Quotes About Meaning

We are pattern seekers, believers in a coherent world, in which regularities (such as a sequence of six girls) appear not by accident but as a result of mechanical causality or of someone's intention.

recent events and the current context have the most weight in determining an interpretation.

understanding a statement must begin with an attempt to believe it: you must first know what the idea would mean if it were true.

the word happiness does not have a simple meaning and should not be used as if it does. Sometimes scientific progress leaves us more puzzled than we were before.

It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness.

Happiness does not have a simple meaning and should not be used as if it does.

We are pattern seekers, believers in a coherent world, in which regularities (such as a sequence of six girls) appear not by accident but as a result of mechanical causality or of someone's intention. We

Something is still missing from this story: the answers need to be fitted to the original questions.

Most important, of course, we all care intensely for the narrative of our own life and very much want it to be a good story, with a decent hero.

We all care intensely for the narrative of our own life and very much want it to be a good story, with a decent hero.

Natürlich, es ist das Ende, und wir sterben. Aber das heißt nicht, dass wir nicht noch lange da sein, andere Menschen finden, spazierengehen, nachts träumen und alles erledigen können, was eine Marionette so tut.

Wir sind immer in Geschichten

Mnoge umiruje ?injenica da sveštenici još uvek postoje, da hodaju zemljom, da služe mise, da se mole i ponašaju kao da ?ovek ima dušu i kao da postoji nada za ljude. Tako i sam mislim kad vidim sveštenika koga ne poznajem. Ali kada se pogledam u ogledalo, to više ne funkcioniše.

In einer anderen Nacht kamen ihm plötzlich die Wissenschaft, seine Arbeit, sein gesamtes Leben fremd und überflüssig vor, weil er keinen Freund hatte und außer seiner Mutter niemanden, dem er etwas bedeutete. Aber auch das ging, wie alles, vorüber.

Das, dachte er, ist es. Leben müssen, obgleich alles vorbei ist. Disponieren, organisieren: jeden Tag, jede Stunde und Minute. Als hätte es noch Sinn

Erzählen, das bedeutet einen Bogen spannen, wo zunächst keiner ist, den Entwicklungen Struktur und Folgerichtigkeit gerade dort verleihen, wo die Wirklichkeit nichts davon bietet.

I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.

If a man cannot invest his life, or any part of it, with meaning, all he has left are distractions from meaninglessness, although few of us acknowledge them as such.

life's meaning is not something to look for but something to create myself

Through the ages, an impressive number of philosophers—from hedonists to transcendentalists—have rated friendship as life's greatest pleasure.

The idea that life's meaning is not something to look for but something to create myself feels right to me. In fact, it seems absolutely essential.

Absurdism: The concept that we cannot reconcile our desire to find a meaning of life with the fact that it is rationally impossible to do so. Also, various philosophers' ideas on how to lead an absurdist life. Some people who embrace the absurdist outlook find it hilarious in a bittersweet sort of way.

Logical Positivism: An early-twentieth-century school of philosophy that limits the scope of philosophy to the scientific method (empirical verification) and logic. Everything else philosophy once considered, such as metaphysics and ethics and theology, is tossed out the window as unverifiable and therefore meaningless.

The meaning of life is not something we look for, it is something we create. And by contemplating suicide, we can be fully present at our own creation.