“‘I just don’t understand life,’ sulked Nora. ‘You don’t have to understand life. You just have to live it.'”
Matt Haig, The Midnight Library (Page 218)
Purpose Quotes
“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.”
Richard Feynman
“There are those who think of the meaning of life as resembling the answer to a riddle. One searches for years, and then some bright day one finds it, like the prize at the end of a treasure hunt. It is a profoundly misleading notion. The meanings in any life are multiple and varied. Some are grasped very early, some late; some have a heavy emotional component, some are strictly intellectual; some merit the label religious, some are better described as social. But each kind of meaning implies a relationship between the person and some larger system of ideas or values, a relationship involving obligations as well as rewards. In the individual life, meaning, purpose and commitment are inseparable. When one succeeds in the search for identity one has found the answer not only to the question ‘Who am I?’ but to a lot of other questions too: ‘What must I live up to? What are my obligations? To what must I commit myself?'”
John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal (Page 103)
“Everyone has noted the abundant resources of energy that seem available to those who enjoy what they are doing or find meaning in what they are doing. Self-renewing people know that if they have no great conviction about what they are doing they had better find something that they can have great conviction about. All of us cannot spend all of our time pursuing our deepest convictions. But all of us, either in our careers or as part-time activities, should be doing something about which we care deeply.”
John W. Gardner, Self-Renewal (Page 16)
“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“The patient/pilgrim insists that there must be some meaning that he just has not yet gotten hold of or else he would be happy. ‘Why?’ he asks. ‘Why did all this happen to me?’ He believes that if only he could understand, if only the therapist would explain it to him, then he could live with life as it is and be happy. But ‘the meaning of life can be revealed but never explained.’ The point is that there is no point. In a world of billion[s], countless numbers long dead and an infinite number yet to be born, how important are the momentary frustrations or satisfactions of any one of us?”
Sheldon B. Kopp, If You Meet Buddha On The Road, Kill Him! (Page 41)
“By applying tougher criteria we can tap into our brain’s sophisticated search engine. If we search for ‘a good opportunity,’ then we will find scores of pages for us to think about and work through. Instead, we can conduct an advanced search and ask three questions: ‘What do I feel deeply inspired by?’ and ‘What am I particularly talented at?’ and ‘What meets a significant need in the world?’ Naturally there won’t be as many pages to view, but this is the point of the exercise. We aren’t looking for a plethora of good things to do. We are looking for our highest level of contribution: the right thing the right way at the right time.”
Greg McKeown, Essentialism (Page 22)
“What makes life worth living? No child asks itself that question. To children life is self-evident. Life goes without saying: whether it is good or bad makes no difference. This is because children don’t see the world, don’t observe the world, don’t contemplate the world, but are so deeply immersed in the world that they don’t distinguish between it and their own selves.”
Karl Ove Knausgard, Autumn
“Dharma isn’t just passion and skills. Dharma is passion in the service of others. your passion is for you. Your purpose is for others. Your passion becomes a purpose when you use it to serve others. Your dharma has to fill a need in the world.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 122)
“It’s better to do one’s own dharma imperfectly than to do another’s perfectly.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 99)
“A monk is a traveler, but the journey is inward, bringing us ever closer to our most authentic, confident, powerful self. There is no need to embark on an actual Year-in Provence-type quest to find your passion and purpose, as if it’s a treasure buried in some distant land, waiting to be discovered. Your dharma is already with you. It’s always been with you. It’s woven into your being. If we keep our minds open ad curious, our dharmas announce themselves.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 98)
“If we’re only excited when people say nice things about our work, it’s a sign that we’re not passionate about the work itself. And if we indulge our interests and skills, but nobody responds to them, then our passion is without purpose. If either piece is missing, we’re not living our dharma.”
Jay Shetty, Think Like A Monk (Page 97)
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score (Page 89) | ★ Featured on this book list.
“I’m not here to create a legacy. I’m here to set the sky on fire like a shooting star, just for a moment. I’m here to light this world ablaze and then I want to be gone. Any extra time the reaper lets me stick around after that, well that’s just cherries, love. That’s just cherries on top.”
Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 160)
