Quotes About Purpose

In some cases, it seems in retrospect that there was actually this unconscious purpose behind the event, as though our unconscious knew that something important had to be learned and, painful as it was, it was the only way it could be brought into experience.

One day reach idealization; after all, it's the journey, not the destination.

Walking twenty-five miles, or even running up the stairs and back, suddenly seemed pointless, since without the steps being counted and registered, what use were they?

It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work.

Story seems to say that everything happens for a reason and I want to say, No, it doesn't.

I only do what only I can do.

Respect Joy. Joy is not something that happens instead of something else important; It isn't a waste of time; It is, really, what time was invented for.

Todos tenemos que morir, es una obligación. Si no muriéramos sería horrible, tendríamos que matarnos unos a los otros. Morir es nuestra única esperanza. Morir es el sentido de la vida, no te confundas.

Let it go and Hold on! In the way of so many great philosophies, those apparent opposites prove to be two sides of the same coin. To hold securely to the well-formed purposes of your own will, you must let go of the vain idea that you can control people or events or the tides of fate. You can't change what was, nor entirely control what will be. But you can choose who you are and what you stand for and what you will try to accomplish.

later, he put such questions before us. If all the trappings were stripped away, leaving only my true self, who would I be? Am I living fully as that self in every moment? And when it ends, will my story have meaning

It is not well to forget the past," Douglass warned in a speech later in the 1880s. "Memory was given to man for some wise purpose. The past is . . . the mirror in which we may discern the dim outlines of the future and by which we may make them more symmetrical.

as Douglass gained literacy, "Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?

The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.

strawmen—as manufactured ogres, created for their own propaganda purposes.

Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

A true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place.

Granted, Catholic sexual teachings are often in the news, but if you think about it, the media rarely reports on what the Church teaches sex is for. Instead, it reports on what the Church teaches sex is not for.

We have killed our souls with comfort instead of seeking fulfillment and achievement.

I am sustained by the certainty that life has meaning...as does death.

In spite of where we were, how we had gotten here and why we had come, I felt that at this moment of our lives, this place was exactly where we belonged. We were not drifting but rising, rising toward something right and of significance.

I see dead people. But, then by God, I do something about it!

My life has a mysterious purpose that I don't understand, and day by day, conflict by conflict, I learn by going where I have to go.

Dogs invite us not only to share their joy but also to live in the moment, where we are neither proceeding from nor moving toward, where the enchantment of the past and future cannot distract us, where a freedom from practical desire and a cessation of our usual ceaseless action allows us to recognize the truth of our existence, the reality of our world and purpose-if we dare.

We have all been brought into the world for some reason, and we must wonder why and hope to learn.