Best 852 quotes in «meaning of life quotes» category

I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing, And I look at flowers and I smile... I don’t know if they understand me Or if I understand them, But I know the truth is in them and in me And in our common divinity Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons And letting the wind sing us to sleep And not have dreams in our sleep.

I thought of the fate of Descartes’ famous formulation: man as ‘master and proprietor of nature.’ Having brought off miracles in science and technology, this ‘master and proprietor’ is suddenly realizing that he owns nothing and is master neither of nature (it is vanishing, little by little, from the planet), nor of History (it has escaped him), nor of himself (he is led by the irrational forces of his soul). But if God is gone and man is no longer master, then who is master? The planet is moving through the void without any master. There it is, the unbearable lightness of being.

I thought that nothing enormously bad or good had happened to me during my life. All the normal things had occurred. I had lived a completely unremarkable life. I wanted only my home, and the love and safety of those around me, nothing else. I knew there was no particular reason why I was put on this earth, but here I was and I was glad to be here, awed by the beauty of it. It was a perfect moment. (p.99)

It is a combination of man’s mental acuity and self-importance to try and attach any meaning to life. Why can’t we just be an extremely fortunate life form randomly hurtling through space on an ideally-positioned rock? If life has any meaning, it is the basic biological one of passing on our genes to the next generation before we die.

It is in broken places where light shines through. Never feel sad at being a little broken.

It is not how long we spend with someone that matters. It's the effect of that encounter that makes the difference.

It is our goal and new poetics to disappear. We will not disappear into nothingness; we will disappear into everything. As we resist and resist hard, history will remember us.

It made our presence in the world meaningful; we still served a purpose.

It may happen that we miss people that we took care of more than we miss those who took care of us, because the desire to love and the search for meaning, together, are stronger than the desire to be loved.

It's a great feeling to connect with someone as charming as you.

It's as if I had been going downhill when I thought I was going uphill. That's how it was. In society's opinion I was heading uphill, but in equal measure life was slipping away from me... And now it's all over. Nothing left but to die!" "So what's it all about? What's it for? It's not possible. It's not possible that life could have been as senseless and sickening as this. And if it has really been as sickening and senseless as this why do I have to die, and die in agony? There's something wrong. Maybe I didn't live as I should have done?" came the sudden thought. "But how can that be when I did everything properly?" he wondered, instantly dismissing as a total impossibility the one and only solution to the mystery of life and death.

It seems that rather than abandon their worldview, many young people are abandoning their lives altogether. I am disturbed to see the number of suicides and suicide attempts by those between the ages of fourteen and twenty-five. Many of their suicide notes report they had lost meaning, purpose and a sense that life held any value. This is no longer just about philosophy. This is about the very real lives we are all trying to make sense of here on Earth.

It seemed to him that all his life he had followed the ideals that other people, by their words or their writings, had instilled into him, and never the desires of his own heart. Always his course had been swayed by what he thought he should do and never by what he wanted with his whole soul to do. […] He had lived always in the future, and the present always, always had slopped through his fingers. His ideals? He thought of his desire to make a design, intricate and beautiful, out of the myriad pattern, that in which a man was born, worked, married, had children, and died, was likewise the most perfect? It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.

It’s human nature to find patterns where there are none and to find skill where luck is a more likely explanation.

It's funny. We meet hundreds of people. We stop to remember them sometimes and they're so far away and we're not a part of them anymore. Makes you realise how important it is to be a part of someone. And stay that way with them. And we have visions of going out into the open world and treating it as our oyster... but it takes a small, mindful moment to make us realise that doesn't really mean anything when you don't have someone to call home.

It's only when we dare to experience the full anxiety of knowing that life doesn't go on forever that we can experience transcendence and get in touch with the infinite. To use an analogy from gestalt psychology, Non-Being is the necessary ground for the figure of Being to make itself known to us. It's only when we're willing to let go of all of our illusions and admit that we are lost and helpless and terrified that we will be free of ourselves and our false securities and ready for what Kierkegaard calls "the leap of faith." p. 43

It's not about success and failure. It's not about good days and bad days. It's not about wealth or poverty. It's not about health or sickness. It's not even about life or death. It's about glorifying God in whatever circumstance you find yourself in.

It was clear to me by now that studying Islam was one thing – and absolutely worthwhile, because it helped me grasp the meaning of the religion and how it all fitted together. However, I felt as though I was standing in front of a shop window full of lovely things, and all I could do was admire them from afar. I was still separated from them by the window, or, as Muslims might say, a veil. In order to lift this veil, there was only one way forward: to get down onto the prayer mat and start living according to Islamic principles.

It took me a long time to learn how to love myself. But I don't try to convince someone else to do the same!

It was long before I could believe that human learning had no clear answer to this question. For a long time it seemed to me, as I listened to the gravity and seriousness wherewith Science affirmed its positions on matters unconnected with the problem of life, that I must have misunderstood something. For a long time I was timid in the presence in learning, and I fancied that the insufficiency of the answers which I received was not its fault, but was owing to my own gross ignorance, but this thing was not a joke or a pastime with me, but the business of my life, and I was at last forced, willy-nilly, to the conclusion that these questions of mine were the only legitimate questions underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretending to have an answer for them.

