Quotes About Purpose

I will not knowingly empty my life of all meaning. Not just for pleasure. And not for you. It would be a poor exchange indeed.

You have a great deal of energy . . . restless energy. You have always been in search of something . . . and have still not found it. Don't settle for anything less than that something even if you still do not know what it is.

Good idea. I'll do it.

Like we say back home, when you find a turtle settin' on top of a fencepost, you can be pretty damn sure he didn't get there on his own.

You've seen what, Emilio conceded, but not why! That's where God is, Anne. In the why of it—in the meaning.

It was then that she experienced an instant of unprecedented clarity, a moment of wholly unanticipated certainty that God was real. The sensation fled almost as quickly as it came but left in its wake the conviction that Emilio was right, that they were meant to be here, doing this impossible thing.

A tale begins and where it ends, matters. Who tells the story and why, that makes all the difference.

I've seen what human beings can do- You've seen what... but not why! That's where God is, Anne. In the why of it - in the meaning

If you want to be happy for a year, win the lottery. If you want to be happy for life, love what you do.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote for any cause but money," Samuel Johnson said.)

Each one of us has a fire in our heart for something. It's our goal in life to find it and keep it lit.

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?

And that is just the point... how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.

There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?

And there you are on the shore, fitful and thoughtful, trying to attach them to an idea — some news of your own life. But the lilies are slippery and wild—they are devoid of meaning, they are simply doing, from the deepest spurs of their being, what they are impelled to do every summer. And so, dear sorrow, are you.

What will you do with your one precious, wild life?

What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift that I should bring to the world? What is the life that I should live?

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?

When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?