Quotes About Purpose

Very often human beings don't become available for the purposes of art until they have shaken off some of their dogged, self-preserving sanity.

is intolerable for a human being to go on doing any task as a penance, under duress. No matter what the work is, one must spiritualize it in some way, shatter the old idea of it into bits and rebuild it nearer to the heart's desire.

The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.

The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.

Indeed, if the good life entails nothing more than the joyless performance of good deeds, then it is not a life that is lived but merely one that is ploddingly enacted. How can we urge good character upon individuals and devise strategies for encouraging character if there is not an experiential payoff?

Respondents who say that they want to find purpose and meaning in life also rate public-interest goals high in importance. Self-interest and materialist goals are unrelated to public-interest goals or to the desire to find purpose and meaning in life.

To aspire to life forever would be to acquire living at the expense of life.

Do you think it could be that those in charge of the guilds keep the system in operation after it has outlived its original purpose? It seems to me that the system works by suppression of knowledge. I don't see what that achieves. It has made me very discontented, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

I'm not living the life I thought I would lead, but it does have meaning, purpose. There is love... there is joy... there is laughter.

If you think the goal of life is to impress someone with your possessions or looks or intelligence or... then you are not living - - you are a circus act.

If you are not selfish you are wasting your life

Plundering history to deliver modern indictments serves no rational or benign purpose.

The exodus was not a movement from slavery to freedom, but from slavery to covenant. Redemption was for relationship with the redeemer, to serve his interests and his purposes in the world.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten. The purpose of the word is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten. Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words, so that I can talk to him?

A wandering carpenter, called Stone, saw on his travels a gigantic old oak tree standing in a field near an earth-altar. The carpenter said to his apprentice, who was admiring the oak: "This is a useless tree. If you wanted to make a ship, it would soon rot; if you wanted to make tools, they would break. You can't do anything useful with this tree, and that's why it has become so old.

I always admired and envied kids who did, who definitely wanted to be a doctor or who were going to go to West Point because their father was in the war, or if somebody wanted to fly, that that was something they definitely wanted to do. I thought that was great, because I didn't have any big desires or great ambitions for anything.

All who hear are called. All who are called are able.

It takes an act of our own will to choose God's plan for possessing our inheritance.

Specifically, the Lord longs for us to succeed: by moving our lives forward; … by causing us to prevail over the enemy of our souls; … by causing us to act wisely and strategically; by promoting us to new levels at the right season; and by helping us to achieve our destined purpose when we cry out to Him along our paths. In essence, as God's children, He longs for us to succeed even as He succeeds!6

Master Richard carries so much on his young shoulders, the normal troubles associated with adolescence in addition to sharing Master Bruce's crusade. I only wonder if he knows how casually he is throwing away the years of his youth. And if in the end, he will feel it was worth it.

A fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim.

Jesus makes us get rid of life as agenda and take up life as adventure. —Leonard Sweet

The real issues aren't the quarks that hold together our physical bodies. The real issue is our own personal nonlinearity - the real us. We can't see our real selves; we only see the containers we happen to be in right now. The real "us" is software, not hardware, which means it's without mass, which means it has no time. We are eternal - saved or not. That's the problem, because we each have an eternity ahead of us. Where will we spend it?