“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus
“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
― Joseph Campbell
“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, looked around, and spoke. "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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
“Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).”
― Jess C. Scott, The Other Side of Life
“I have learned that you can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do and buy all the things that you want to buy and meet all the people that you want to meet and learn all the things that you desire to learn and if you do all these things but are not madly in love: you have still not begun to live.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
“Life is problems. Living is solving problems.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Silverthorn
“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,”
― Amit Ray
“Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfill the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfill whatever dreams are within our capability.
Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.”
― Michio Kaku
“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.”
― Henry Miller
“Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase.”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World
“Look at the stars. See their beauty. And in that beauty, see yourself.”
― Draya Mooney
“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse, Verliebt in die verrückte Welt: Betrachtungen, Gedichte, Erzählungen, Briefe
“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”
― Slavoj Žižek
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
― Anthony de Mello
“Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”
― Ken Robinson
“The end is not the reward; the path you take, the emotions that course through you as you grasp life - that is the reward.”
― Jamie Magee, Embody (Insight, #2)
“We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“God and Destiny are not against us, rather they are for us, they are the ones who never forget the things we have long forgotten, the ones who hear the desires of our heart that our own heads can't hear, and they are the ones who never forget who we really are, long after our minds have forgotten the images of who we are. We come from God and we belong to Destiny, yet for some reason of ignorance we think that to be the master of our own fates and the captain of our own souls means to write everything down on a paper and plan everything out on a grid! Such great things to be done, and we think they are accomplished by our primitive ways! No. We must only know what we want. And want what we want. And then fly high enough to see all that which we want that we couldn't yet see.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life.”
― Max Lucado, Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
“The greatest create of power you have on earth, whether you are an angel, a spirit, a man or woman or child is to help others.”
― Anne Rice, Servant of the Bones
“The only purpose of our lives consists in waking each other up and being there for each other.”
― Johanna Paungger, Moon Time: The Art of Harmony with Nature and Lunar Cycles
“You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.”
― Stephen King
“Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
“Life is a fairy tale. Live it with wonder and amazement.”
― Welwyn Wilton Katz
“Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful than all the banquets in the world ...”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
“George, she says it's the truth that matters. We live and die for the chance to maybe tell a little bit of the truth, maybe shame the Devil just a little bit before we go.”
― Mira Grant, Feed
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
― Stanley Kubrick
“A life of short duration...could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“Be a lover of the world, it is the only way to survive in it.”
― Janosch
“Anyone can get a job, but do you have a purpose?”
― Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus
“Man is able to snatch everything except one thing, the last of human freedoms: the choice of an attitude under any given set of circumstances to determine his own path.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“Between the natural way and the path of grace there is a deep abyss. It is in that gap that we live our lives as a giant struggle between good and evil, Satan and God, despair and love. Whenever despair wins, it is the natural way. Whenever love wins, it is a moment of grace. When love is victorious and defeats despair completely, you've reached the path of grace.”
― Haim Shapira, Things That Matter
“Many find in sex and economics the meaning of life and the reason of it all. The consequence of this is that the goal of life for many has become a relief of tension.”
― Sachindra Kumar Majumdar
“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.”
― Pliny the Elder
“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.”
― Paul H. Magid, Lifting the Wheel of Karma
“Here is the way life is: whether we live to be 30 or 90, we all have a death sentence hanging over us. As Garfield says, "What's important in our lives is that we make the best of this, that we immerse fully in love.”
― Jumana Farouky
“We will be able to depart this life with the quiet peace-giving notion, that we were permitted to contribute to the happiness of many who will live after us. In our long lives we endeavored to unfold the collective consciousness. In our lives we have known hell and heaven; the final balance, however, is that we helped pave the way to dynamic harmony in this earthly house. That, I believe, is the meaning of life.”
― R.W. van Bemmelen
“Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.”
― Criss Jami
― Albert Camus
“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”
― Joseph Campbell
“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, looked around, and spoke. "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.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
“Friends are the family you choose (~ Nin/Ithilnin, Elven rogue).”
― Jess C. Scott, The Other Side of Life
“I have learned that you can go anywhere you want to go and do anything you want to do and buy all the things that you want to buy and meet all the people that you want to meet and learn all the things that you desire to learn and if you do all these things but are not madly in love: you have still not begun to live.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”
― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
“Life is problems. Living is solving problems.”
― Raymond E. Feist, Silverthorn
“It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,”
― Amit Ray
“Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them to atrophy and decay. We all know individuals who did not fulfill the promise they showed in childhood. Many of them became haunted by the image of what they might have become. Instead of blaming fate, I think we should accept ourselves as we are and try to fulfill whatever dreams are within our capability.
