Quotes About Purpose

good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing.

W]here there are things to be done the end is not to survey and recognize the various things, but rather to do them...

Not in depraved things, but in those well oriented according to nature, are we to consider what is natural.

Happiness, therefore, being found to be something final; and self-sufficient, is the end at which all actions aim.

Again, it is for the sake of the soul that goods external and goods of the body are eligible at all, and all wise men ought to choose them for the sake of the soul, and not the soul for the sake of them.

Happiness, then, extends as far as contemplation, and the more contemplation there is in one's life, the happier one is, not incidentally, but in virtue of the contemplation, since this is honourable in itself. Happiness, therefore, will be some form of contemplation.

But there is a difference: in Rhetoric, one who acts in accordance with sound argument, and one who acts in accordance with moral purpose,are both called rhetoricians; but in Dialectic it is the moral purpose that makes the sophist, the dialectician being one whose arguments rest, not on moral purpose but on the faculty. Let

The end toward which all human acts are directed is happiness.

existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, and that we exist by virtue of activity (i.e. by living and acting), and that the handiwork is in a sense, the producer in activity; he loves his handiwork, therefore, because he loves existence.

Every art and every inquiry, and likewise every action and choice, seems to aim at some good, and hence it has been beautifully said that the good is that at which all things aim.

And, generally speaking, all things are good which men deliberately choose to do;

Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason is the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.

Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, ie, the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not obvious— hence there is no room for character in a speech on a purely indifferent subject.

É belo morrer antes de se fazer algo digno da morte. - Anaxândrias

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves)

M?c tiêu lá»›n nh?t c?a ??i ng??i là s?ng Ä'úng vá»›i ti?m n?ng c?a b?n thân

By choiceworthy in themselves are meant those from which nothing is sought beyond the act of Working: and of this kind are thought to be the actions according to Virtue, because doing what is noble and excellent is one of those things which are choiceworthy for their own sake alone.

Again he urged that that is most choiceworthy which we choose, not by reason of, or with a view to, anything further; and that Pleasure is confessedly of this kind because no one ever goes on to ask to what purpose he is pleased, feeling that Pleasure is in itself choiceworthy. Again, that when added to any other good it makes it more choiceworthy; as, for instance, to actions of justice, or perfected self-mastery; and good can only be increased by itself.

If, therefore, there is some end of our actions that we wish for on account of itself, the rest being things we wish for on account of this end, and if we do not choose all things on account of something else—for in this way the process will go on infinitely such that the longing6 involved is empty and pointless—clearly this would be the good, that is, the best.

Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account—for even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose each of them—but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy.

Je ne suis pas plus ennemi qu'un autre des douceurs de la vie. Je ne suis pas un Don Quichotte qui a besoin de quêter les aventures. Je suis un être de raison qui ne fait que ce qu'il croit utile. La seule différence entre moi et les autres souverains, c'est que les difficultés les arrêtent et que j'aime à les surmonter quand il m'est démontré que le but est grand, noble, digne de moi et de la nation que je gouverne.

Sooner or later, though, no matter where in the world we live, we must join the diaspora, venturing beyond our biological family to find our logical one, the one that actually makes sense for us. We have to, if we are to live without squandering our lives.

There is no fifth destination.