wont even last a million years -- The world being just what it is, moving and passing through.”

“That’s right. You are a designer’s original, a true sight to see. You have to understand that you are not here by mistake and that you were created on purpose and for a purpose. You are something to marvel at.”

“I will hunt you down. I will scour the streets of Los Angeles for you. Search every street in the Republic if I have to. I will trick you and deceive you, lie, cheat and steal to find you, tempt you out of your hiding place, and chase you until you have nowhere else to run. I make you this promise: your life is mine.”

“O, cursed be the hand that made these holes; Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it; Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence.”

“Nevertheless I go there every night even tho I don’t feel like it, it’s my duty (and probably drove me mad), and write these sea sounds, and all the whole insane poem ‘Sea.‘”

″(all over America high school and college kids thinking “Jack Duluoz is 26 years old and on the road all the time hitch hiking” while there I am almost 40 years old, bored and jaded in a roomette bunk crashin across that Salt Flat)”

“If you don’t know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.”

“Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

“There’s the poor little mouse eating her nightly supper in the humble corner where I’ve put out a little delight-plate full of cheese and chocolate candy (for my days of killing mice are over).”

“Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coast through life without a passion.”

“All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God.”

“Don’t approach change from a negative point of view. All change is not bad. It may be negative on the surface but remember, God would not allow it if He didn’t have a purpose for it.”

“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.”

“People always say that everything happens for a reason. That one door closes so that another one can open, and that in the end, everything will always work itself out, and if it hasn’t, it simply isn’t the end.”

“Purpose is about pursuing something outside yourself as opposed to pleasuring yourself.”

“If your purpose is something larger than you- to accomplish something, to prove something to yourself- then suddenly everything becomes both easier and more difficult.”

“If we spend the vast majority of our time with people we love and respect – people we really enjoy being on the bus with and who will never disappoint us – then we will almost certainly have a great life, no matter where the bus goes.”

“Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions.”

“Speak Life: You are loved. You have purpose. You are a masterpiece. You are wonderfully made. God has a great plan for you.”

“That is how it seemed to young George Webber, who was never so assured of his purpose as when he was going somewhere on a train. And he never had the sense of home so much as when he felt that he was going there. It was only when he got there that his homelessness began.”

“– Ah, it’s a scandalous shame for you, Stephen, said his mother, and you’ll live to rue the day you set your foot in that place. I know how it has changed you.”

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline–a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.”

“The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War.”

“I run with purpose in every step. My best days are still out in front of me. My greatest victories are in my future. I will become everything I was created to be. I will have everything God intended for me to have. I am the redeemed of the Lord, and I say so today!”

″‘I don’t think (Newt’s painting is) very nice,’ Angela complained. ‘I think it’s ugly, but I don’t know anything about modern art. Sometimes I wish Newt would take some lessons, so he could know for sure if he was doing something or not.‘”

“Spontaneity isn’t random.”

“I sometimes have the feeling you’ve been here a long time, more than one lifetime, and that you’ve dwelt in private places none of the rest of us has even dreamed about.”

“So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. Though I think I put it better the day we parted when I said there is a third person we have created from the two of us. And I am stalked now by that other entity.”

“This is why I’m here on this planet, at this time, Francesca. Not to travel or make pictures, but to love you. I know that now. I have been falling from the rim of a great, high place, somewhere back in time, for many more years than I have lived in this life. And through all of those years, I have been falling toward you.”

“The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens for a purpose.”

″ I am black, not because of a curse, but because my skin has been able to capture all the cosmic effluvia. I am truly a drop of sun under the earth.”

“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”

“What makes a man a ‘sophist’ is not his faculty, but his moral purpose.”

“If you are too busy to pray, you are busier than God wants you to be.”

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”

“If he be like your brother, for his sake Is he pardoned; and, for your lovely sake, Give me your hand and say you will be mine. He is my brother too. But fitter time for that. ”

“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”

“Reading in bed can be heaven, assuming you can get just the right amount of light on the page and aren’t prone to spilling your coffee or cognac on the sheets. ”

″A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

“When does something’s destiny finally come to fruition?”

“Is the plant complete when it flowers? When it goes to seed? When the seeds sprout? When everything turns into compost?”

“Everything in the world must have design or the human mind rejects it. But in addition it must have purpose or the human conscience shies away from it.”

“If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society... It is the education which gives a man a clear, conscious view of their own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them.”

“If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.”

“Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money.”

“Your power serves you because that is its purpose, because it cannot help but serve you”.

“It’s a big comfort to know that their lives will continue even after he’s gone.”

“After so recent a triumph over British despots, after such torrents of blood and treasure have been spent, after involving ourselves in the distresses of an arduous war, and incurring such a debt for the express purpose of asserting the rights of humanity; it is truly astonishing that a set of men among ourselves should have the effrontery to attempt the destruction of our liberties. ”

“Your inner purpose is to awaken.”

“We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.”

“Stuff comes and stuff goes and the only thing that matters in the end is who you are inside, what you do and what make it leaves in the world.”

“Man is the creature for whom all the rest was made: this world, this solar system, this galaxy, the universe itself.”

“And it was why he loved her. One of the reasons, anyway. Because he also loved her bratty comebacks. ”

“We’re all liars when it serves our purpose.”

“This sword is made for only one purpose, to kill. It will only be as good or evil as the one who wields it. I know that you intend to use it only for the good of your Abbey, Matthias; do so, but never allow yourself to be tempted into using it in a careless or idle way.”

“Martin the Warrior used the sword only for right and good. This is why it has become a symbol of power to Redwall. Knowledge is gained through wisdom, my friend. Use the sword wisely.”

