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Meaning QuotesMeaning quotes center on what is meaningful in our lives. Some find creativity a source of meaning, other find meaning in doing good or working on something you feel makes a positive difference in the world. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. Mitch Albom When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life. Greg Anderson The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: overcome fear, behold wonder. Richard Bach The timing of death, like the ending of a story, gives a changed meaning to what preceded it. Mary Catherine Bateson I believe that nothing that happens to me is meaningless and that it is good for us all that it should be so, even if it runs counter to our own wishes. As I see it, I’m here for some purpose, and I only hope I may fulfill it. Dietrich Bondoeffer Ask yourself this question: Will this matter a year from now? Richard Carlson People say that what we are all seeking is meaning for life. I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innnermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell We must stitch up what has been torn apart, render justice imaginable in the world which is so obviously unjust, make happiness meaningful for nations poisoned by the misery of this century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But tasks are called superhuman when men take a long time to complete them, that is all. Albert Camus It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives…most of the things that are interesting, important, and human are the results of creativity…when we are involved in it, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. Phillip K. Dick I want to remind us all that the world is listening, all the time. How we are ripples out from us into the world and affects others. We have a responsibility – an ability to respond – to the world. Finding our particular way of living this responsibility, of offering who we are to the world, is why we are here. We are called because the world needs us to embody the meaning in our lives. God needs us awake. The world we live in is a co-creation, a manifestation of individual consciousness woven into a collective dream. How we are with each other as individuals, as groups, as nations and tribes, is what shapes that dream. Oriah Mountain Dreamer It is not peace we seek but meaning. Lawrence Durrell Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men -- above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends. Albert Einstein The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge. Albert Einstein We had the experience, but we missed the meaning. T.S. Elliot The more one forgives himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. Viktor Frankl What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. Viktor Frankl Words may show a man’s wit, but actions show his meaning. Benjamin Franklin As soon as we notice that certain types of events ‘like’ to cluster together at certain times, we begin to understand the Chinese, whose theories of medicine, philosophy, and even building are based on a ‘science’ of meaningful coincidences. Marie Louise von Franz We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way. Gloria Gaither When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless. John W. Gardner Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. If we truly knew all the answers in advance as to the meaning of life and the nature of God and the destiny of our souls, our belief would not be a leap of faith and it would not be a courageous act of humanity; it would just be... a prudent insurance policy. Elizabeth Gilbert To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything else be more fun? Katharine Graham Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile. Wilfred T. Grenfell The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. Nelson Henderson Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and the deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment. Arthur Jersild As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being. Carl Jung Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and objective world. Carl Jung Telling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living. Richard Kearney All of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I want to leave a committed life behind. Martin Luther King, Jr. Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. Martin Luther King, Jr. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. Martin Luther King Jr. The questions asked at the end of lie are very simple ones: Did I love well? Did I love the people around me, my community, the earth, in a deep way? And perhaps, Did I live fully? Did I offer myself to life? Jack Kornfeld Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good is the thousand minutes of triumph? It doesn’t equate… Life is made of small pleasures. Good eye contact over the breakfast table with your wife. A moment of touching a friend. Happiness is made of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. If you don’t have all those zillions of tiny successes, the big ones don’t mean anything. Norman Lear Nothing feeds the center of being so much as creative work. Anne Morrow Lindbergh Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. Joshua J. Marine The only important thing in a book is the meaning it has for you. Somerset Maugham Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as being of worth and dignity. Rollo May Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton What is [the role of money] in the search for meaning? Is our relationship to it one of the chief factors that keeps us in our prison, or could it also be a tool for breaking out, for awakening to a life filled with intensity of purpose? Jacob Needleman That impossible dream you dreamed when you were young but got talked out of, the one you thought you outgrew, might be the key to awakening your genius. That special talent you never followed through on might be an important source of delight, the one you should commit to. That old dream might be the one thing that will bring the magic of meaning to your life. Mark Victor Hansen & Barbara Nichols He who has the why to live can bear with almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done. Arnold Palmer Goals help focus you on areas in both your personal and professional life that are important and meaningful, rather than being guided by what other people want you to be, do, or accomplish. Catherine Pulsifer Our creativity is a fundamental survival capacity. Not only does it help us stay alive, it helps us learn what we are living for. Our human creativity must be taken seriously. Ruth Richards Love your calling with passion, it is the meaning of your life. Auguste Rodin If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. Mitsugi Saotome One needs something to believe in, something for which one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel that one’s life has meaning, that one is needed in this world. Hannah Senesh This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. George Bernard Shaw You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning. Barbara Sher The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean Robert Louis Stephenson The progress of our soul is like a perfect poem. It has an infinite idea which, once realised, makes all movements full of meaning and joy. Rabindanath Tagore The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity. Leo Tolstoy When you die and go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, Why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is, Why didn’t you become you? Elie Wiesel Real success means creating a life of meaning through service that fulfills your reason for being here. Oprah Winfrey The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but on significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning. Oprah Winfrey If you want to make the days of your life really matter, then you must love something. Kobi Yamada Return from Meaning Quotes and Meaningful Sayings to the Quotes Listed by Subject page
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Meaning Quotes 
