Quotes About Purpose

I didn't go into the NASA program to pick up rocks or to go the moon or anything else. I went in there because I was a military officer, and that was the next notch in my profession.

It does seem to me that the British in particular, British horticultural literature and television programmes, focus a huge amount on how we garden and hardly at all on why we garden.

We build programs with points in mind.

All of us are guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

The direction of the mind is more important than its progress.

I'm choosy to a fault. You want to hold out for a project that means something. You're the one who's there working fifteen hours a day, and if you don't believe in it, it can feel a whole lot longer.

Just doing a project because it's an opportunity won't create meaning. As an artist, I need something to communicate.

I always had the intuition, even as a little child, that I was called for a big project.

I think what happens is that you do the project first, then you think about what it's about. Years later, you figure out why you've done things.

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is extraordinary, but it is certainly true.

In a perfect world, I only act when I really want to. I don't do most of the stuff that is out there, but it's a joy and a pleasure to do anything that promotes this higher power - this light, if you will. I just think there aren't enough projects in the world that do that.

I want to find the right projects. I'm not going to take just anything.

I never take on anything that is just for the money or just for, you know. I always have to connect with it in a very personal way because I believe the audience will sense whether I'm into it or not, so I don't take on projects that I'm not really passionate about.

If I had accepted the offers to continue just for the sake of carrying on then it wouldn't have made me happy especially if it was just for money. Now I've got other projects to concentrate on.

The way I choose projects is based on what I think is most real and most interesting, not on what's paying the most money or what's most popular.

Most projects that I've done are really not about the project. They're about what's going on inside and around, that journey that we're all on, and what I can do to help that journey further itself and be of encouragement to somebody.

I always have a strange feeling that projects choose you. It's always mysterious.

It is very certain that the desire of life prolongs it.

I made a promise to myself when I graduated from law school that I would never do anything that I didn't enjoy doing, and almost every day of the year since that June of 1963, I have awakened glad that I was going to work, glad that I was going to court, glad that I was going to grapple with a problem.

I promise I will get up every day, determined to make a difference... I am ready to serve.

We acknowledge we are a blessed nation with a rich history of faith and fortitude, with a future that is filled with promise and purpose.

I know I'm just one man trying to do one thing, and the next day is not promised to any man. I'm very humble.

Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?

I don't do the media because of 'Woo-woo, Julia Butterfly,' as I call it. I'm not into promoting me. I'm into talking about why I've done what I've done, why I continue to do this work and why other people should care.