Quotes About Meaning

What is life? ... You will think, you will struggle, you will be hungry.

We cannot experience the world, even for an instant, without experiencing it through some myth, some narrative structure that sorts out our experiences and gives them meaning to us.

One claims that religious statements aren't referential at all, but purely expressive in nature; they communicate nothing but the emotional state of the person making them.

Another holds that while religious statements are referential, and subject to discussion they only have meaning within their own context and cannot be discussed productively from any outside point of view.

History, moreover, is a matter not only of sources but also of interpretation

Where more is meant than meets the ear.

It is better to have been, then not to have been, then to have been nothing at all." What truly is logic? Who decides reason? "It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reason can be found."-JOHN NASH JR.

Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. Similarly, your identity and vision are composed of a certain constellation of ideas and feelings that surfaced from the depths of the distance within you. To lose these now would be to lose yourself.

When you know your why, you can endure any how.

He paid attention to what was going on around him. Not for what he could get out of the situation. But for what he could give. This is the difference between a life of success and a life of significance. It's the difference between a quick win and a true victory.

A career may end with retirement and lots of "toys." A calling isn't over until the day you die.

Deep, unmediated, and inexpressible experiences do occur.12 All the traditions agree that in moments of grace, moments perhaps almost unnoticed, a person may move apart from all mediated meanings. No language. No culture. No words. No images. For those moments, one abides in simple and pure consciousness, sharply aware of the mystery surrounding us all.

In a similar vein, Keenan's approach to reading Christian scripture and understanding Christian doctrine seeks to place these in the context of the spiritual experience out of which scriptural and doctrinal expressions emerge: "a mystic realm of meaning in which meaning is constituted not by thinking and judging, but by the immediacy of contact, of being touched. Indeed, this base experience is the source from which all theologizing springs."9

Some day you will know that there is a beauty of the soul that is more important than worldly beauty. Remember this when you see worldly beauty.

Gilbert was always saying that he loved people. He needed them around him. He was always saying that he loved me, and I imagine he honestly believed this, though of course his handling of my career reflected favorably on himself. Love never did mean quite the same thing in the entertainment business as in less volatile circles.

Often we think that anything and everything is acceptable. True and committed relationships have honest accounting and steadfast love. Love without accountability is nothing but words. Love with accountability is changed behavior and action. This is the real meaning of restoration. My purpose is to bring action and accountability to the words.

Never tell a story because it is true: tell it because it is a good story.

It didn't matter what we did or where we did it as long as we were together. We knew we'd found what most people either pursue in years of futile search or dismiss as a fantasy at the outset: the missing half of ourselves. The real thing.

It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, "I've wasted it!" then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God's passion.

All that looks like reality to us is dependent on God. There is creation and Creator, nothing more. And creation gets all its meaning and purpose from God.

We are more than a collection of appetites - we are of God.

The thought of building a life around minimal morality or minimal significance—a life defined by the question, "What is permissible?"—felt almost disgusting to me. I didn't want a minimal life. I didn't want to live on the outskirts of reality. I wanted to understand the main thing about life and pursue it.

Therefore, at the heart of the meaning of work is creativity. If you are God, your work is to create out of nothing. If you are not God, but like God—that is, if you are human—your work is to take what God has made and shape it and use it to make him look great.

Honoring Christ, magnifying Christ, making much of Christ. That was the meaning of Paul's life. It should be the meaning of ours. And Paul prays it will be the meaning of his death as well. We live and we die to make much of Christ.