Quotes About Meaning

How do you live in an age of bewilderment, when the old stories have collapsed and no new story has yet emerged to replace them?

So perhaps happiness is synchronising one's personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions.

To study history means to watch the spinning and unravelling of these webs, and to realise that what seems to people in one age the most important thing in life becomes utterly meaningless to their descendants.

2 As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how.

According to humanism, humans must draw from within their inner experiences not only the meaning of their own lives, but also the meaning of the entire universe. This is the primary commandment humanism has given us: create meaning for a meaningless world.

hence few try to understand what they have signed up for. Like when you download some software and are asked to sign an accompanying contract that consists of dozens of pages of legalese—you take one look at it, immediately scroll down to the last page, tick 'I agree' and forget about it. Yet in fact modernity is a surprisingly simple deal. The entire contract can be summarised in a single phrase: humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power.

Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and meaning to our lives. In

J?gpilna dz?ve pat p?rbaud?jumos sniedz gandar?jumu, bet bezj?dz?ga dz?ve pat vis?rt?kajos apst?k?os p?rv?ršas par mok?m.

For centuries humanism has been convincing us that we are the ultimate source of meaning, and that our free will is therefore the highest authority of all.

We want to believe that our lives have some objective meaning, and that our sacrifices matter to something beyond the stories in our head. Yet in truth the lives of most people have meaning only within the network of stories they tell one another.

That's how history unfolds. People weave a web of meaning, believe in it with all their heart, but sooner or later the web unravels, and when we look back we cannot understand how anybody could have taken it seriously.

Pero el enigma real de la vida no es qué ocurre cuando nos morimos, sino qué ocurre antes. Si queremos comprender la muerte, necesitamos comprender la vida.

Tales viajes (los espirituales) son fundamentalmente diferentes de las religiones, porque el objetivo de las religiones es cimentar el orden mundano, mientras que el de su espiritualidad es escapar de él.

The universe does not give me meaning. I give meaning to the universe. This is my cosmic vocation. I have no fixed destiny or dharma. If I find myself in Simba's or Arjuna's shoes, I can choose to fight for the crown of a kingdom, but I don't have to. I can just as well join a wandering circus, go to Broadway to sing in a musical, or move to Silicon Valley and launch a start-up. I am free to create my own dharma.

Moreover, most faiths turned death into the main source of meaning in life. Try to imagine Islam, Christianity or the ancient Egyptian religion in a world without death. These creeds taught people that they must come to terms with death and pin their hopes on the afterlife, rather than seek to overcome death and live forever here on earth.

A verdadeira especialidade dos sacerdotes e dos gurus nunca foi provocar a chuva, curar, fazer profecias ou magia. A sua especialidade foi sempre a interpretação. Um sacerdote não é alguém que sabe fazer uma dança da chuva para pôr fim à seca. Um sacerdote é alguém que sabe justificar por que motivo a dança da chuva não resultou, e por que motivo devemos continuar a acreditar no nosso deus apesar de ele parecer ignorar as nossas orações.

Having accepted that life has no meaning, I find meaning in explaining this truth to others, arguing with the unbelievers, giving lectures to the skeptics, donating money to build monasteries, and so on.

What, exactly, happens to a Communist after he or she dies?

The system may push us in that direction, because it usually rewards us for the decisions we make rather than for our doubts. Yet a life of resolute decisions and quick fixes may be poorer and shallower than one of doubts and contradictions.

Hayat?n anlam?n? ve hangi anlat?ya inanaca??n?z? bilmiyorsan?z ne yapar­s?n?z? Seçebiliyor olmay? kutsalla?t?r?rs?n?z.

Until the eighteenth century, religions considered death and its aftermath central to the meaning of life.

meaningful life can be extremely satisfying even in the midst of hardship, whereas a meaningless life is a terrible ordeal no matter how comfortable it is.

?nsan?n hissetme, dü?ünme, arzulama ve icat etme özgürlü?ünü k?s?tlayan her ?ey evrenin anlam?n? k?s?tlar.

happiness consists in seeing one's life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. There is an important cognitive and ethical component