Quotes About Purpose

Look, Gail. Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life. Your strength? Your work. He tossed the branch aside. The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . .

Fransisco, what's the most depraved type of human being? -The man without purpose.

And questions give us no rest. We know not why our curse makes us seek we know not what, ever and ever. But we cannot resist it. It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know.

She started off, walking fast, as if the speed of her steps could give form to the things she felt.

I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.

To a life; which is reason unto itself.

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build!:

The pleasure of being drunk is obviously the pleasure of escaping from the responsibility of consciousness. And so are the kind of social gatherings, held for no other purpose than the expression of hysterical chaos, where the guests wander around in an alcoholic stupor, prattling noisily and senselessly, and enjoying the illusion of a universe where one is not burdened with purpose, logic, reality or awareness.

Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man.

A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.

I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry

Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch-or build a cyclotron-without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think

There's nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work.

You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached.

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal that is worth achieving.

The view that man was ever to be drawn by some vision of the unattainable shining ahead, doomed ever to aspire, but not to achieve, my life and my values could not bring me to that.

It is a policeman's duty to retrieve stolen property and return it to its owners. But when robbery becomes the purpose of the law, and the policeman's duty becomes, not protection, but the plunder of property - then it is an outlaw who has to become a policeman.

The pursuit of truth is not important. The pursuit of that truth is important which helps you in reaching your goal that is provided you have one.

I don't like the thing that's happening to people, Miss Taggart. I don't know. But I've watched them here for twenty years and I've seen the change. They used to rush through here, and it was wonderful to watch, it was the hurry of men who knew where they were going and were eager to get there. Now they're hurrying because they are afraid. It's not a purpose that drives them, its fear. They're not going anywhere, they're escaping.

We alone, of the thousands who walk this earth, we alone in this hour are doing a work which has no purpose save that we wish to do it.

Dagny, we can never lose the things we live for. We may have to change their form at times, if we've made an error, but the purpose remains the same and the forms are ours to make.

Man is an end in himself.

He had just graduated from college...and he wanted to decide whether life was worth living. He did not know that this was the question in his mind. He did not think of dying. He thought only that he wished to find joy and reason and meaning in life-and that none had been offered to him anywhere.

I always know what I want. And when you know what you want - you go toward it. Sometimes you go very fast, and sometimes only an inch a year. Perhaps you feel happier when you go fast. I don't know. I've forgotten the difference long ago, because it really doesn't matter, so long as you move.