Quotes About Significance

things which seem frightfully important at the time have a habit of fading into insignificance. Events are like telephone poles, streaming back past the observation platform of a speeding train. They loom large at first, then melt into the distance, becoming so tiny they finally disappear altogether…. That's the way with nearly all of the things we think are so vital.

Necessity with the illusion of meaning would be the highest achievement for man; but when it becomes trivial there is no sense to one's life.

Human life may not be more than a meaningless interlude in a vicious drama of flesh and bones that we call evolution; that the Creator may not care any more for the destiny of man or the self-perpetuation of individual men than He seems to have cared for the dinosaurs or the Tasmanians.

Why, then, the reader may ask, add still another weighty tome to a useless overproduction?

Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning.

in order for this power to truly captivate us, it has to be generated in the creation of meaning and in social performance

Society provides the second line of defense against our natural impotence by creating a hero system that allows us to believe that we transcend death by participating in something of lasting worth.

Society itself is a codified hero system, which means that society everywhere is a living myth of the significance of human life, a defiant creation of meaning. Every society thus is a "religion" whether it thinks so or not: Soviet "religion" and Maoist "religion" are as truly religious as are scientific and consumer "religion," no matter how much they may try to disguise themselves by omitting religious and spiritual ideas from their lives.

To be able to say: I loved this person, we had a hell of a nice time together, it's over but in a way it will never be over and I do know that I for sure loved this person, to be able to say that and mean it, that's rare, señor. That's rare and valuable." — Ernest Hemingway, from The Complete Short Stories 

I'll tell every one in the world that you are the only one that matters.

it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short.

It evidently made no difference whether I was there to look after things or not.

and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing—the stream.

To be able to say: I loved this person, we had a hell of a nice time together, it's over but in a way it will never be over and I do know that I for sure loved this person, to be able to say that and mean it, that's rare…That's rare and valuable.

Our lives will become our greatest works of art not only when our relationships are a beautiful expression of love, acceptance, and intimacy, but when we have a deep sense of purpose that produces accomplishments that express, for us, success and significance.

Solamente cuando entendemos que somos terminales es cuando comenzamos a tratar el tiempo con el respeto que merece.

Where there is no love, there is no value for life.

The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order.

It might be if he had not appeared the way he did appear that day she would never have looked so closely at him, but the time people come makes a difference.

I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is.

Learning in the moment is difficult. This difficulty occurs because many of the opportunities for learning in counselling and therapy groups are missed as group leaders do not notice what is occurring. A key challenge in group leadership is to notice the significance of what is or what is not being said in a group.

Life's funny chucklehead. You only get one and you don't want to throw it away. But you can't really live it at all unless you're willing to give it up for the things you love. If you're not at least willing to die for something-something that really matters-in the end you die for nothing.

In the end, life becomes literature, and literature has meaning because life has meaning.

It was the day of my Judgment, and I was prepared in a thousand ways that didn't matter.