Quotes About Meaning

Here's what Nietzsche said to the ceiling: "The rank of the philosopher is determined by the rank of his laughter." But he couldn't really laugh.

The purpose of poetry is to return that which is familiar to its original strangeness.

Poetry is an orphan of silence.

There is a widespread sense of loss here, if not always of God, then at least of meaning.

The only meaningful life is that which is deepened by carrying through these commitments, living through the dead periods in order to lay the foundations for the creative ones.

the dark side of individualism is a centering on the self, which both flattens and narrows our lives, makes them poorer in meaning, and less concerned with others or society.

What all of what was then to be understood to be being presumed so makes something now recognizable as to what we were, in fact, then speaking of in speaking of 'whales'.

THIS IS A BOOK about the good life—not the good life touted in Budweiser commercials or on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or MTV Cribs, but the good life that you and I want to live when we reflect about what really matters.

The greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West; it is whether men can live without God. WILL DURANT

What they fail to reckon with, however, is the reverse of that slogan: if nothing is worth dying for, is anything worth living for?

In fact it [Venturi's design] is best described not simply as a response to the program but as a response to the reality behind the program.

The famous saying 'God is love', it is generally assumed, means that God is like our immediate emotional indulgence, not that the meaning of love ought to have something of the 'otherness' and terror of God.

Stanhope delayed a moment behind Miss Fox to add: "The substantive, of course, governs the adjective; not the other way round." "The substantive?" Pauline asked blankly. "Good. It contains terror, not terror good. I'm keeping you. Good-bye, Periel," and he was gone.

But no verse, not Stanhope's, not Shakespeare's, not Dante's could rival the original, and this was the original, and the verse was but the best translation of a certain manner of its life. The glory of poetry could not outshine the clear glory of the certain fact, and not any poetry could hold as many meanings as the fact.

Why was this bloody world created?" "As a sewer for the stars," a voice in front of him said. "Alternatively to know God and to glorify Him forever." " [...] The two answers are not, of course, necessarily alternative.

It's said that the shuffling of the cards is the earth, and the pattering of the cards is the rain, and the beating of the cards is the wind, and the pointing of the cards is the fire. That's of the four suits. But the Greater Trumps, it's said, are the meaning of all process and the measure of the everlasting dance.

Existence doesn't have more meaning in one direction than it does in any other.

If a lifetime in the end is remembered for a handful of days, this is one of them.

I know none of this seems very believable. It probably doesn't even make sense. But for once in your life, please, I am asking you to trust me. Trust yourself.

Lying there in the silence, you try to imagine what she could possibly mean. Kung Fu Guy is the pinnacle. How could anyone be more?

Chronological living is a kind of lie. That's why I don't do it anymore. Existence doesn't have more meaning in one direction than it does in any other. Completing the days of your life in strict calendar order can feel forced. Arbitrary.

The key question of time travel," my father says, "is this: How do we know what it means to perceive an event as presently occurring, rather than as a memory of a past event? How can we tell present from past? And how do we move the infinitesimal window

I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.

From such trivia, I believe my soul was born.