Quotes About Purpose

In our production-oriented society, being busy, having an occupation, has become one of the main ways, if not the main way, of identifying ourselves. Without an occupation, not just our economic security but our very identity is endangered. This explains the great fear with which many people face their retirement. After all, who are we when we no longer have an occupation?

How much of our energy goes into defining ourselves by deciding "I am what I do," "I am what others say about me," or "I am what I have"? When that's the case, life often follows a repetitive up-and-down motion.

Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential—

If that is true, then the real question for me as I consider my own death is not: how much can I still accomplish before I die, or will I be a burden to others? No, the real question is: how can I live so that my death will be fruitful for others?

What counts in your life and mine is not successes but fruits. The fruits of our life are born often in our pain and in our vulnerability and in our losses.

One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there.

To her mind the Senate was a place where people went to recite speeches, and she naively assumed that the speeches were useful and had a purpose, but as they did not interest her she never went again. This is a very common conception of Congress; many Congressmen share it.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

Men are born to succeed, not to fail.

If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

In the long run men only hit what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.

The greatest art is to shape the quality of the day.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

In the long run, we only hit what we aim at.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.

Some men fish all their lives without knowing it is not really the fish they are after.