Meaning Quotes - Page 5

The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Sometimes we exist long enough to lead the next generation; other times, only to plant a seed and let its resonations of our time here on Earth ripple into new waves.

A.J. Darkholme

Your life is not a countdown to your death, but a stepping stone for the lives that will live after you. Squander today, and you will find yourself useless tomorrow.

A.J. Darkholme

Life is what you make it and legacy is what you leave it. Stop trying to be perfect, stop waiting for perfection to find you, and start making your environment a product of you instead of the other way around.

A.J. Darkholme

The world is changeable, and its ability to change is so fragile that a single person can be responsible for it.

A.J. Darkholme

Free will, determinism, meaning, existence, etc. are academic problems, not problems in life.

Marty Rubin

We are but cells living in a much larger organism, however, this does not make our existence less significant – for an organism without cells is no organism at all. We define it; we make it what it is. We are responsible for its health, its functionality, and above all, its purpose. A lone cell can restore the others, or a lone cell can spread a plague.

A.J. Darkholme

The older you get, the faster time passes in your mind, so use your time according to what is most important.

A.J. Darkholme

Leaving the familiar for unknown terrain is like a death - and feeling this level of finality should snap one back to life for life has greater meaning in the face of death.

Donna Lynn Hope

If nothing lasts then everything has meaning. If everything dies that means we actually live.

Chris Matakas

At the age of twelve, before I had had one full year of formal schooling, I had a conception of life that no experience would ever erase, a predilection for what was real that no argument could ever gainsay, a sense of the world that was mine and mine alone, a notion as to what life meant that no education could ever alter, a conviction that the meaning of living came only when one was struggling to wring a meaning out of meaningless suffering.

Richard Wright

Evolution did not design us to believe only true facts, nor to buy only useful products, nor to say only meaningful sentences

Piero Scaruffi

Wait a minute, I'm thinking, was this another one of those conversations where what is meant and what is being said are not the same thing?

Peter Hedges

Reason begets honesty, and honesty, if given its head, begets confidence; so consequently, there is a sort of grand authority in the stances of those who know why they are standing.

Criss Jami

You've a perfect right to call me as impractical as a dormouse, and to feel I'm out of touch with life. But this is the point where we simply can't see eye to eye. We've nothing whatever in common. Don't you see. . . it's not an accident that's drawn me from Blake to Whitehead, it's a certain line of thought which is fundamental to my whole approach. You see, there's something about them both. . . They trusted the universe. You say I don't know what the modern world's like, but that's obviously untrue. Anyone who's spent a week in London knows just what it's like. . . if you mean neurosis and boredom and the rest of it. And I do read a modern novel occasionally, in spite of what you say. I've read Joyce and Sartre and Beckett and the rest, and every atom in me rejects what they say. They strike me as liars and fools. I don't think they're dishonest so much as hopelessly tired and defeated."Lewis had lit his pipe. He did it as if Reade were speaking to someone else. Now he said, smiling faintly, "I don't think we're discussing modern literature."Reade had an impulse to call the debater's trick, but he repressed it. Instead he said quietly, "We're discussing modern life, and you brought up the subject. And I'm trying to explain why I don't think that murders and wars prove your point. I'm writing about Whitehead because his fundamental intuition of the universe is the same as my own. I believe like Whitehead that the universe is a single organism that somehow takes account of us. I don't believe that modern man is a stranded fragment of life in an empty universe. I've an instinct that tells me that there's a purpose, and that I can understand that purpose more deeply by trusting my instinct. I can't believe the world is meaningless. I don't expect life to explode in my face at any moment. When I walk back to my cottage, I don't feel like a meaningless fragment of life walking over a lot of dead hills. I feel a part of the landscape, as if it's somehow aware of me, and friendly.

Colin Wilson

Were all trying to find meaning to make sense of our realities; in search of happiness within, Without realising our happiness within; is the only reality that gives life a meaning.

Nikki Rowe

As I approach a new project, my process always begins with the question: what is it about? Here’s one answer that might apply to a Star Trek movie... I want it to be about the most horrible, treacherous aliens ever known to man who are about to destroy life as we know it, leading to the most spectacular thrill ride of an adventure with fantastic space battles and huge explosions and great special effects -- a white knuckle ride for the movie audience. Yeah, but what’s it about?I can write space battles with the best of them, but what makes that space battle interesting to me is: why are they fighting? What are the stakes? What does the hero lose if he loses? And what does he win if he wins? Why should we care? I'm talking about the second level of story-telling. The level that examines what's going on inside the characters — their moral and ethical dilemmas, their doubts, fears, inner conflicts, how they change as the story progresses. These are the things that make us, as members of an audience, get emotionally involved.

