Purpose Quotes

“But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are all more strong together.”
― Bram Stoker, Dracula

“I may be going nowhere, but what a ride.”
― Shaun Hick

“You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world.”
― Woodrow Wilson

“Following all the rules leaves a completed checklist. Following your heart achieves a completed you.”
― Ray A. Davis

“Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature

“A confident woman wears a smile and has this air of comfortability and pleasantness about her.”
― Agu Jaachynma N.E.

“If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?”
― Stephen Crane, The Open Boat and Other Stories

“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

A novel for me is an immersive experience where I feel as if I have lived it and that I've tasted the food and experienced the sex and experienced the terror of battle. So I want all of the detail, all of the sensory things—whether it's a good experience, or a bad experience, I want to put the reader through it. To that mind, detail is necessary, showing not telling is necessary, and nothing is gratuitous.”
― George R. R. Martin

“The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are going.”
― Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr.

“. . . in no instance has a system in regard to religion been ever established, but for the purpose, as well as with the effect of its being made an instrument of intimidation, corruption, and delusion, for the support of depredation and oppression in the hands of governments.”
― Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional Code; For the Use All Nations and All Governments Professing Liberal Opinions Volume 1

“Art has always been the raft onto which we climb to save our sanity. I don't see a different purpose for it now.”
― Dorothea Tanning

“It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, “I’ve wasted it!” then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God’s passion.”
― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

“Sooner or later on this journey, every traveller faces the same question: Are you a human intending to be a god, or a god pretending to be human?”
― Eric Micha'el Leventhal

“[I]n science we have to be particularly cautious about 'why' questions. When we ask, 'Why?' we usually mean 'How?' If we can answer the latter, that generally suffices for our purposes. For example, we might ask: 'Why is the Earth 93 million miles from the Sun?' but what we really probably mean is, 'How is the Earth 93 million miles from the Sun?' That is, we are interested in what physical processes led to the Earth ending up in its present position. 'Why' implicitly suggests purpose, and when we try to understand the solar system in scientific terms, we do not generally ascribe purpose to it.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

“Our wounds can so easily turn us into people we don't want to be, and we hardly see it happening.

Protect your heart, love yourself, and be with people who love and care for you.”
― Sue Fitzmaurice

“There is a season for everything under the sun—even when we can’t see the sun.”
― Jared Brock, A Year of Living Prayerfully

“At the core of her senseless actions, she vaguely perceived that she yearned for something. A something that would provide her with a sure sense of fulfillment. But she could not fathom what that something might be.”
― Shūsaku Endō, Deep River

“You don't decide what your purpose is in life you discover it. Your purpose is your reason for living.”
― Bob Proctor

“To ask, 'How do you do it?' is already starting off on the wrong foot. When reaching for the stars, there does not have to be a 'how' if there is a big enough 'why'.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

“The journey of the sun and moon is predictable, but yours is your ultimate art.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“How many of those who are insecure seek power over others as a compensation for inadequacy and wind up bringing consequences down upon their heads and those around them? How many hide out in their lives, resist the summons to show up, or live fugitive lives, jealous, projecting onto others, and then wonder why nothing ever really feels quite right. How many proffer compliance with the other, buying peace at the price of soul, and wind up with neither?”
― James Hollis, Hauntings: Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives

“Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full.”
― James McBride, The Good Lord Bird

“REFLECTIONS OF TRUTH

Where you find Truth
Is where you find your reflection
And where you find your reflection
Is where you find love
And where you find love
Is where you find light
And where you find light
Is where you find faith
And where you find faith
Is where you find purpose
And where you find purpose
Is where you find happiness
And where you find happiness
Is where you find Truth
And when you find Truth
Truth will set you free.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Yet for some reason, we as a society have
collectively decided it’s better to have millions of human beings spending years of
their lives pretending to type into spreadsheets or preparing mind maps for PR meetings than freeing them to knit sweaters, play with their dogs, start a garage band, experiment with new recipes, or sit in cafés arguing about politics, and gossiping about their friends’ complex polyamorous love affairs.”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

“In the end, what will you fight for-- what got there first, what got there last or what has been there all along?”
― Shannon L. Alder

“It is great to do what you love but greater with the great team.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!

“Looking at Tim, one cannot help feeling great waves of uncertainty, an absence of aim, of purpose, as if he is a person who simply doesn’t matter.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, The Informers

“When a man finds this kind of woman, he will go all out for her knowing that she will not be a letdown.”
― Agu Jaachynma N.E.

“The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Acceptance