Quotes About Purpose

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

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.

Quanto ad adottare le soluzioni offerte dallo Stato per portare rimedio al male - io, quelle soluzioni, non le conosco: richiedono troppo tempo e un uomo morirebbe prima di riuscire a metterle in atto. Ho altre cose cui badare. Venni al mondo non principalmente per trasformarlo in un luogo buono dove vivere ma per vivervi, buono o cattivo che fosse. Un uomo non deve fare tutto, ma qualche cosa; e poiché tutto non lo può fare, non è necessario che faccia qualcosa di sbagliato.

It is not enought to be busy, so are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?

You must get your living by loving, or at least half your life is a failure.

Roads are made for horses and men of business. I do not travel in them much, comparatively, because I am not in a hurry to get to any tavern or grocery or livery-stable or depot to which they lead.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear.

My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there but to transact some private business, with the fewest obstacles… It's a good place for business... it offers advantages which it may not be good policy to divulge.

I don't want to feel as if my life were a sojourn any longer. That philosophy cannot be true which so paints it. It is time now that I begin to live.

This spending of the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it reminds me of the Englishman who went to India to make a fortune first, in order that he might return to England and live the life of a poet.

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then throwing them back again, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.

When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now

I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way.

Si tenéis alguna empresa ante vosotros, tratad de hacerla con las ropas viejas. A los hombres les hace falta, no algo con lo que hacer, sino algo que hacer, o mejor, algo que ser. Tal vez no deberíamos procurarnos un traje nuevo, por harapiento y sucio que esté el viejo, hasta no habernos conducido, empeñado o embarcado de tal modo que podamos sentirnos hombres nuevos en el viejo.

The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course.

When sometimes I am reminded that the mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them--as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to stand or walk upon--I think that they deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago.

As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man's life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should do something wrong.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life! To put to rest all that was not life... And not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived...

How we eat, drink, sleep, and use our desultory hours, now in these indifferent days, with no eye to observe and no occasion to excite us, determines our authority and capacity for the time to come.

I also have in mind that seemingly wealthy, but most terribly impoverished class of all, who have accumulated dross, but not know not how to use it, or get rid of it, and thus have forged their own golden or silver fetters.

In the long run, you hit only what you aim for.

Some are 'industrious' and appear to love labor for its own sake, or perhaps because it keeps them out of worse mischief; to such I have at present nothing to say.

For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. Reform keeps many scores of newspapers in its service, but not one man.