Second, we should try to leave the world a better place than when we entered it. As individuals, we can make a difference, whether it is to probe the secrets of Nature, to clean up the environment and work for peace and social justice, or to nurture the inquisitive, vibrant spirit of the young by being a mentor and a guide.”
― Michio Kaku
“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.”
― Henry Miller
“Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase.”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World
“Look at the stars. See their beauty. And in that beauty, see yourself.”
― Draya Mooney
“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.”
― Hermann Hesse, Verliebt in die verrückte Welt: Betrachtungen, Gedichte, Erzählungen, Briefe
“The problem for us is not are our desires satisfied or not. The problem is how do we know what we desire.”
― Slavoj Žižek
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. … That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense when you perceive it as mystery and it makes no sense to the conceptualizing mind.”
― Anthony de Mello
“Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.”
― Ken Robinson
“The end is not the reward; the path you take, the emotions that course through you as you grasp life - that is the reward.”
― Jamie Magee, Embody (Insight, #2)
“We think we can make honey without sharing in the fate of bees, but we are in truth nothing but poor bees, destined to accomplish our task and then die.”
― Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“God and Destiny are not against us, rather they are for us, they are the ones who never forget the things we have long forgotten, the ones who hear the desires of our heart that our own heads can't hear, and they are the ones who never forget who we really are, long after our minds have forgotten the images of who we are. We come from God and we belong to Destiny, yet for some reason of ignorance we think that to be the master of our own fates and the captain of our own souls means to write everything down on a paper and plan everything out on a grid! Such great things to be done, and we think they are accomplished by our primitive ways! No. We must only know what we want. And want what we want. And then fly high enough to see all that which we want that we couldn't yet see.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life.”
― Max Lucado, Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Intended to Bear
“The greatest create of power you have on earth, whether you are an angel, a spirit, a man or woman or child is to help others.”
― Anne Rice, Servant of the Bones
“The only purpose of our lives consists in waking each other up and being there for each other.”
― Johanna Paungger, Moon Time: The Art of Harmony with Nature and Lunar Cycles
“You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.”
― Stephen King
“Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan
“Life is a fairy tale. Live it with wonder and amazement.”
― Welwyn Wilton Katz
“Sometimes, the simple things are more fun and meaningful than all the banquets in the world ...”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
“George, she says it's the truth that matters. We live and die for the chance to maybe tell a little bit of the truth, maybe shame the Devil just a little bit before we go.”
― Mira Grant, Feed
“However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
― Stanley Kubrick
“A life of short duration...could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“Be a lover of the world, it is the only way to survive in it.”
― Janosch
“Anyone can get a job, but do you have a purpose?”
― Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life from Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus
“Man is able to snatch everything except one thing, the last of human freedoms: the choice of an attitude under any given set of circumstances to determine his own path.”
― Viktor E. Frankl
“Between the natural way and the path of grace there is a deep abyss. It is in that gap that we live our lives as a giant struggle between good and evil, Satan and God, despair and love. Whenever despair wins, it is the natural way. Whenever love wins, it is a moment of grace. When love is victorious and defeats despair completely, you've reached the path of grace.”
― Haim Shapira, Things That Matter
“Many find in sex and economics the meaning of life and the reason of it all. The consequence of this is that the goal of life for many has become a relief of tension.”
― Sachindra Kumar Majumdar
“True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it.”
― Pliny the Elder
“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.”
― Paul H. Magid, Lifting the Wheel of Karma
“Here is the way life is: whether we live to be 30 or 90, we all have a death sentence hanging over us. As Garfield says, "What's important in our lives is that we make the best of this, that we immerse fully in love.”
― Jumana Farouky
“We will be able to depart this life with the quiet peace-giving notion, that we were permitted to contribute to the happiness of many who will live after us. In our long lives we endeavored to unfold the collective consciousness. In our lives we have known hell and heaven; the final balance, however, is that we helped pave the way to dynamic harmony in this earthly house. That, I believe, is the meaning of life.”
― R.W. van Bemmelen
“Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.”
― Criss Jami
“You will have fewer regrets in life if you start focusing and taking responsiblity for where you are and where you want to be.”
― Deborah Day
― Deborah Day
“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.”
― Douglas Adams
― Douglas Adams
“To every thig there is a season,a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born,
and a time to die.
A time to plant,
and a time to recap.
A time to weep,
and I time to laugh
A time to mourn,
and a time to dance.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
“Why would our brains have this capacity to sense the oneness of the universe, a sense that can be induced in many ways, even technological, if that capacity did not reflect an external reality?”
― Kara Dalkey, Firebirds Soaring: An Anthology of Original Speculative
“Sophie Bach from The Maker:
You’re a human being with a personality and a will, and you make choices and think and create. Is there no meaning to you, Adrien Bach?
And what about us? Is the way we feel about each other just simulated emotions from some biological process—nothing more?”
