Quotes About Meaning

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

History describes what has happened, poetry what might. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and serious than history; for poetry speaks of what is universal, history of what is particular.

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.

The quality of life is determined by its activities.

For nothing is moved at haphazard, but in every case there must be some reason present [1071b]

Happiness, then, extends as far as contemplation, and the more contemplation there is in one's life, the happier one is, not incidentally, but in virtue of the contemplation, since this is honourable in itself. Happiness, therefore, will be some form of contemplation.

If, then, 'substance' is not attributed to anything, but other things are attributed to it, how does 'substance' mean what is rather than what is not?

Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim.

1) an attribute is predicated of some subject, (35) so that the subject to which 'being' is attributed will not be, as it is something different from 'being'. [186b] Something, therefore, which is not will be. Hence 'substance' will not be a predicate of anything else. For the subject cannot be a being, unless 'being' means several things, in such a way that each is something. But ex hypothesi 'being' means only one thing.

Algunos creen q para ser amigos basta con querer, como si para estar sanos bastara con desear buena salud

Our first presupposition must be that in nature nothing acts on, or is acted on by, any other thing at random, nor may anything come from anything else, unless we mean that it does so in virtue of a concomitant attribute.

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason is the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

É belo morrer antes de se fazer algo digno da morte. - Anaxândrias

to be learning something is the greatest of pleasures not only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind, however small their capacity for it; the reason of the delight in seeing the picture is that one is at the same time learning--gathering the meaning of things...

Again he urged that that is most choiceworthy which we choose, not by reason of, or with a view to, anything further; and that Pleasure is confessedly of this kind because no one ever goes on to ask to what purpose he is pleased, feeling that Pleasure is in itself choiceworthy. Again, that when added to any other good it makes it more choiceworthy; as, for instance, to actions of justice, or perfected self-mastery; and good can only be increased by itself.

If, therefore, there is some end of our actions that we wish for on account of itself, the rest being things we wish for on account of this end, and if we do not choose all things on account of something else—for in this way the process will go on infinitely such that the longing6 involved is empty and pointless—clearly this would be the good, that is, the best.

Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account—for even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose each of them—but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy.

Such a suitable word, stroke. I'd heard it since childhood without fully understanding its meaning, but it sounded, even through a haze of sleep and dope, just like itself: abrupt and brutal and irreversible. A stroke of lightning, the stroke of midnight, the stroke of a pen.

Yet a little while, she thought, and I shall be lying on a bed like that! And what shall I have lived for? What is the meaning of it? The riddle of life itself was killing her, and she seemed to drown in a sea of inexpressible sorrow.

Het verschil tussen loonarbeid en slavernij is een semantische kwestie

Is dat niet de kern van de psychiatrie, dat de patiënt verleid moet worden tot leven, al was het maar omdat psychiaters anders overbodig zouden worden? Elke beroepsgroep creëert zijn eigen perpetuum mobile.

Ik zou of niet meer dood willen of ik zou gewoon willen sterven. Alles wat daartussenin zit vind ik eigenlijk geen oplossing.