Quotes About Purpose

it's fine to live in the now. but the best thing about now is that there's another one tomorrow. i'm going to start making them count.

You cannot keep your eyes on the bloody footprints you have left behind you. You must keep your eyes on where you are going.

As Kennan had written in the Long Telegram back in February 1946: "The very disrespect of Russians for objective truth—indeed, their disbelief in its existence—leads them to view all stated facts as instruments for furtherance of one ulterior purpose or another." Now the internet could magnify their clandestine ambitions a millionfold.

It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life from being meaningless.

The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me?

Life is too short to be small.

It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life. This is a nonstarter—nothing can justify that sacrifice.

When I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking to myself: What can I do to be ready for that moment, which is coming? That propels me out of bed.

Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. —VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Holocaust survivor; author of Man's Search for Meaning

Don't save it all for the end. There is every reason not to.

If you can't define it or act upon it, forget it.

The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials." —Lin Yutang

What do you want?" is too imprecise to produce a meaningful and actionable answer.

What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. —VIKTOR FRANKL, Auschwitz survivor and founder of Logotherapy, Man's Search for Meaning

People say that what we are seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think this is what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive. —JOSEPH CAMPBELL, The Power of Myth

If you don't believe in an afterlife, then you [should realize] that this is such a short and precious life, it is really important that you don't spend it being unhappy. There is no excuse for spending most of your life in misery. You've only got 70 years out of the 50 billion or however long the universe is going to be around.

The Shortness of Life: Seneca on Busyness and the Art of Living Wide Rather Than Living Long" "How to Find Your Purpose and Do What You Love" "9 Learnings from 9 Years of Brain Pickings" Anything about Alan Watts: "Alan Watts has changed my life. I've written about him quite a bit.

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. —BENJAMIN DISRAELI, former British Prime Minister

Sometimes, you think you have to figure out your life's purpose, but you really just need some macadamia nuts and a cold fucking shower.

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

The Purpose of Life Is a Life of Purpose." This is Stan's answer to "If you could put a billboard anywhere and write anything on it, what would it say?" It is a quote from Robert Byrne.

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive." –Joseph Campbell