― Wes Moore, The Maker
“The object of life is to make sure you die a weird death.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
“If my life had no meaning there was no reason not to end it.”
― Dan Wells, Ruins
“There is only Love -- and Stories. All else is but a shadow dream.”
― Vera Nazarian, Cobweb Forest
“She had stumbled on what was possibly the ultimate truth, the greatest wisdom of all - the search for knowledge never ends. It goes on and on forever.”
― Michael Oehley
“Instead of pondering the meaning of life, create it. Bring forth a purpose that has grown from the depths of your soul. Water it everyday.”
― Dylan Ozmore
“When you don't know what you're living for, you don't care how you live from one day to the next. You're happy the day has passed and the night has come, and in your sleep you bury the tedious question of what you lived for that day and what you're going to live for tomorrow.”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov
“One of the greatest gifts that God gives to each of us is the love we share with our family, friends, and fellowmen. It is this divine gift of love that enriches us, gives meaning and purpose to life, and makes it all worth living. Everything else in life is secondary. Everything. And when our time here on earth is over, our lives will not be measured by the riches we accumulate, the honors we receive, the degrees we acquire, or the professional success we achieve, but by our capacity to love and be loved.”
― Mike Ramsdell, A Train to Potevka
“Sometimes you have to cross the boundaries of Death in order to discover the meaning of Life.”
― B.G. Bowers, Death and Life
“We all see the same thing, but interpretive it differently.”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Open The Windows: To the World aound You
“When all the forces in your organism come into play, then life will begin to play around you as well. You'll see what your eyes are closed to now, and you'll hear what you've never heard. The music of your nerves will begin to play, you'll hear the music of the spheres, and you'll listen to the grass grow. Just wait, there's no hurry. It will come in its own time!
p. 257”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov
“Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you've finished it, you can always go back to the beginning; if you like, you can read it through again, in order to figure out what you couldn't understand before, in order to understand life, isn't that so, Fatma?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Sessiz Ev
“Homeward bound I suddenly noticed before me my own shadow as I had seen the shadow of the other war behind the actual one. During all this time it has never budged from me, that irremovable shadow, it hovers over every thought of mine by day and by night; perhaps its dark outline lies on some pages of this book, too. But, after all, shadows themselves are born of light. And only he who has experienced dawn and dusk, war and peace, ascent and decline, only he has truly lived.”
― Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“It made our presence in the world meaningful; we still served a purpose.”
― Massimo Marino, Daimones
“One note is not music. It is what lies between the notes that makes the music. And what is between them is: their relationship. Relationships are the music life makes. Context creates meaning. Asking, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question; it makes you look in the wrong places. The question is, "Where is the meaning in life?" The place to look is: between.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
“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”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
“We all have cracks and tears and shattered glass within our souls. Some have more than others. We do not wish to seek one who has none; but we wish to find the one who can say "look at me, look at this." We wish to find the one who sees every bit of broken glass and who will put those pieces into the palms of our hands and say "please keep them." And we wish to be that kind of person, too. This is how it should be.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“Wouldn't it help you to realize that you really do live in an epic if your life had a soundtrack?”
― John Eldredge, Love and War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of
“The old adage that people only want what they can’t have or what they can’t tame— is totally primitive. A being of higher origins will know instinctively that life on earth is a series of chances, moments and concepts. That’s really all that you have. So when you find one of these things and it makes you burn, or it makes you feel peace inside, or it makes you look forwards and backwards and here all at the same time— that’s when you know to hold onto it. And you hold onto it with every fiber of your being. Because it’s in the holding on of these chances and moments and concepts that life is lived. Every other kind of living is only in vitro. I don’t care what psychologists say today about how the human mind works. Because one day they will reach this pinnacle and they will see what I see and they will look upon the old ways as primitive. As long and gone. We do not wish to have what we can’t have. We wish to burn in whatever flame we have stepped into.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“We are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings.”
― Clarence Darrow
“The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life.”
― Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp
“The basis of your life is absolute freedom, the goal is joy, and the result of that perfect combination is motion forward, or growth. Your goal is to find objects of attention that let your cork raise.”
― Abraham Hicks
A time to be born,
and a time to die.
A time to plant,
and a time to recap.
A time to weep,
and I time to laugh
A time to mourn,
and a time to dance.”
― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
“Why would our brains have this capacity to sense the oneness of the universe, a sense that can be induced in many ways, even technological, if that capacity did not reflect an external reality?”
― Kara Dalkey, Firebirds Soaring: An Anthology of Original Speculative
“Sophie Bach from The Maker:
You’re a human being with a personality and a will, and you make choices and think and create. Is there no meaning to you, Adrien Bach?
And what about us? Is the way we feel about each other just simulated emotions from some biological process—nothing more?”
