Quotes About Purpose

Our purpose is not to be the answer, but rather the question. To make each day a little brighter and leave the world a better place than we found it. That is the true path, which we all must choose to follow, regardless of whether it leads us beneath the shadow of a heel or the tire of a car. Our purpose is to walk that path with our heads held high, hope in our hearts, and belief that our roles, no matter how small, are integral to the grand design.

On the metro home that night, I struggled with a dilemma that would haunt me for decades. Was I an activist or an academic?

Set within the seed of the soul is not jut a fleeting image or a vague pattern but a lifelong story enfolded within, waiting to be cracked open and lived all the way out.

Human beings long for connection, and our sense of usefulness derives from the feeling of connectedness. When we are connected — to our own purpose, to the community around us, and to our spiritual wisdom — we are able to live and act with authentic effectiveness.

The human soul is a living paradox—neither a predetermined personality nor a completely open possibility. The point in this life is not simply to "become somebody," but to become who we were each intended to be when we first entered this world. For each of us has the most to give and contributes most meaningfully when we become who we were intended to be from the beginning. That is the inside story and the hidden message that has been etched upon each soul.

Fate and destiny are close woven within us and near them can be found the true genius of our lives.

To become nobody but your true self and to struggle against the tide of sameness and the false security of simply fitting in is a fight worth having. To become oneself by contributing one's native gifts and talents to this troubled world: that is the job to keep applying for and a work worth spending an entire life doing.

At critical junctures, outer trouble and the inner need to grow conspire to set each of us on a path of awakening and initiation.

What is most lacking in the modern world of duplications and facsimiles, of endless information and intentional misinformation, is the authenticity that makes life truly meaningful and spiritually rewarding.

In seeking after what the soul desires we become pilgrims with no home but the path the soul would have us follow.

The problem in most situations is not a lack of calling; but a fear of responding to the call.

Searching outside oneself for what can only be found within can lead to a life lived in the wrong direction and sacrifices made for the wrong reasons. People can wind up alienated from themselves even if they achieve lofty goals set by others.

The issue is not simply one of needing to save the world, but also of needing to solve the problem of the loss of soul throughout the modern world. Part of what has been lost in the reckless rushing of modernity is the sense that each life has an authentic interior that shelters important emotions as well as inherent purpose, and that the dignity of existence includes a necessary instinct to unfold the unique story woven inside each living soul.

Everyone who enters the world comes in with hidden gold, it's called your natural gifts. The job of a person is to find the hidden gold and give it. It turns out that when you give it you get more than when you hold on to it, that's the economy of the soul.

Soul is found where life deepens us, where meaning calls to us, where trouble deters us, wherever and however we slow down in the midst of the rushing and racing at the surface level of life.

We are wrapped around a mystery to which we were drawn before we were born.

Destiny is purpose seen from the other end of life.

The less we think about what others might be considering or thinking about us, the more likely we can live the story that our own souls came here to unfold and unveil to the world.

If there was an exit interview on the hour of our death I would like to be asked the question, "Was it worth it?" To which my response would be, "Yes, emphatically yes...but just barely.

Do what you love, and you will love what you do. Knowing what you want is the key to the growth and development of persistence. Knowing what you want will allow you to form definiteness of purpose. Some call this a "made up mind". It's hard to stop a person with a "made up mind". Make up your mind and decide what you want, and you will be persistent.

If you are doing things in order to be happy... you're doing them in the wrong order.

it is what you are striving for which is important, not how you appear.

There are too many people trying to escape from reality because they do not see their identity as having purpose or meaning.

Many people looking back on the effects of tragedy in their lives conclude that there was nothing else that would have been a strong enough motivation to change—that the most extreme suffering was needed to drive them toward their soul's mission.