Quotes About Purpose

Is your father writing a book? said Alison. No. He's existing. Some people live, like the rest of us, like the people in your plays. He just exists.

All the effort which he had put into making himself seemed vanity now that there were no more purposes

I'd like to to know what it is he's after, I mean, is it an experience or a thought, is it something you'd put in a book, or die for, or die of?

In a way it does not matter where I am. In another way where I am is fated.

He . . . felt as if, wanting to be needed by everyone, he were merely becoming some sort of semi-invisible messenger.

I had been confronted (at last) with a sizeable ordeal labelled with my name. This was not something to be wasted.

This was everything that I wanted to be done with, the relaxed banality of life without goals.

Shall I come too? said Francis. I might be useful. After all, I am still a doctor in the eyes of God.

Art is a vain and hollow show, a toy of gross illusions, unless it points beyond itself and moves ever whither it points.

But now, when things had happened which were too appalling to think about, when his romantic love was a corpse and his cleverness a ghost, he knew where it was he wanted to lay his head.

Basically, we live a short, disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up oor lives wi shite, things like careers and relationships tae delude oorsels that it isnae aw totally pointless.

Thir must be less tae life than this.

No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him.

Who loves — lives, who lives - works, and who works has some bread.

How can a young person learn whether he chose the correct way? He thinks he has a special idea, and then he discovers that he is completely inappropriate for it.

Who wants to do good in this world must deny oneself. A man does not live on this Earth to be happy or to be honest only - he has to do great things for humanity, achieve the generosity of the spirit and rise above the banality where most of the people are drowning and wasting their days.

L'arte è fatta per coloro che si sente indegno senza di essa.

Many times in your life you may think you are failing, but ultimately you will express yourself and that expression will justify your life.

Never let it happen to you as it did to me. That you wake in the morning, stare at the ceiling, ask yourself, 'What have I got to get up for today?' and answer... 'Nothing.

There is only a God-given number of years in which to work and fulfill yourself. Don't squander them.

Tell me, please,' Van Gogh asked, 'is it justifiable that a person wastes his only life by selling worthless paintings for fools?

You know, Nabby, there's mighty few pleasures in life to equal doing one's job. It is an act of love… -p. 131

Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency.

Meaning well is a poor defense