Quotes About Meaning

Ich verbrenne, so wie ich mein ganzes Leben lnag verbrannt bin. Ich weiß nicht, was das heißt.

Now, faced with a combination of increased complexity and hyper-specialization, we are at a point where the desire for purposeful engagement is becoming a major issue.

But foreign should not be defined in geographical terms. Then it would have no meaning except territorial or tribal patriotism. To me that alone is foreign which is foreign to truth, foreign to Atman.

Ik zat eraan te denken dat ik nooit zou geloven dat dit leven met zijn liefde, streven naar waarheid en geluk, zijn weerlichten en verre ruisen van water in deze nacht zinloos en redeloos was, wie dat ook mocht beweren. Ieder van ons moet – alom en altijd, en tot aan het einde van zijn dagen – strijden voor de verankering van dit leven. == 1946

You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. Of course, this kind of meaninglessness might suit this crappy nation. But, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not mount to much. But they fill up our emptiness. That's the only explanation I have.

What I mean is, even a dumbass like me can think everything's pointless. Why do I get up and eat? It all ends up shit anyway. Why am I going to school and studying? Even if I happen to succeed I'm going to die anyway. You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. But… but, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not amount to much but they fill up our emptiness.

Things happen at funerals. It's some kind of cosmic, absolutely cosmic spiritual process that helps maneuver fate & challenges the hearts & souls of people to step up, for Christ's sake, step up & get on with it.

What does everything mean to you right now, this second, while you are looking out at an ocean of possibility?

Anyone can give away something expensive, but only those who understand sacrifice can give away something valuable.

Though a picture tells a story, it may not reveal the truth.

That's very important about stories. They touch something that is human in us and is probably unchanging. Perhaps this is why the important knowledge is passed through stories. It's what holds a culture together. Culture has a story, and every person in it participates in that story. They world is made up of stories; it's not made up of facts.

Now is a powerful time in this country for young people and others to be asking the question, What are we for? Do we exist for some reason other than competing with China or finding the best possible technological advances?

Well, when I say "poetry is not all love, love, love," I mean romantic love is where we go first with the word. But really there is so much more to the word. The word is sober. The word is grave. The word is not just about something light and happy and pleasurable. The word calls up deep, deep responsibilities.

We knew what we were against. We just didn't know what we were for.

We now know that doing good to others, having a network of strong and supportive relationships, and having a sense that one's life is worthwhile are the three greatest determinants of happiness.

The walk of shame, please. It was the walk of pride today.

How was it that her whole life could be distilled down to that simple truth? Words mattered. Her life had been defined by things said and unsaid, and now her marriage was being undermined by silence.

When you get . . . to the end, you see that love and family are all there is. Nothing else matters.

For years he'd strived to make a difference in the world, and he'd worked like a dog to make that happen, and yet here he was, a man sitting on a dock with his children, and never had he felt more certain that his words mattered.

Antoine was Julien's father in every way that mattered. It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love.

in what myth does a man live nowadays? In the Christian myth, the answer might be. "Do you live in it?" I asked myself. To be honest, the answer was no. For me it is not what I live by. "Then do we no longer have any myth?" "No, evidently we no longer have any myth." "But then what is your myth – the myth in which you do live?" At this point the dialogue with myself became uncomfortable, and I stopped thinking. I had reached a dead end.

the "nation" (like the "State") is a personified concept …The nation has no life of its own apart from the individual, and is therefore not an end in itself…. All life is individual life, in which alone the ultimate meaning is to be found.

God is not a statistical truth, hence it is just as stupid to try to prove the existence of God as to deny him. Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II

A dream that is not understood remains a mere occurrence; understood it becomes a living experience.