Quotes About Meaning

I looked at the empty suitcase. On the bottom was Karl Marx. On the lid was Brodsky. And between them, my lost, precious, only life.

Art has no right answer. The best we can hope for is an interesting answer.

So sure, start with a slogan. But don't bother wasting any time on it if you're merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.

Consumers are not loyal to cheap commodities. They crave the unique, the remarkable, and the human.

We sell feelings, status, and connection, not tasks or stuff.

Art is the unique work of a human being, work that touches another.

Don't worry about your stuff. Worry about making meaning instead.

Your story is a symphony, not a note.

We seek out experiences and products that deliver more value, more connection, and more experience, and change us for the better.

The easier it is to quantify, the less it's worth.

You can't really decide to paint a masterpiece. You just have to think hard, work hard, and try to make a painting that you care about. Then, if you're lucky, your work will find an audience for whom it's meaningful.

Real gifts don't demand reciprocation (at least not direct reciprocation), and the best kinds of gifts are gifts of art.

Everything happens for a reason, doesn't it? Even if you don't consciously agree with that statement, your brain sure does.

Here's another way to describe the two axes: One asks, Can you see it? The other wonders, Do you care?

As Susan Kare, designer of the original Mac interface, said, "You can't really decide to paint a masterpiece. You just have to think hard, work hard, and try to make a painting that you care about. Then, if you're lucky, your work will find an audience for whom it's meaningful.

Theodore Levitt famously said, "People don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill bit. They want a quarter-inch hole." The lesson is that the drill bit is merely a feature, a means to an end, but what people truly want is the hole it makes.

The fact that we can't repay him is precisely why his gift is so valuable

The job is not the work.

It's easy to get confused in our quest to build something that matters.

122. What's It for?

Now, instead of asking, "How can I get more people to listen to me, how can I get the word out, how can I find more followers, how can I convert more leads to sales, how can I find more clients, how can I pay my staff . . . ?" you can ask, "What change do I seek to make?

Steven Pressfield wrote, "What have you and I been put on this Earth to do? Is it not the creation of the 'inauthentic,' that is the purposefully crafted, in order to deliver to others the gift and simulacrum of authenticity? That's why they call it Art, and why, in some crazy way, it's realer than real and truer than true.

Art is what we call it when we're able to create something new that changes someone.

What do I want to say? I myself do not quite understand. Only that today, when for the glory of God Mokichi and Ichizo moaned, suffered and died, I cannot bear the monotonous sound of the dark sea gnawing at the shore. Behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God....the feeling that while men raise their voices in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent.