Quotes About Purpose

They say God appeared in history and used it for his purposes, but if that was so he had no pity for men.

Quando si ha qualcosa da fare che valga la pena, dormire è una perdita.

I don't want to be good; and I don't want to be bad: I just don't want to be bothered about either good or bad: I want to be an active verb.

L'humanité sera condamnée le jour où les humains n'auront plus envie de se surpasser. Aussi, vous tous qui m'écoutez, posez-vous cette question : « Mais au fait, qu'est-ce qui me donne envie de me lever le matin pour entreprendre des choses ? Qu'est-ce qui me donne envie de faire des efforts ? Qu'est-ce qui me pousse à agir ? »

Sein Vater hatte ihn immer ermahnt, wie wichtig es im Leben war, Ziele zu haben. Ohne Ziel wurde man hin und her getrieben und am Ende des Lebens hatte man gar nichts erreicht. Hatte man sich aber ein Ziel gewählt und hielt verbissen daran fest, dann spannte sich eine für andere unsichtbare Schnur durch das Leben. Eine Rettungsleine, an die man sich bei jedem Sturm klammern konnte.

for humans, death meant the end of everything. They lived in a condition of uncertainty, and maybe that was what made their lives so valuable. No human knew what would happen to his soul after death, so they had to make the best of things in life. And

The value of being brave, working hard, saving money keeping order depends on what it's for.

What do you want now? Your whole life in one hour?

Er suchte nicht das leichte Leben, sonderen das schöne. Er gierte nicht nach Geld, er spielte damit.

Ich schreibe aus demselben Grund, aus dem andere lesen: Man will nicht nur ein Leben leben.

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point?

I feel as if one would only discover on one's death-bed what one ought to have lived for, and realise too late that one's life has been wasted. Any passionate and courageous life seems good in itself, yet one feels that some element of delusion is involved in giving so much passion to any humanly attainable object. And so irony creeps into the very springs of one's being.

You all know the argument from design: everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different, we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application.

Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?

Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is conciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man?

If children learn of sex as a relation between their parents to which they owe their own existence, they learn of it in its best form and in connection with its biological purpose.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

only a foolish asceticism, usually vicarious, makes us continue to insist on work in excessive quantities now that the need no longer exists.

There was formerly a capacity for lightheartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.

only those who slavishly worship success can think that effectiveness is admirable without regard to what is effected.

Clarity, above all, has been my aim.

A todos los jóvenes con talento que van por ahí convencidos de que no tienen nada que hacer en el mundo, yo les diría: «Deja de intentar escribir y en cambio intenta no escribir. Sal al mundo, hazte pirata, rey en Borneo u obrero en la Rusia soviética; búscate una existencia en que la satisfacción de necesidades físicas elementales ocupe todas tus energías».

To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: "Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.