― Wes Moore, The Maker
“The object of life is to make sure you die a weird death.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
“If my life had no meaning there was no reason not to end it.”
― Dan Wells, Ruins
“There is only Love -- and Stories. All else is but a shadow dream.”
― Vera Nazarian, Cobweb Forest
“She had stumbled on what was possibly the ultimate truth, the greatest wisdom of all - the search for knowledge never ends. It goes on and on forever.”
― Michael Oehley
“Instead of pondering the meaning of life, create it. Bring forth a purpose that has grown from the depths of your soul. Water it everyday.”
― Dylan Ozmore
“When you don't know what you're living for, you don't care how you live from one day to the next. You're happy the day has passed and the night has come, and in your sleep you bury the tedious question of what you lived for that day and what you're going to live for tomorrow.”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov
“One of the greatest gifts that God gives to each of us is the love we share with our family, friends, and fellowmen. It is this divine gift of love that enriches us, gives meaning and purpose to life, and makes it all worth living. Everything else in life is secondary. Everything. And when our time here on earth is over, our lives will not be measured by the riches we accumulate, the honors we receive, the degrees we acquire, or the professional success we achieve, but by our capacity to love and be loved.”
― Mike Ramsdell, A Train to Potevka
“Sometimes you have to cross the boundaries of Death in order to discover the meaning of Life.”
― B.G. Bowers, Death and Life
“We all see the same thing, but interpretive it differently.”
― Sukant Ratnakar, Open The Windows: To the World aound You
“When all the forces in your organism come into play, then life will begin to play around you as well. You'll see what your eyes are closed to now, and you'll hear what you've never heard. The music of your nerves will begin to play, you'll hear the music of the spheres, and you'll listen to the grass grow. Just wait, there's no hurry. It will come in its own time!
p. 257”
― Ivan Goncharov, Oblomov
“Because, as I would always tell myself so many years later, lying here in my bed: You can't start out again in life, that's a carriage ride you only take once, but with a book in your hand, no matter how confusing and perplexing it might be, once you've finished it, you can always go back to the beginning; if you like, you can read it through again, in order to figure out what you couldn't understand before, in order to understand life, isn't that so, Fatma?”
― Orhan Pamuk, Sessiz Ev
“Homeward bound I suddenly noticed before me my own shadow as I had seen the shadow of the other war behind the actual one. During all this time it has never budged from me, that irremovable shadow, it hovers over every thought of mine by day and by night; perhaps its dark outline lies on some pages of this book, too. But, after all, shadows themselves are born of light. And only he who has experienced dawn and dusk, war and peace, ascent and decline, only he has truly lived.”
― Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
“It made our presence in the world meaningful; we still served a purpose.”
― Massimo Marino, Daimones
“One note is not music. It is what lies between the notes that makes the music. And what is between them is: their relationship. Relationships are the music life makes. Context creates meaning. Asking, "What is the meaning of life?" is the wrong question; it makes you look in the wrong places. The question is, "Where is the meaning in life?" The place to look is: between.”
― Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World
“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”
― Thomas Cathcart, Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between
“We all have cracks and tears and shattered glass within our souls. Some have more than others. We do not wish to seek one who has none; but we wish to find the one who can say "look at me, look at this." We wish to find the one who sees every bit of broken glass and who will put those pieces into the palms of our hands and say "please keep them." And we wish to be that kind of person, too. This is how it should be.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“Wouldn't it help you to realize that you really do live in an epic if your life had a soundtrack?”
― John Eldredge, Love and War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of
“The old adage that people only want what they can’t have or what they can’t tame— is totally primitive. A being of higher origins will know instinctively that life on earth is a series of chances, moments and concepts. That’s really all that you have. So when you find one of these things and it makes you burn, or it makes you feel peace inside, or it makes you look forwards and backwards and here all at the same time— that’s when you know to hold onto it. And you hold onto it with every fiber of your being. Because it’s in the holding on of these chances and moments and concepts that life is lived. Every other kind of living is only in vitro. I don’t care what psychologists say today about how the human mind works. Because one day they will reach this pinnacle and they will see what I see and they will look upon the old ways as primitive. As long and gone. We do not wish to have what we can’t have. We wish to burn in whatever flame we have stepped into.”
― C. JoyBell C.
“We are born and we die; and between these two most important events in our lives more or less time elapses which we have to waste somehow or other. In the end it does not seem to matter much whether we have done so in making money, or practicing law, or reading or playing, or in any other way, as long as we felt we were deriving a maximum of happiness out of our doings.”
― Clarence Darrow
“The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life.”
― Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp
“The basis of your life is absolute freedom, the goal is joy, and the result of that perfect combination is motion forward, or growth. Your goal is to find objects of attention that let your cork raise.”
― Abraham Hicks
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