Best 852 quotes in «meaning of life quotes» category

If the goal is what you want to achieve, then the purpose is why you want to achieve it. Without purpose, reaching your goal will have little or no meaning.

If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most Ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule.

If the existentialists are right, that life is meaningless, and if we acknowledge that, we are better equipped to find pleasure in small things.

If there is any intelligence guiding this universe, philosophy wishes to know and understand it and reverently work with it; if there is none, philosophy wishes to know that also, and face it without fear. If the stars are but transient coagulations of haphazard nebulae, if life is a colloidal accident, impersonally permanent and individually fleeting, if man is only a compound of chemicals, destined to disintegrate and utterly disappear, if the creative ecstasy of art, and the gentle wisdom of the sage, and the willing martyrdom of saints are but bright incidents in the protoplasmic pullulation of the earth, and death is the answer to every problem and the destiny of every soul--then philosophy will face that too, and try to find within that narrowed circle some significance and nobility for man.

If we lived forever, they say, we would never take life seriously or learn to love what it.

If we were all looking for something 'easy come and easy go', then all of our lives would be easy. The problem is that we look for something real, don't we? And it is this longing for what is real, that makes finding the right person to be the most difficult task in the world. You can marry someone and promise the rest of your life to the person, only to find out later that this person makes you feel lonely. If we had no innate longing for true love and for true partnership, then none of us would have any problems! Therefore, the most frightening question to ponder upon, is, 'what if true love does not exist; what if the real stuff isn't real at all?' In such a case, life would be meaningless. I suppose I would rather believe in love relentlessly, than live in this world meaninglessly.

If you do not understand yourself, you will never understand the world around. The biggest world is within, outside views are our perceptual creation.

If you lived a good life, you either lived to save or died to save… that which must be saved and kept. Your life would never be meaningless. Not even for a moment.

If you know the results, why will you try to solve the problem? If you know the meaning of life, why will you try to understand it? Sometimes it is better not to know the answer.

If you want to have the time of your life, change how you use the time in your life.

If you reconnect with nature and the wilderness you will not only find the meaning of life, but you will experience what it means to be truly alive.

If you truly love someone, you would find a way to be with them.

If you want a meaningful life for yourself don't ask "What can the world offer to me?" but "What can I offer to the world?

If you truly love someone you will find a way to be with them.

If you understand the desire of a blooming flower, you will be able to understand the meaning of life.

I get down on my knees every mornin' an' give eternal thanks for the existence of girls in a otherwise pointless universe.

I had signed up for a lot of courses, but the biggest teacher is life. Perhaps we need to die multiple times in order to realize the true meaning of life. I’m grateful I died that day.

I have finally figured out the meaning of life: there's no such thing. And that's a beautiful thing, because that means that WE get to choose it ourselves. Life has no meaning besides the meaning you give it. You are indeed the author of your destiny. So why not write a book worth reading?

I have come here not to find answers, but to find a way to live in a world without any.

I have been traveling and having to spend a lot of time alone for the last five years of my life. Most of my time is spent in work or travel. Loneliness took over me and I fell into depression in circa 2014. I still struggle with my hardships and loneliness. One must never ever give up hope! Don't ever give up on yourself or on life!

I have been inside your heart all along this journey.

I have slept most nights crying on my pillow. When my soul felt incomplete without you in my life. And then I made my soul understand that we cannot have everything in life. Something has to be incomplete in our life to make us understand life. Only when we miss someone or something do we then begin to realise the value of that someone or something in our life. We don't begin to live life by having everything. We begin to live life when we have something missing and yet we find meaning in that existence.

I have spent so many nights out under the stars Euphoria running through my veins and alcohol coursing through my blood My mind would race along with my heart My vision drawn to the stars and all the possibilities of what is out there Suddenly the world and all its problems seems so infinitesimal My mind leaves this plane And a smile is drawn across my face I know this isn’t reality, but I absorb it with all my being I find it better to be lost out here then found in my real life Amongst the stars now I can live And it’s beautiful For the moments it lasts, it’s beautiful Its heaven on earth

I ignite the wick, and the firework takes flight. In that moment, I wish my existence were as simple as being set on fire and exploding in the sky.

I knew in that moment that everything happens for a reason, but we can’t always know the reason when the journey begins. Some things we can only understand at the end of our journey.

I keep falling deep down into my abyss… I exist for the art of existence.

I may not find the meaning of life in books, art and movies but I do find the meaning of my life in them.

I like my whiskey neat and strong just as I like my women. Women who have matured in their minds and bodies; women who have faced the storms of life! Because my life has always been about the thrill with the raging storms!

I made sure to pay attention to everything I was doing. To be fully in the moment. Because that's all life is, really, a string of moments that you knot together and carry with you. Hopefully most of those moments are wonderful, but of course they won't all be. The trick is to recognize an important one when it happens. Even if you share the moment with someone else, it is still yours. Your string is different from anyone else's. It is something no one can ever take away from you. It will protect you and guide you, because it IS you. What you hold here, in your hand, in this box, this is my string. "Until recently, I thought it was death that gave meaning to life--that having an endpoint is what spurred us on to embrace life while we had it. But I was wrong. It isn't death that gives meaning to life. Life gives meaning to life. The answer to the meaning of life is hidden right there inside the question. "What matters is holding tight to that string, and not letting anyone tell us our goals aren't big enough or our interests are silly. But the voices of others aren't the only ones we need to worry about. We tend to be our own worst critics. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: 'Most of the shadows in this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.' ... Wisdom is found in the least expected places. Always keep your eyes open. Don't block your own sunshine. Be filled with wonder.

