Quotes About Meaning

What distinguishes - in both senses of that word - contemplation is rather this: it is a knowing which is inspired by love. "Without love there would be no contemplation." Contemplation is a loving attainment of awareness. It is intuition of the beloved object.

The happy life does not mean loving what we possess, but possessing what we love." Possession of the beloved, St. Thomas holds, takes place in an act of cognition, in seeing, in intuition, in contemplation.

The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.

Leisure cannot be achieved at all when it is sought as a means to an end, even though that end be "the salvation of Western civilization". Celebration of God in worship cannot be done unless it is done for its own sake. That most sublime form of affirmation of the world as a whole is the fountainhead of leisure.

Their is no defense against criticism except obscurity.

Nature does nothing without purpose or uselessly.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Judge: And what is your occupation in general? Brodsky: Poet, poet-translator. Judge: And who recognized you to be a poet? Who put you in the ranks of poet? Brodsky: No one. And who put me in the ranks of humanity? Judge: Did you study it?...How to be a poet? Did you attempt to finish an insitute of higher learning...where they prepare...teach Brodsky: I did not think that it is given to one by education. Judge: By what then? Brodsky: I think that it is from God.

An object, after all, is what makes infinity private.

If I've learned one thing in the last few days it is that every question does not need to be answered. A story is not true just because of it's literal veracity. It is the message, what it teaches, that counts.

Like the meaning of my name, questions follow me wherever I go.

God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.

Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it. The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be. Being alive is the meaning.

I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

All religions are true but none are literal.

We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

The herbalist nodded, continuing to slowly stir the broth. "You are not the first laevvel I've known," he said. "Laevvel?" She'd never heard the word before. "Yes, from the Old Aldin laevvel bran'maur. It means 'beyond the loom of Braniel and Maurenna', in fact." He smiled and rested a hand on her head. "When the body and the true self do not match, it means. Like a girl born to a boy's body.

Why does it have to be like this?' I asked bitterly. 'Why does life have to be so short, with all the good things passing quickly. Is it worth living at all?

The difference between the word fiend and friend is merely one letter. I could easily be the latter. If you knew me better...

But if everything's already decided, then what's the point of living?

Why does it have to be like this? Why does life have to be so short, with all the good things passing quickly. Is it worth living at all?