Quotes About Meaning

It is a fundamental denial of your humanity to narrow the size of your life to the size of your own existence, because you were created to be an "above and more" being. You were made to be transcendent.

We were meant to do more than make sure that all of our needs are fulfilled and all our desires are satisfied. We were never meant to be self-focused little kings ruling miniscule little kingdoms with a population of one.

the theology of the Word of God was never intended to be an end in itself, but a means to an end, and that end is a radically transformed life. The purpose of theology is not knowledge but holiness.

what is the big thing that you are living for right now?

I am deeply persuaded that the only solution to fear is fear. In other words, fear is defeated only by a bigger, greater fear. Here's what I mean. When the fear of God

All created things are signs that point us to what can be found in him. You know how this works from driving around or from taking a trip: a sign points you to a thing, but the sign is not the thing. Creation points us to the Creator, but it can never give us what the Creator can give.

we look to creation for life, hope, peace, rest, contentment, identity, meaning and purpose, inner peace, and motivation to continue. The problem is that nothing in creation can give you these things. Creation was never designed to satisfy your heart. Creation was made to be one big finger pointing you to the One who alone has the ability to satisfy your heart.

Your life is not good because it is easy or predictable, but because the I Am has invaded your existence by his grace.

Curiously enough, it seems to be only in describing a mode of language which does not mean what it says that one can actually say what one means.

Death is a displaced name for a linguistic predicament.

Literature exists at the same time in the modes of error and truth; it both betrays and obeys its own mode of being.

The ambivalence of writing is such that it can be considered both an act and an interpretive process that follows after an act with which it cannot coincide. As such, it both affirms and denies its own nature.

Literature involves the voiding, rather than the affirmation, of aesthetic categories.

So experiences of pleasure and purpose are all that matter in the end. Hedonism is the school of thought that holds that pleasure is the only thing that matters in the end. By adding sentiments of purpose to pleasure, I define my position as sentimental hedonism. I am a sentimental hedonist and I think that, deep down, we all are.

To be truly happy, then, you need to feel both pleasure and purpose. You can be just as happy or sad as I am but with very different combinations of pleasure and purpose. And you may require each to different degrees at different times. But you do need to feel both. I call this the pleasure-purpose principle—the PPP.

Mig would be happier if he found something purposeful to do (in exchange for some of his fun stuff) and Lisa would be happier if she had a little more fun (in exchange for some of her time spent feeling purposeful).

Day to day, moment to moment, you feel sentiments of pleasure, purpose, pain, and pointlessness.

I'll show that the key to happiness is finding pleasure and purpose in everyday life.

Yes, there is another important category of feelings that matter to you, and these are the feelings of purpose and pointlessness you feel. I will use these adjectives as shorthand for a range of positive and negative feelings, such as fulfillment, meaning, and worthwhileness on the one hand and boredom and futility on the other.

Purpose is a simpler construct than pleasure because it's largely nonaroused, so either it's good (purposeful) or bad (pointless).

There is pleasure (or pain) and purpose (or pointlessness) in all that you do and feel. They are separate components that make up your overall happiness from an experience.

Translation: the primary purpose of all the language in the Bible and in the creeds and catechism is to tell us how to live rather than provide us with clear, final answers about the nature of God and the universe.

Loving others, therefore, is not a question so much of "doing God's will" but, rather, of "living God's life.

What I don't like is when I see stuff that I know has had a lot of improv done or is playing around where there's no purpose to the scene other than to just be funny. What you don't want is funny scene, funny scene, funny scene, and now here's the epiphany scene and then the movie's over.