I’m a keeper of flocks. The flock is my thoughts And my thoughts are all sensations. I think with my eyes and with my ears And with my hands and feet And with my nose and mouth. Thinking about a flower is seeing and smelling it And eating a piece of fruit is knowing its meaning. That’s why when on a hot day I feel sad from liking it so much, And I throw myself lengthwise on the grass And shut my hot eyes, And feeling my whole body lying on reality, I know the truth and I’m happy.

I'm an avalanche, waiting to fall on you, to awaken your deepest emotions, your fears, desires, longings, dreams. It is my purpose. I am your dream, through night and day, but if you wish to own me, you will find empty hands and understand that I am just as much an illusion as I am your delusions reality. I can not be owned. I'm real and unreal. I'm everything you love and hate, I'm here to be opposite of you to shape you, because I am your lesson, and my lesson is you.

I meet people and they become chapters in my stories.

In a sane world I should be a great man; as things are, in this curious establishment, I am nothing at all; to all intents and purposes I don't exist. I am just a Vox et preaterea nihil.

I learned that one person hurting another really is like a hand curling into a fist to smash the foot. And that all that really matters is family and other people. And that the purpose of life is to find the Light of God, but not the light from some old guy with a beard sitting up there judging us. The light is the love we give each other on our way back home. And that God wouldn’t mind if we spent a little less time telling him how great he is and a little more time loving each other, and not just the people we’re supposed to love, but everyone.

I love the smell of coffee when I wake up in the morning. It gives me the awesome feeling of hope!

Imagination is the weapon to fight off an impossibility.

In life, we need to go through a naked tree season in order to turn nothingness into meaning.

In my early fifties, I was going through a phase where few things felt right and I was trying to figure out those that did. It was not uncommon. In your twenties, you pursue your dreams. By your late thirties and early forties, you hit a certain stride. Then you hit your fifties, you get your first annoying thoughts of mortality, you begin more serious questioning of not just the meaning of your life but of what’s working, what’s not working, and what you still want, and all of a sudden you don’t know which way is up. You thought you knew but don’t. You just want to get to where life feels okay again.

Inside every poor creature was a sense of some other happy destiny, a destiny that was necessary and inevitable -why, then, did they find their lives such a burden and why were they always waiting for something?

In the moment I faced dying, I finally knew my reason for living.

In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God. "Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God. And He went away.

In the chaos of the world, you and I did find love...

In the most basic of situations-- when we know what we are doing, when we are engaged with the familiar-- these fundamental tendencies suffice. Our actual situations, however, are almost always more complex. If things or situations were straightforwardly or simply positive or negative, good or bad, we would not have to make judgements regarding them, would not have to think about our behavior, and how and when it should be modified-- indeed, would not have to think at all. We are faced, however, with the constant problem of ambivalence in meaning, which is to say that a thing or situation might be bad and good simultaneously (or good in two conflicting manners; or bad, in two conflicting manners).

In tracking what people have to say about schooling, I notice that most of the conversation is about means, rarely about ends. . . It is as if we are a nation of technicians, consumed by our expertise in how something should be done, afraid or incapable of thinking about why.

Involuntarily it appeared to me that there, somewhere, was someone who amused himself by watching how I lived for thirty or forty years: learning, developing, maturing in body and mind, and how, having with matured mental powers reached the summit of life from which it all lay before me, I stood on that summit -- like an arch-fool -- seeing clearly that there is nothing in life, and that there has been and will be nothing. And he was amused... But whether that "someone" laughing at me existed or not, I was none the better off. I could give no reasonable meaning to any single action or to my whole life. I was only surprised that I could have avoided understanding this from the very beginning -- it has been so long known to all. Today or tomorrow sickness and death will come (they had come already) to those I love or to me; nothing will remain but stench and worms. Sooner or later my affairs, whatever they may be, will be forgotten, and I shall not exist. Then why go on making any effort?... How can man fail to see this? And how go on living? That is what is surprising! One can only live while one is intoxicated with life; as soon as one is sober it is impossible not to see that it is all a mere fraud and a stupid fraud! That is precisely what it is: there is nothing either amusing or witty about it, it is simply cruel and stupid.

In the end, what will matter is the love shared, the hearts touched, and the laughter evoked. Seize this moment to open your heart.

In the end, life is about collecting experiences and looking for the lesson and blessing in each one. Yet we are never to carry these experiences on our backs, only in our hearts. One will hold us back, while the other will keep us moving forward.

In the purifying sweep of atheism human beings lost all special value. The numb misery of the horse was matched by that of the farmer; the once-green ferny lives crushed into coal's fossiliferous strata were no more anonymous and obliterated than Clarence's own life would soon be, in a wink of earth's tremendous time. Without Biblical blessing the physical universe became sherry horrible and disgusting. All fleshy acts became vile, rather than merely some. The reality of men slaying lambs and cattle, fish and fowl to sustain their own bodies took on an aspect of grisly comedy--the blood-soaked selfishness of a cosmic mayhem.

In the quantum multiverse all eventualities are possible. Which means, paradoxically, that all eventualities are inevitable. They have also quite possibly already happened. Make of that what you will, not that your will has much to do with it. Because here's the thing. If you believe that consciousness is an accumulation of memory; if you believe that you often know what's going to occur either through some animal instict or a human subscription to fate, then you are a walking and talking embodiment of everything happening all at once.

In words am I born? In words will I die?