Michael Piller

And when you die only your thoughts that have reached paper remain. Finally when someone stumbles upon those words, reads about your loves and your losses, you touch them emotionally and for a time they finally feel understood. For that time they realise, they too shared the same thoughts and ideas,And then they realise just as I have realised, You are not truly as alone in this universe as you think are.

Morris R. Gates

I'm left with the pages of my life just turning,The story being filled slowly day by day,But the end is approaching and it is out of my hands, Hopefully I will reach my climax,Hopefully I will be able to draw my conclusions,Until then …All I can do is just turn the page

Morris R. Gates

Let's live our lives with great meaning and purpose in the attempt to influence the world to whatever degree our circumstance allows.

Chris Matakas

...there is no real person whose embodiment plays no role in meaning, whose meaning is purely objective and defined by the external world, and whose language can fit the external world with no significant role played by mind, brain, or body. Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Because a vast range of our concepts are metaphorical, meaning is not entirely literal and the classical correspondence theory of truth is false.

George Lakoff

When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.

Viktor E. Frankl

A wise man's goal shouldn't be to say something profound, but to say something useful.

Criss Jami

You were almost like a haiku: said so little, but meant so much.

Abraham Algahanem

But so strong is our desire for meaning, an innate desire, that we construct meanings where there are none.

David Cronenberg

We can’t worry about meaning. Ari proposed to us that meaning is a consumer item. Some people manufacture it through religion, philosophy, nationhood, politics, and some people buy it. But an artist is not a manufacturer.

David Cronenberg

Putting it into words will destroy any meaning.

Haruki Murakami

God is love, and music is the language of love; therefore, music is the language of God. Music is a language more profound than words. How often have you heard a great piece of music and felt that? Great music does not just make you feel good; great music suggests some profound truth or mysterious meaning that is objectively true but not translatable into words.

Peter Kreeft

Work is easy when it’s full of meaning and shared with others.

Jared Brock

We must strive to become more daily. We must honestly assess our weaknesses and overcome them. We must work toward the highest possible version of ourselves. This is a worthy use of our time, but it is only when we do so with the ultimate aim of service to our fellow man that we really connect with something greater than ourselves. To contribute to the world in a positive way, this is the gift of life.

Chris Matakas

The beautiful truth about service is that we are afforded countless opportunities to be its vehicle. Every interaction with another is an opportunity to serve. From simply letting someone into your lane in traffic, to holding a door, to a kind smile. This is all service. I am humbled by this simple truth. We are given the opportunity to express the most meaningful use of our lives every time we interact with another sentient being.

Chris Matakas

The key to living a purposeful life lies in identifying how best you can be a vehicle for God's divine love and light.

Rebecca Rosen

While we all share God's powerful DNA, we're also individual expressions of God. Meaning, there's no one else quite like you. So set the intention now to become clear on exactly what strengths and talents make you unique. When you know who and what you are, you reclaim your power and you feel empowered to move forward with clarity, confidence, and conviction, along with a joyful sense of divine purpose.

Rebecca Rosen

It isn't enough to have had an interesting or hilarious or tragic life. Art isn't anecdote. It's the consciousness we bring to bear on our lives. For what happened in the story to transcend the limits of the personal, it must be driven by the engine of what the story means.

Cheryl Strayed

Well, it is true. Sometimes avoiding something can give it more and more meaning rather than less and less.

Tom McNeal

Say that we are a puff of warm breath in a very cold universe. By this kind of reckoning we are either immeasurably insignificant or we are incalculably precious and interesting. I tend toward the second view.

Marilynne Robinson

No man voluntarily expresses his opinion without some intent to make a difference, and even if he does, he shouldn't.

Criss Jami

A great thinker does not necessarily have to discover a master idea but has to rediscover and to affirm a true but forgotten, ignored or misunderstood master idea and interpret it in all the diverse aspects of thought not previously done, in a powerful and consistent way, despite surrounding ignorance and opposition. This criterion we think would include all prophets and their true followers among the Muslim scholars. He is both a great and original thinker who brings new meanings and interpretations to old ideas, thereby providing both continuity and originality to the important intellectual and cultural problems of his time and through it, of mankind. Thus the brilliant interpretations of scholars and sages like al-Ghazali and Mulla Sadra then, and Iqbal and al-Attas now, deserve to be recognized and acknowledged as manifesting certain qualities of greatness and originality.

Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud

Each drop that fell,had a story to tell.each smile that curved,said a million words.(Poem: Our Existence, Book: Ginger and Honey)

Jasleen Kaur Gumber

No, no. Not a genius. This is like what reading is like for you. You look at the squiggles and loops, and the puzzle opens until suddenly nothing means something, something more than the sum of the parts, right? I see one hunk of metal and then another, and the puzzle opens. They turn in my mind and just make sense. Together they all mean something.

Jonathan Friesen

We are born, we grow up, we live our lives as best we can. If we are thoughtful we are good parents and good partners. If we are wise we strive for integrity and intimacy. If we are fortunate we discover love and joy. If we are able, we make the world a little better than we found it. That is all there is for any of us.

Robert B. Reich

To drown in treacle is just as unpleasant as to drown in mud.People today are in danger of drowning in information; but because they have been taught information is useful, they are more willing to drown than they need be.If they could handle information, they would not have to drown at all.The lightning said to the oak tree: 'Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!

Idries Shah

One recalls the literary writer who, after grasping a story of a Mars voyage as a metaphor for isolation and the precariousness of relationships, realized that at a deeper, more subtle level it might even be a story about an actual trip to Mars!

Michael Flynn

The glory of victory softens our view of past frailties.

Marian Deegan

When you move something, you discover new meanings in it, Kristina thought, watching them.

Molly Gloss

The truth is that our enjoyments and our evaluations, like our trades, are learned; intensive knowledge, as well as extensive, is acquired. We learn how to value possessions as well as how to make them; our passions, our disgusts, and our ambitions are learned. Just as we have evolved ways of transmuting physical elements from one to another, so we have evolved ways of transmuting experience into meaning.

Denham Sutcliffe

Love had to be deeper than that, than a glance over tea, which was indicative but not dispositive.

Michael Callahan

I am sustained by the certainty that life has meaning. As does death.

Dean Koontz

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

Morris R. Gates

Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal ... because in striving for your goal there are many things you do not see, which are directly in front of your eyes.

Hermann Hesse

A more fundamental problem with labelling human distress and deviance as mental disorder is that it reduces a complex, important, and distinct part of human life to nothing more than a biological illness or defect, not to be processed or understood, or in some cases even embraced, but to be ‘treated’ and ‘cured’ by any means possible—often with drugs that may be doing much more harm than good. This biological reductiveness, along with the stigma that it attracts, shapes the person’s interpretation and experience of his distress or deviance, and, ultimately, his relation to himself, to others, and to the world. Moreover, to call out every difference and deviance as mental disorder is also to circumscribe normality and define sanity, not as tranquillity or possibility, which are the products of the wisdom that is being denied, but as conformity, placidity, and a kind of mediocrity.

Neel Burton

I am who I am.A coincidence no less unthinkablethan any other.I could have had differentancestors, after all.I could have flutteredfrom another nestor crawled bescaledfrom under another tree.Nature's wardrobeholds a fair supply of costumes:spider, seagull, field mouse.Each fits perfectly right offand is dutifully worninto shreds.

Wisława Szymborska

When I felt I was dying, these past few days, things were no longer anthropomorphic. The telephone, which looks like a sort of upturned black snake, was merely a telephone. Every thing was just a thing. The couch, which looked like a big square face drawn by Rubens, with buttons on the cover like wicked little eyes, was just a couch, rather shabby but nothing more. At such a time things don’t matter to you; you don’t bathe everything in your presence, like an amoeba. Things become innocent because you draw away from them; experience becomes virginal, as it was for the first man when he saw the valleys and the plains. You feel you are set in a tidy world: that is a door and it behaves like a door, that is white and behaves like white. What heaven: the symbolism of meanings loses all meaning. You see objects which are comforting because they are quite free. But suddenly you are flung into a new form of suffering because, when you come to miss the meaning of, say, a stool, reality suddenly becomes terrifying. Everything becomes monstrous, unattainable.

Federico Fellini

Protecting your treasure means to give your life for it.

J.R. Rim

In a single wave of meaning the triumphant purity of being.

Boris Pasternak

We look to the accumulation of sensory pleasures to give our lives meaning. We have the ability now to consume anything we want and this capacity far exceeds our actual needs. With so much at our fingertips, a kind of gluttony pervades our mind-sets.

Mark Epstein

(Dune's Frank) Herbert made religion the inescapable instrument of cultural change.

Joseph Bottum

A myth, in its original Greek meaning- muthos- is simply that: a story, one which seeks to render life transparent to an intelligible source.

Jules Cashford

Time is measured in meaning

Rene Denfeld

. . . for meaning is never in the event but in the motion through event. Otherwise we could isolate an instant in the event and say that this is the event itself. The meaning. But we cannot do that. For it is the motion which is important.

Robert Penn Warren

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Meaning Quotes - Page 5

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