Quotations About Life's Purpose

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.Thoreau, Henry David

Look and you will find it-what is unsought will go undetected.Sophocles

You are a child of the Universe, no less than the moon and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should.

Ehrmann, Max

Purpose serves as a principle around which to organize our lives.Anonymous

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

Schweitzer, Albert

The question is not whether we will die, but how we will live.

Borysenko, Joan

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Elliot, George

We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we can not put our heart.

Ruskin, John

Life is a promise; fulfill it.Mother Theresa
An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

Michener, James

Great minds have purposes, little minds have wishes

Irving, Washington

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose

Leider, Richard

If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

Dogen

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, denying them.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

"I have done my best." That is about all the philosophy of living one needs.Yutang, Lin

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music-the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

Miller, Henry

You are what your deep driving desire is; As your deep driving desire is, so is your will; As your will is so is your deed; As your deed is so is your destiny.

The Upanishads

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.Cather, Willa

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.

Shakespeare, William

Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.

King, Martin Luther

Each small task of everyday is part of the total harmony of the universe.

St. Theresa of Lisieux

Seeing yourself as you want to be is the key to personal growth.Anonymous
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Aurelius, Marcus

If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.

Newton, Isaac

I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail.

Wilson, Woodrow

Long years must pass before the truths we have made for ourselves become our very flesh.

Paul Valery

Time is but the stream I go a-fishin in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. It's thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

Henry David Thoreau

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

Intense feeling too often obscures the truth.

Harry Truman

The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Fortune is like glass--the brighter the glitter, the more easily broken. Publius Syrus
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

George Bernard Shaw

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

Friederich Nietzsche

Time will explain it all. He is a talker, and needs no questioning before he speaks.

Euripides

The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Malcom Forbes
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Benjamin Franklin

Life's Tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.

Benjamin Franklin

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

.Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.

Benjamin Disraeli

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Disraeli

There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.

George Eliot

Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.

Aesop

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.

Edward Phelps

The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.

Pindar

However gradual the course of history, there must always be the day, even an hour and minute, when some significant action is performed for the first or last time.

Peter Quennell

"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

"Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved."‚ D.H. Lawrence

If you don't have time to do it right you must have time to do it over. Anonymous

You cannot teach a crab to walk straight. Aristophanes

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. Aristotle

.Nature does nothing uselessly. Aristotle

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one. Aristotle

.Half the work that is done in the world is to make things appear what they are not. E.R. Beadle
Success is never final. Winston Churchill

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. Confucius

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it--this is knowledge. Confucius

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors. Confucius

A good book has no ending. R.D. Cumming

There is only one way to come into this world; there are too many ways to leave it.

Donald Harington

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

.So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing endures but change. Heraclitus

There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James

Luxury is more deadly than any foe. Juvenal

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

Clarence Buddinton Kelland

It takes less time to do a thing right, than it does to explain why you did it wrong.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What we obtain too cheap we esteem too little; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Thomas Paine

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

George Santayana

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.

Blaise Pascal

Life is but a moment, death also is but another.

Dr Robert Schuller
no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn -jim

I would rather be ashes than dust; I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brillant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot; I would rather be in a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow than in a sleepy and permanent planet; the proper function of man is to live, not to exist; I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them; I shall USE my time. ---

Jack London

You see the Earth as a bright blue and white Christmas tree ornament in the black sky. It's so small and so fragile - you realize that on that small spot is everything that means everything to you; all of history and art and death and birth and love.----Russell Schweikart, astronaut contributed by Heath Batz

Such as we are made of, such we be.---William Shakespeare contributed by Edmund

You only live once- but if you work it right, once is enough. --- Joe E. Lewis contributed by Sara Grunden

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves. -- Victor HugoContributed by Carol

We teach what we live.--unknown Contributed by Bill

In men whom men condemn as ill, I find so much of goodness still,In men whom men pronounce divine,I find so much of sin and blot, I do not dare to draw a line , Between the two where God has notunknown contributed by Lesa

"From time to time, to remind ourselves to relax, to be peaceful, we may wish to set aside some time for a retreat, a day of mindfulness, when we walk slowly, smile, drink tea with a friend, and enjoy being together as if we are the happiest people on Earth." -- Thich Nhat Hanhd

Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time.T.S. Elliot

In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life; it goes on!-----Leo Buscaglia--contributed by Kathleen

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didnt get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.---Buddha----contributed by Kathleen

It is better to deserve an honor and not receive it, than to receive one, and not deserve it!----- Mark Twain----contributed by Tom

Never does a man portray his character more vividly than his proclaiming the character of another.-- Winston Churchill-- contributed by kathleen

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced; live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.--- Cherokee Saying contributed by Krystal

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. --- Emily Dickinson