Quotes About Purpose

If our life has no meaning other than our own happiness, we are likely to find that when we have obtained what we think we need to be happy, happiness itself still eludes us.

I guess basically one wants to feel that one's life has amounted to more than just consuming products and generating garbage. I think that one likes to look back and say that one's done the best one can to make this a better place for others. You can look at it from this point of view: What greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering?

Our own happiness, therefore, is a by-product of aiming at something else and is not to be obtained by setting our sights on happiness alone.

Ben West points out that even from a selfish perspective, earning to give allows you to have things that people believe make them happy, like money and a high-status job, while still getting the fulfillment that comes from knowing you are helping to make the world a better place.

Why did God make lonely people? Answer: He was lonely, too.

A map may be beautiful, but if it doesn't tell us what we want to know, or clearly illustrate what it means to tell us, it's merely a decoration.

A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.

It is much easier for equals to achieve the unity of purpose and to develop a common course of action. Egalitarianism enables cooperation.

Your first step in decluttering them is to ask yourself "How do I want these horizontal surfaces to make my life easier?" (Rather than "What do I want to put here?")

For a journey without challenge, has no meaning; one without purpose, has no soul.

In Joseph Campbell's popular book of essays Myths to Live By, he described something pertinent to our theme of sacred journeys: "The ultimate aim of the quest, if one is to return, must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. RUMI

That's the essence of what it means to bring individuals together and connect them to something greater than themselves.

Work is holy, sacred, and uplifting when it springs from who we are, when it bears a relationship to our unfolding journey," writes activist, teacher, and lay monk Wayne Teasdale in A Monk in the World. "For work to be sacred, it must be connected to our

If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you–the dream or him.

I believed I could change the world, and the weight of that belief almost crushed me. But guess what - apart from God, I can do nothing. I can't get anywhere... My ability to accomplish anything good is dependent on my willingness to dwell in the current of God's will.

The impact God has planned for us doesn't occur when we're pursuing impact. It occurs when we're pursuing God.

Just as dead men make lousy ministers, dead organizations make lousy ministries. The

secular people don't believe in life after death, but rather, they believe in life before death.

Cycling is an excruciating sport - a rider's power is only as great as his capacity to endure pain - and it is often remarked that the best cyclists experience their physical agonies as a relief from private torments. The bike gives suffering a purpose.

We are all insects. Groping towards something terrible or divine.

Odd that the brain could function on its own, without acquainting him with its purposes, its reasons. But the brain was an organ, like the spleen, heart, kidneys. And they went about their private activities. So why not the brain?

that thing that's taken refuge there in that zinc bucket, without a wife, a career, a conapt, or money or the possibility of encountering any of these, still persists. For reasons unknown to me its stake in existence is greater than mine.

Purpose of life is unknown, and hence way to be is hidden from the eyes of living critters. Who can say if perhaps the schizophrenics are not correct? Mister, they take a brave journey. They turn away from mere things, which one may handle and turn to practical use; they turn inward to meaning. There, the black-night-without-bottom lies, the pit. Who can say if they will return? And if so, what will they be like, having glimpsed meaning? I admire them.