Quotes About Meaning

Insults must be done with intention, or they are not insults.

car ce que l'on savait et que l'on a pensé tout en peignant joue un rôle. Cela vous guide la main et cela produit son effet, ca y est et ça n'y est pas ; et c'est là ce qui rend le tout éloquent.

Mon Dieu, dit-il, ils sont libres... Je veux dire, ce sont des jeunes gens, et le temps pour eux n'a pas d'importance. Pourquoi donc feraient-ils triste figure ? Je me dis quelquefois : être malade et mourir, ce n'est pas sérieux en somme, c'est plutôt une sorte de laisser-aller ; du sérieux, on n'en rencontre à tout prendre que dans la vie de la plaine. Je crois que tu comprendras cela, lorsque tu auras séjourné plus longtemps ici.

Wir werden sie ausführlich erzählen, genau und gründlich, – denn wann wäre je die Kurz- oder Langweiligkeit einer Geschichte abhängig gewesen von dem Raum und der Zeit, die sie in Anspruch nahm? Ohne Furcht vor dem Odium der Peinlichkeit, neigen wir vielmehr der Ansicht zu, daß nur das Gründliche wahrhaft unterhaltend sei.

What was one day, taken for instance from the moment one sat down to the midday meal to the same moment four-and-twenty hours afterwards? It was, to be sure, four-and-twenty hours—but equally it was the simple sum of nothings.

Has he really insulted me? But an insult must be of intent, otherwise it can be none.

since for me speaking French is like speaking without saying anything somehow—with no responsibilities, the way we speak in a dream.

C'est un fait que nous ne venons de soulever la question de savoir s'il est possible de raconter le temps, que pour avouer que c'était bien là notre dessein dans l'histoire en cours.

Great words, being worn out, do a poor job of expressing the extraordinary. This is better accomplished by using ordinary words to the uttermost extent of their meaning.

Aimer... aimer... Qu'est-ce que c'est? Qa manque de définition, ce mot-là. Was der eine hat, liebt der andere, comme nous Allemands disons proverbialment.

If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy. If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while. If you write for yourself, you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted that you will wish that you were dead.

If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.

Ask me not where I live or what I like to eat . . . Ask me what I am living for and what I think is keeping me from living fully that.

Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for spiritual joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and spiritual joy you have not yet begun to live.

There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.

The geographical pilgrimage is the symbolic acting out of an inner journey. The inner journey is the interpolation of the meanings and signs of the outer pilgrimage. One can have one without the other. It is best to have both.

it is of the very essence of Christianity to face suffering and death not because they are good, not because they have meaning, but because the resurrection of Jesus has robbed them of their meaning.

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another.

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it all the rest are not only useless but disastrous.

If you want to identify me, he says to the British officers who are questioning him, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person. page 25 in the book called, The Man in the Sycamore Tree by Edward Rice

What every man looks for in life is his own salvation and the salvation of the men he lives with. By salvation I mean first of all the full discovery of who he himself really is.

For our duties and our needs, in all the fundamental things for which we were created, come down in practice to the same thing.

It is true that neither the ancient wisdoms nor the modern sciences are complete in themselves. They do not stand alone. They call for one another. Wisdom without science is unable to penetrate the full sapiential meaning of the created and the material cosmos. Science without wisdom leaves man enslaved to a world of unrelated objects in which there is no way of discovering (or creating) order and deep significance in man's own pointless existence. (p. 4)

What is the good of religion without personal spiritual direction?