Quotes About Meaning

We are frightfully concerned with our own deaths, sometimes so much so that we forget the real purpose of our lives

I believe in what you do -You do? -Sure, what do you do? -Out!

The world, the human world, is bound together not by protons and electrons, but by stories. Nothing has meaning in itself: all the objects in the world would be shards of bare mute blankness, spinning wildly out of orbit, if we didn't bind them together with stories.

The world, the human world, is bound together not by protons and electrons, but by stories.

you. Viktor Frankl, the founder of Logotherapy, wrote that the greatest need of human beings is for a sense of meaning and purpose in life, for a goal to work toward.

Do ye value life? Then waste not time, for that is the stuff out of which life is made. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

la necesidad de significado y propósito es la más profunda de nuestras motivaciones. El verdadero significado y propósito sólo aparecen cuando estás ocupado haciendo algo que hace una diferencia en la vida de otras personas.

Goals give you that sense of meaning and purpose, a clear sense of direction. As you move toward your goals you feel happier and stronger. You feel more energized and effective. You feel more competent and confident in yourself and your abilities. Every step you take toward your goals increases your belief that you can set and achieve even bigger goals in the future.

En el análisis final, la pregunta de por qué le pasan cosas malas a la gente buena se transmuta en preguntas muy diferentes; ya no se pregunta por qué sucedió algo, se pregunta cómo responderemos, qué pretendemos hacer ahora que sucedió.

Nothing else matters much; not wealth, nor learning, nor even health… without this gift: the spiritual capacity to keep zest in living. This is the creed of creeds, the final deposit and distillation of all important faiths: that you should be able to believe in life." – Harry Emerson Fosdick

In fact, "diet" comes from a Latin word which means "a way of life.")

Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God. Perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity.

How happy we would be if we could find the treasure of which the Gospel speaks; all else would be as nothing. As it is boundless, the more you search for it the greater the riches you will find; let us search unceasingly and let us not stop until we have found it.

There is nothing accidental in suffering.

My definition: A transition is a vital period of adjustment, creativity, and rebirth that helps one find meaning after a major life disruption. But how do you enter this mysterious state? Does it happen inevitably or do you somehow have to decide? And if so, how do you do that?

Every story, the moment it's written down, will be reread," she said. "And every rereading will be a reinterpretation. In that sense, there is not an original story and there is not an original message.

You do not have to suffer to learn, but if you don't learn from suffering . . . then your life becomes truly meaningless.

Religion, Gardner continued, gives us eyes to see and ears to hear in ways that science simply cannot. "With our scientific eyes we can distinguish between true and false. With our religious eyes we can distinguish between right and wrong. When we see with our religious eyes, we live in a world of meaning.

From this ground zero, a modern meaning movement began to rise, eventually growing to include philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. If the symptoms of meaninglessness were alienation and emptiness, the balm was fulfillment and personal sense-making. The "central concept of human psychology is meaning," wrote Jerome Bruner. And the central task of every individual is to make your own meaning. There is no single formula. But

the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God.

Philosophy is not in the business of explaining anything. Actual occasions explain what happened, not philosophy.

It is certainly quite wrong to read a poem in a hurry, as if it were a telegram.

as long as art stands aside from the problems of life it will only interest a very few people

In this world are very few things made from logic alone. It is illogical for man to be too logical. Some things we must just let stand. The mystery is more important than any possible explanation. The searcher after truth must search with humanity. Ruthless logic is the sign of a limited mind. The truth can only add to the sum of what you know, while a harmless mystery left unexplored often adds to the meaning of life. When a truth is not so important, it is better left as a mystery.