quotations about purpose
If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
I find the greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving; to reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
attributed, Plumbers, Gas and Steam Fitters Journal, 1914
Having purpose and vision during retirement is one of the most important determinants of mental, social, spiritual, and physical well-being in later life.
HAROLD G. KOENIG
Purpose and Power in Retirement
There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Inaugural Address, 1905
Where can you find purpose? Like success and happiness, our purpose exists in the present, and we constantly strive toward the future to maintain it. What it is for which we strive is up to each of us. The important thing is that we strive toward something.
PHILIP ZIMBARDO
The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life
If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.
ROY T. BENNETT
The Light in the Heart
If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.
SENECA
Seneca's Morals
The purpose of life is not to be happy--but to matter.
LEO ROSTEN
attributed, Quaker Life, 1966
If you have no aim, you need not worry about the means.
FAUSTO CERCIGNANI
attributed, Simply Transcribed
Purpose ... is held to be most closely connected with virtue, and to be a better token of our character than are even our acts.
ARISTOTLE
Nicomachean Ethics
All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
JORGE LUIS BORGES
Twenty Conversations with Borges
Plato defined a slave as one who accepts from another the purposes which control his conduct. This condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense. It is found wherever men are engaged in activity which is socially serviceable, but whose service they do not understand and have no personal interest in.
JOHN DEWEY
Democracy and Education
Though all things in society as well as in the universe are said to have a purpose, there do exist here below certain beings whose purpose and utility seem inexplicable.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
The Vicar of Tours
Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865