“What’s wrong with the world Peter? God, I don’t know. Where do you start? People give up.”

“After all this time, I know exactly where I belong. Here. With Edmond. And that’s how I live now.”

“I can’t make sense of it. If my weight isn’t enough to get Mom to wake up, then nothing will be. And if nothing can wake her up, then that means she’s really going to die. And if she’s really going to die, what am I supposed to do with myself? My life purpose has always been to make Mom happy, to be who she wants me to be. So without Mom, who am I supposed to be now?”

“Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.”

“Regardless of WHAT we do in our lives, our WHY—our driving purpose, cause or belief—never changes.”

“February turned into March and Hiccup was still thinking. A few flowers made the mistake of appearing and were immediately blasted out of existence by a couple of hard frosts that had kept themselves back for this very purpose.”

“But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness. ”

“That’s the choice. I love him, with all that, because of all that. On purpose. I love him on purpose.”

“The goal for us as individuals is to know our WHY so that we can more easily find the right tree and the right nest. The goal for an organization is to know its WHY in order to attract the right birds. And the goal for each team within the company is to make sure that they have the right birds in each nest—those who will work together most effectively to contribute to the organization’s higher purpose and cause.”

“The person who moves with definiteness recognizes the difference between temporary defeat and failure. When plans fail he substitutes others but he does not change his purpose. He perseveres.”

“Success demands singleness of purpose.”

“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”

“We all have a purpose,” she said. “Some people are the tall oak trees, and some people are the beautiful bushes. But everyone has a purpose. There is nobody here on earth who doesn’t have a path or a purpose. An innate destiny. Every human being who comes, comes called.”

“You know, you don’t need to grow old to die. I was dying at the age of 20 as a result of no direction and no purpose.”

“Oops! He’s accidentally spilled the last drops of water on the bed. Or did he spill it on purpose?”

“Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose. We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.”

“I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand.”

“I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand.”

“There is an old saying that man only dares use his words for three purposes, to “heal, bless or prosper.” What man says of others will be said of him, and what he wishes for another, he is wishing for himself.”

“If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”

“In a fractal conception, I am a cell-sized unit of the human organism, and I have to use my life to leverage a shift in the system by how I am, as much as with the things I do. This means actually being in my life, and it means bringing my values into my daily decision making. Each day should be lived on purpose.”

“But the dresses must serve another purpose now. Would they bring enough to pay her passage on a ship? Fine cloth like this was rare in Connecticut. In many families, she had learned, one dress such as these would be handed down through three generations as a cherished possession.”

“Their lives were utterly uncomplicated because they were devoted to one purpose, dedicated in their entirety to the waging of one battle: the battle with death.”

“If what we have written brings happiness to any sad heart we shall not have laboured in vain.”

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose.”

“But Kazu still goes on believing that, no matter what difficulties people face, they will always have the strength to overcome them. It just takes heart. And if the chair can change someone’s heart, it clearly has its purpose.”

“A person who doesn’t know what the universe is, doesn’t know where they are. A person who doesn’t know their purpose in life doesn’t know who they are or what the universe is. A person who doesn’t know any one of these things doesn’t know why they are here. So what to make of people who seek or avoid the praise of those who have no knowledge of where or who they are?”

“It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.”

Then he thought another long time, and said: “And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.” And then he got up, and said: “And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it.”

“And what will become of all these creatures?” cried Teta Elzbieta.

“John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but man; but I believe in all I do.”

“Mr. Allan says everybody should have a purpose in life and pursue it faithfully. Only he says we must first make sure that it is a worthy purpose. I would call it a worthy purpose to want to be a teacher like Miss Stacy, wouldn’t you, Marilla? I think it’s a very noble profession.”

The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination.

“But, as for me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!”

I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, something heroic or wonderful that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all some day.

“God winds you up, and you go till He stops you.”

“Great city,” murmured he, inclining his head, and joining his hands as if in prayer, “less than six months have elapsed since first I entered thy gates. I believe that the Spirit of God led my steps to thee and that he also enables me to quit thee in triumph; the secret cause of my presence within thy walls I have confided alone to him who only has had the power to read my heart. God only knows that I retire from thee without pride or hatred, but not without many regrets; he only knows that the power confided to me has never been made subservient to my personal good or to any useless cause. Oh, great city, it is in thy palpitating bosom that I have found that which I sought; like a patient miner, I have dug deep into thy very entrails to root out evil thence. Now my work is accomplished, my mission is terminated, now thou canst neither afford me pain nor pleasure. Adieu, Paris, adieu!”

“What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection.”

“Why, if a fish came to me, and told me he was going a journey, I should say ‘With what porpoise?‘”

To realize one’s nature perfectly—that is what each of us is here for.

We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices.

Very interesting to know, though; have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance?

“Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.”

He saw nothing but death or the advance towards death in everything. But his cherished scheme only engrossed him the more. Life had to be got through somehow till death did come. Darkness had fallen upon everything for him; but just because of this darkness he felt that the one guiding clue in the darkness was his work, and he clutched it and clung to it with all his strength.

“I’m glad there’s something to give my life for, for it’s not simply useless but loathsome to me.”

“What should I have been, and how should I have spent my life, if I had not had these beliefs, if I had not known that I must live for God and not for my own desires? I should have robbed and lied and killed. Nothing of what makes the chief happiness of my life would have existed for me.”

“Now I say that I know the meaning of my life: ‘To live for God, for my soul.’ And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and marvelous. Such, indeed, is the meaning of everything existing.”

“Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life’s impossible; and that I can’t know, and so I can’t live,” Levin said to himself.