I've never had a moment when I thought: "Tom, you've made it!", and I don't think I want to, because that feels like you've reached the end; that you've crossed the finish line. But to me there is no end. An achievement is not a finish line; it's a checkpoint on a far greater journey. It's a moment to pause, to take a breath and look back and enjoy what you've experienced and be grateful for it, but then to turn around and look towards the next checkpoint, the next achievement.

I've found that martinis make mourning much easier.

I've never walked out of a meaningless movie thinking ALL movies are meaningless. I only thought the movie I walked out on was meaningless. I wonder, then, if when people say life is meaningless, what they really mean is THEIR lives are meaningless.

-i was "far and away"-riding my motorcycle along an american back road, skiing through the snowy Quebec woods, or lying awake in a backwater motel. the theme i was grappling with was nothing less than the Meaning of Life, and i was pretty sure i had defined it: love and respect. love and respect, love and respect-i have been carrying those words around with me for two years, daring to consider that perhaps they convey the real meaning of life. beyond basic survival needs, everybody wants to be loved and respected. and neither is any good without the other. love without respect can be as cold as pity; respect without love can be as grim as fear. love and respect are the values in life that most contribute to "the pursuit of happiness"-and after, they are the greatest legacy we can leave behind. it's an elegy you'd like to hear with your own ears: "you were loved and respected." if even one person can say that about you, it's a worthy achievement, and if you can multiply that many times-well, that is true success. among materialists, a certain bumper sticker is emblematic: "he who dies with the most toys wins!" well, no-he or she who dies with the most love and respect wins... then there's love and respect for oneself-equally hard to achieve and maintain. most of us, deep down, are not as proud of ourselves as we might pretend, and the goal of bettering ourselves-at least partly by earning the love and respect of others-is a lifelong struggle. Philo of Alexandria gave us that generous principle that we have somehow succeeded in mostly ignoring for 2,000 years: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

I want my life to mean something!

I want to read you every night. I want to take you to bed with me : your words, your thoughts, your mind, your body and your soul.

I was driving deep into the ocean of my mind and discovering hidden treasures!

I was pondering the reason why we are all here in this life, and what did it all mean. It seemed to me that we had all been invited to one big party, but no-one’s been told what we’re all celebrating.

I wasn't getting better. I was getting worse. I did not go to the doctor because I didn't want pills. If this was going to kill me then let me be killed by it. If this was the rest of my life I could not live.

What is life for? he asks himself. What is my life for?

I write because there is a madness within me to express my thoughts in words. I write because I feel passionately about certain feelings and there is this yearning within me to express these feelings in words. I am not comfortable meeting a lot of people. I like solitude. I like thinking and I dont like talking much.

I write. I am a writer.

Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What's the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there's still time? Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going? But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here? How do you stand? How do you breathe? How do you go on?

Keep on reinventing yourself! Always strive to be a better version of yourself!

Knowledge in one’s true individuality and selfhood can give him the irreducible fact of himself, and one’s perception of himself is everything of value.

Karate is many things, but mainly it's about synergy, ebb and flow, trial and error, action and reaction, rhythm of life, progress . . .

Jesus was not a carpenter forever.

Learn to be You to be Free to be You!

Learn to love yourself before anyone else in life.

Life is a beautiful journey. And we are here to lead a meaningful life. Some of us may take a longer time than others to pass exams and reach the milestones in life. But that does not mean that we become sad and depressed in life. Life is not a race. There are no winners or losers in life. It does not matter who comes first or last in the journey of life. Live your life in your own way. And always be happy. Spread happiness and kindness wherever you may go!

Life is an abstract art, and it’s up to you to make sense of it.

Life is just too beautiful if meaning is attached to it, and useless when meaningless!!

Life is like a poetry, without meaning or purpose - it's useless.

Life is more than great sex and a nice car.” “Well, yeah. But not a lot more.

Life is less about finding and more about seeking.

Life is truly lived in the moments of simplicity!

Life means chasing your dreams!

Life is plenty pointless. We're all put here on this earth, such a minuscule thing, really. This tiny Earth, in the midst of an ever-larger universe. We were put here for reasons unbeknownst to us, reasons that may not even exist. And, above all that, we try so hard. People work to discover things, to try to create the greatest new thing, to learn everything, to find answers. But those answers are pointless. Because one day, this world will end. And whatever mark you may have thought you left will vanish, like it was never even there. And that, my friends, is the meaning of life.

Life is too short to hold grudges, plan vengeance, and be angry for too long. And people say things like that all the time, but words like that only take on their meaning when you experience someone close to you passing away. There are truly not enough minutes, hours, days, months, years, to spend any amount of time on being and doing anything other than going into the direction of your happiness. Acceptance is better than correction and joy is better than revenge. Innocent laughter is better than anger.

Light shines through broken places. It is okay to be a little broken!