Quotes About Purpose

There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness.

The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.

Happiness then, is found to be something perfect and self sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed.

Nature does nothing in vain. Therefore, it is imperative for persons to act in accordance with their nature and develop their latent talents, in order to be content and complete.

To seek for utility everywhere is entirely unsuited to men that are great-souled and free.

What makes a man a 'sophist' is not his faculty, but his moral purpose. (1355b 17)

All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action.

Character is that which reveals moral purpose, showing what kind of things a man chooses or avoids.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us.

Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, that which all things aim at.

What is the Good for man? It must be the ultimate end or object of human life: something that is in itself completely satisfying. Happiness fits this description…we always choose it for itself, and never for any other reason.

Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.

Now to exert oneself and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need relaxation because we cannot work continuously. Relaxation, then, is not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.

But to be constantly asking 'What is the use of it?' is unbecoming to those of broad vision and unworthy of free men.

Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what is right?

The quality of life is determined by its activities.

To feel these feelings at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them, which is the mean amount - and the best amount is of course the mark of virtue.

Man's work as Man is accomplished by virtue of Practical Wisdom and Moral Virtue, the latter giving the right aim and direction, the former the right means to its attainment;

For nothing is moved at haphazard, but in every case there must be some reason present [1071b]

There is one end we all have – not in virtue of being rational, but simply in virtue of being human being – and that is happiness.

Every art or applied science and every systematic investigation, and similarly every action and choice, seem to aim at some good; the good, therefore, has been well defined as that at which all things aim.

As for the life of money-making, it is one of constraint, and wealth manifestly is not the good we are seeking, because it is for use, that is, for the sake of something further: