Doing Something Worthwhile Quotes & Sayings

So I didn't adopt Homer because he was cute and little and sweet, or because he was helpless and needed me. I adopted him because when you think you see something so fundamentally worthwhile in someone else, you don't look for the reasons - like bad timing or a negative bank balance - that might keep it out of your life. You commit to being strong enough to build your life around it, no matter what. In doing so, you begin to become the thing you admire. — Gwen Cooper

It might derail and we'll all be killed. And if we do come to Aisnar? What's Aisnar? Mere hearsay.- - "That's morbid," Kasimir said, glimpsing again the walls collapsing.- - "No, exhilarating," his friend answered. "Takes a lot of work to hold the world together, when you look at it that way. But it's worthwhile. Building up cities, holding up the roofs by an act of fidelity. Not faith. Fidelity. — Ursula K. Le Guin

It's harder to reveal sides of yourself that make you vulnerable but it's another muscle that can be developed and one that I think is worthwhile. That said, everyone finds their style. It's personal. — Ted Alexandro

You can't accomplish anything worthwhile if you inhibit yourself — Oprah Winfrey

It is easy to imagine a world where not only can few people read, few need to or want to. Serious reading can become the preserve of a s mall group of specialists, just as shoe-making or farming is for us. Think how much time would be saved. We send children to school and they spend most of their time learning to read and then, when they leave, they never pick up another book for the rest of their lives. Reading is only important if there is something worthwhile to read. Most of it is ephemeral. That means an oral culture of tales told and remembered. People can be immensely sophisticated in thought and understanding without much writing. — Iain Pears

You got to like your work. You have got to like what you are doing, you have got to be doing something worthwhile so you can like it - because it is worthwhile, that it makes a difference, don't you see? — Colonel Sanders

The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing. — Richard Ford

It's always worthwhile speaking to a clever man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Music gave me a sense that I was worthwhile and that I had something of value to offer the world even though everybody was telling me that I didn't. — Sarah McLachlan

I consider those are rich who are doing something they feel worthwhile and which they enjoy doing. — Eleanor Roosevelt

The only knowledge that is worthwhile, writes Northrop Frye. is the knowledge that leafs to wisdom, for knowledge without wisdom is a body without life. — Leland Ryken

It might be worthwhile to take a familiar question - why there is so much crime in modern society? - and stand it on its head: why isn't there a bit more crime?
After all, every one of us regularly passes up opportunities to main, steal, and defraud. The chance of going to jail - thereby losing your job, your house, and your freedom, all of which are essentially economic penalties - is certainly a strong incentive. But when it comes to crime people also respond to moral incentives (they don't want to do something they consider wrong) and social incentives (they don't want to be seen by others as doing something wrong). — Steven D. Levitt

You know, there is the intellect, and there is pure feeling - the pure feeling of loving something, of having great, generous emotions. The intellect reasons, calculates, weighs, balances. It asks, "Is it worthwhile? Will it give me benefit?" On the other hand, there is pure feeling - the extraordinary feeling for the sky, for your neighbor, for your wife or husband, for your child, for the world, for the beauty of a tree, and so on. When these two come together, there is death. Do you understand? When pure feeling is corrupted by the intellect, there is mediocrity. That is what most of us are doing. Our lives are mediocre because we are always calculating, asking ourselves whether it is worthwhile, what profit we will get, not only in the world of money, but also in the so-called spiritual world - "If I do this, will I get that? — Jiddu Krishnamurti

God never said that the journey would be easy, but He did say that the arrival would be worthwhile. — Max Lucado

I am struggling, though. It's f-cking hard. So little sleep. It's 23 hours and 59 minutes of exhaustion. They do one little thing in that last minute that is just so compelling and fascinating that it makes the other 23 hours and 59 minutes worthwhile. — Liev Schreiber

GDP doesn't register, as Robert Kennedy put it, "the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, or the intelligence of our public debate." GDP measures everything, Kennedy concluded, "except that which makes life worthwhile." Nor does GDP take into account unpaid work, the so-called compassionate economy. — Eric Weiner

The goals for me have changed somewhat. There's a bit of seduction to the idea of being on network, but it got to the point where that wasn't important. What's important is doing something worthwhile. Which is why I've always avoided being on a sitcom. Yeah, it's high-profile and it's on a network, but you know what? You could be on Suddenly Stewart. — Jon Stewart

And last, it may be worthwhile trying to hang something beyond the partial wall because some of the pictures do very well in a confined space. — Mark Rothko

Meditation is valuable for all of humanity because it involves looking inward. People don't have to be religious to look inside themselves more carefully. It is constructive and worthwhile to analyze our emotions, including compassion and our sense of caring, so that we can become more calm and happy. — Dalai Lama

You are wonderful. Valuable. Worthwhile. Lovable. Not because others think so. Self worth comes from only one place: self. — Karen Salmansohn

Nothing worthwhile is ever achieved without deep thought and hard work, — J.R.D. Tata

To evoke the classic period of Italian cinema in a little film seemed like a great, fun thing to do. I had relations to that period. I had known Fellini and I had known Antonioni. I had made a movie with Antonioni and I had visited Fellini in his studios. So, it seemed like something worthwhile doing. You bring yourself to that mythical cinema. — Wim Wenders

He began to attack the bone with a regular knife and spoon. Until I nudged him with an elbow. "The marrow shovel." It was meant to reach down to the bottom of a bone and lift the marrow out. He reached for the utensil. "That's right. I always forget!" He wouldn't if Aunt had been his teacher. "Why do you think it is that we can't just use a knife?" I smothered a laugh as I remembered that I had asked Aunt that very same thing. "I don't know." "Neither do I. This table is a pigeon trap. A dozen different forks and knives and spoons. Four different goblets. All of them just waiting to be knocked over or misapplied and mishandled. It's a wonder anyone is ever tempted to eat!" "You're doing quite well." "Franklin's much better at all of this than I am." "But you're much better at conversing." "And making you laugh? Am I better at that?" I smiled. "Yes. I would say so." "Good. Because that, at least, is something worthwhile. — Siri Mitchell

One must have a high opinion of a work of art - not the work one is creating at the moment, but of that which one desires to achieve one day. Without this it is not worthwhile working. — Edgar Degas

Self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality. The object doesn't matter; it may be worthwhile or it may be worthless. No wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so compelling. When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son. — W. Somerset Maugham

I spent a fair amount of time editing the lyrics and allowing the song to kind of evolve ... anytime there's anything worthwhile, it certainly 'feels' like it happened on the spur of the moment, but it's a composite of lots of spurs of the moment, hopefully. And over time, you catch up with those, and then you have a full set of lyrics you've thought of and you feel comfortable singing. — Jeff Tweedy

We care about knowledge because knowledge is crucial to a worthwhile, valuable life. The questions of epistemology may be abstract, but their importance to our lives is vital. — Duncan Pritchard

Always be doing something worthwhile; then the devil will always find you busy. — St. Jerome

What makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance, and this the Christian has in a way that no other person has. For what higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God? — J.I. Packer

I don't believe that if you do good, good things will happen. Everything is completely accidental and random. Sometimes bad things happen to very good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. But at least if you try to do good things, then you're spending your time doing something worthwhile. — Helen Mirren

His special gift was the ability to see the essence of a worthwhile suggestion and to relate it to what was already in existence or planned. Then he would encourage and shape the new project, repeatedly redesigning the curriculum so that a new department or course could have a comfortable place in which to grow and offer it benefits. — Charles Bracelen Flood

Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day. — Octavia Butler

Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead of doing something worthwhile for his country. — P. J. O'Rourke

Each small kindness given or received is evidence that life is worthwhile. — Donald Altman

To me, this one brief moment proved to be my most meaningful memory at the park because it symbolized what we mean to people: We are not a cure for cancer, we are not going to save the world, but if we can make people that happy for a few hours or for a day, then we are doing something worthwhile. — Jack Lindquist

And although he hadn't fretted over whether his life was worthwhile, he had always wondered why he, why so many others, went on living at all; it had been difficult to convince himself at times, and yet so many people, so many millions, billions of people, lived in misery he couldn't fathom, with deprivations and illnesses that were obscene in their extremity. And yet on and on and on they went. So was the determination to keep living not a choice at all, but an evolutionary implementation? Was there something in the mind itself, a constellation of neurons as toughened and scarred as tendon, that prevented humans from doing what logic so often argued they should? And yet that instinct wasn't infallible - he had overcome it once. But what had happened to it after? Had it weakened, or become more resilient? Was his life even his to choose to live any longer? — Hanya Yanagihara

Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men but from doing something worthwhile. — Wilfred Grenfell

The thing has already taken form in my mind before I start it. The first attempts are absolutely unbearable. I say this because I want you to know that if you see something worthwhile in what I am doing, it is not by accident but because of real direction and purpose. — Vincent Van Gogh

We need to recognise that what really matters isn't buying more and more consumer goods, but family, friends, and knowing that we are doing something worthwhile with our lives. Helping to reduce the appalling consequences of world poverty should be part of that reassessment. — Peter Singer

The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It's doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. — Julia Child

My friends tell me I am strong, decisive, and wise. What a joke. Where is my strength tonight? Where is my wisdom? Ironically, they tell me I am 'so open'. Me, who has so many secrets that I have never shared. The irony would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Their blindness to my true self makes me feel invisible. Not in the way that a spirit or ghost is invisible, for I am most definitely flesh, blood, sinew, and bone. I even have a mind that works nimble and fast, and a mouth that speaks reasonably eloquently, when I feel I have something worthwhile to say. No, I'm invisible because the people who populate my life either do not, or cannot, see the real me. Of course, that is but another irony. I know much of my invisibility is of my own doing, and that is the last joke on myself: that which I seek is also that which I fear. — Lily Velden

1. If something is worthwhile doing - do it well. Don't waste your and other's time.
2. Life is brief - never postpone forgiveness when in your power - it may set you free. — Danie Botha

This is your way of telling me I should be doing something far more worthwhile than peeling your potatoes. — Jojo Moyes

Because . . . Nothing worthwhile in life is free," Balint said. "When it costs something, that item becomes much dearer. Yes, the Word could have saved all of mankind by just His words, but instead He chose to heal mankind in a different way, by taking on the hurt and darkness
Himself. And in doing so, we
realize just how dear we
are to Him. — Morgan L. Busse

The secret is just to not give up hope. It's very hard not to, because if you're really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side. And you just have to hang in through that." ~ George Lucas — Vanessa Moore

I've always been interested in definitions, because in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are there but there's no real clear definition of what sin is, in a fundamental sense - how we can use the words to evaluate our lives as we go along: Am I doing something that is ethically good? Am I being worthwhile in my life at this moment? — Whitley Strieber

Everyone is trying to get attention but intelligent persons get theirs by doing something worthwhile, beneficial to himself and the community. — Beatrice Sparks

The secret is not to give up hope. It's very hard not to because if you're really doing something worthwhile I think you will be pushed to the brink of hopelessness before you come through the other side. - GEORGE LUCAS — George Lucas

He would, he realized, find them or spend the rest of his life looking, and this might not take so long. So be it. All he had ever needed, in that desert or this, was some say in how it went, some reassurance that he would go doing something worthwhile. A sappy idea, but not therefore false. — Claire Vaye Watkins

I have a horror of being self-indulgent and wasting time, and there is that risk in doing this kind of work. Are you totally deluded in sitting down at a desk every day and trying to write something? Is it self-indulgent, or might it possibly lead to something worthwhile? At a certain point I decided to keep on because I felt like the work was getting better, and I was taking great pleasure in that. — Ben Fountain

Kanye West hasn't really done anything worthwhile
except maybe musically, I haven't heard him. But he hasn't overthrown the government. — Ian Svenonius

Danger is the spice of life and you've got to take a risk now and then ... that's what makes life worthwhile. — Anthony Hopkins

Whatever you remember, or feel, you need to know that whatever they were they did one worthwhile thing in their miserable lives. And that was you. Whatever they were, they couldn't destroy that. They couldn't stop you from becoming. — Nora Roberts

Even a dull life could make worthwhile reading, he said, provided the writer paid sufficient attention to detail. — Susan Hubbard

It is worthwhile to engage in something that is close to one's heart. I had a scholarship. So if I donate money to give brilliant Chinese students an opportunity to study abroad, then this embodies everything I believe in: education, globalization, social mobility. I am an example of social mobility. — Zhang Xin

He was out playing and heard Molly calling him. "Richard! Supper!" Instead of answering "Coming!" and running to her, he dodged under a hedge, scraping his knees. "Richard! Richard!" Molly sounded frantic this time, but he remained silent, crouched. "Richard! Where are you, Dicky?" A rabbit stopped and watched him, and he locked eyes with the rabbit and, for those short moments, only he and the rabbit knew where he was. Then the rabbit leaped out and Molly peered under the bushes and saw him. She smacked him. She told him to stay in his room for the rest of the day. She said she was very upset and would tell Mr. and Mrs. Churchill. But those short moments had made it all worthwhile, those moments of pure plenary abandon, when he felt as if he, and he alone, were in control of the universe of his childhood. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation - just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because THAT kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.
-What It Means To Be A Christian — Pope Benedict XVI

The person who works and is never bored is never old. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for age. — Pablo Casals

no worthwhile effort in one's life is either a success or a failure. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

It's always been important for writers to be disciplined but now even more so. In addition to the traditional displacement activities like cleaning the fridge or eating cake writers are faced with a plethora of online possibilities (some of which may be professionally worthwhile as well as interesting and fun). As a writer it's important to learn how to focus so you can do both as and when you need to. — Sara Sheridan

It is not necessarily true that expensive experiments are not worthwhile doing but there are plenty of rather cheap experiments which are certainly worth doing. — Martin Fleischmann

There are times when what's happening in rock is the best music in the world, and there are times when there is nothing worthwhile at all. — Carla Bley

If there is but one person in the world who is touched by your work, it makes it all worthwhile. — Judah Lee Davis

A Guards regiment, eh, Comrade Colonel? These tit-sucking children could not guard a Turkish whorehouse; much less do anything worthwhile inside of it!
While commenting on how unprepared his troops are. -Alekseyev — Tom Clancy

It was one of Mrs. Hale's fitful days, when everything was a difficulty and a hardship; and Mr Lennox's appearance took this shape, although secretly she felt complimented by his thinking it worthwhile to call. — Elizabeth Gaskell

Pragmatism and subjectivism obscure the reality of the truth. They engage the mind, but they make it the servant of our desires and our work. But they can't answer which desires I should pursue and which work is worthwhile. — John Piper

It comes from a deep-rooted conviction that if there is anything worthwhile doing for the sake of culture, then it is touching on subject matters and situations which link people, and not those that divide people. There are too many things in the world which divide people, such as religion, politics, history, and nationalism. If culture is capable of anything, then it is finding that which unites us all. And there are so many things which unite people. It doesn't matter who you are or who I am, if your tooth aches or mine, it's still the same pain. Feelings are what link people together, because the word 'love' has the same meaning for everybody. Or 'fear', or 'suffering'. We all fear the same way and the same things. And we all love in the same way. That's why I tell about these things, because in all other things I immediately find division. — Krzysztof Kieslowski

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

Average. It was the worst, most disgusting word in the English language. Nothing meaningful or worthwhile ever came from that word. — Portia De Rossi

To go to prison because of your convictions and be prepared to suffer for what you believe in, is something worthwhile. It is an achievement for a man to do his duty on earth irrespective of the consequences. — Nelson Mandela

I dropped the script in the fireplace, called my agent and said, they can jail me, sue me, but I'm never acting again, unless I can do something worthwhile. — Piper Laurie

Everything worthwhile in life requires incremental effort — Radhakrshna Dasari

Everything worthwhile in life is attained through hard work. Happiness is not an exception. — Dennis Prager

I have times when I doubt what I'm doing. When those moments hit, I think about how grateful I am to be able to do what I do every day. It was harder when I started because I didn't see the response, but now I'm out there playing for people and seeing them happy, which makes it all worthwhile. — Kimbra

Everything that makes man's life worthwhile - family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head - all this depends on the decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people, and I mean all of its people. — Robert Kennedy

Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn't make it productive or worthwhile. — Tim Ferriss

We will never accomplish anything worthwhile in life if we require the guarantee of success at the onset. — Sherry Thomas

No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you. — Mark Helprin

Physically, the heart is an organ that keeps us alive through a coordinated network of cells beating together. Spiritually, the heart is the center of love, the force that makes our lives worthwhile. Globally, the heart is a symbol of a new organizing principle for how to live together on this finite jewel of a planet. — Anodea Judith

You, Emily. You're worth fighting for. I fought all my life, but never for anything worthwhile. Now... Now I'm fighting for my heart. Bullshit ends here and now. — Nashoda Rose

You've been in love with someone for a decade - someone who barely knows you're alive. You've done everything, tried everything to make this person see that you're a valuable, estimable person, and that your love is worth something. Then one day you open the paper and glance at the Personals column, and there you see that your loved one has placed an ad ... seeking someone worthwhile to love and be loved by. — Daniel Quinn

Good Christian liturgy is friendship in action, love taking thought, the covenant relationship between God and his people not simply discovered and celebrated like the sudden meeting of friends, exciting and worthwhile though that is, but thought through and relished, planned and prepared
an ultimately better way for the relationship to grow and at the same time a way of demonstrating what the relationship is all about. — N. T. Wright

I've been for 10 years trying to make something out of my life as an actor. I've learned a lot but I haven't done much that's worthwhile. So maybe if I make people wonder what I really do look like and make myself unrecognizable, they will be interested and intrigued, which eventually, of course, happened. — Christopher Lee

I struggled to sit up, feeling stiff, but rested. "Where?" "Ted's house." I sat up straighter. Ted's house? Edward's house. I was finally going to get to see where Edward lived. I was going to snoop and strip some of his mystery away. If I didn't get killed, finding out Edward's secrets would make the entire trip worthwhile. If I did get killed, I'd come back and haunt Edward, see if I could make him see ghosts after all. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Carl had met Renee at a party given by a colleague of his. He had been taken with her face. Hers was a remarkably plain face, and it appeared quite somber most of the time, but during the party he saw her smile twice and frown once; at those moments, her entire countenance assumed the expression as if it had never known another. Carl had been caught by surprise: he could recognize a face that smiled regularly, or a face that frowned regularly, even if it were unlined. He was curious as to how her face had developed such a close familiarity with so many expressions, and yet normally revealed nothing. It took a long time for him to understand Renee, to read her expressions. But it had definitely been worthwhile. Now — Ted Chiang

I hope people hear my songs and realize that writing music is kind of easy, or that taking your sadness and turning it into a beautiful song is worthwhile. — Frankie Cosmos

Well, in my experience, it's usually the things we're most afraid of that end up being the most worthwhile. — Julie Johnson

Summer makes me suicidal. It sucks all the magick out of life, and even sleeping becomes an exercise in fruitless brutality. I cannot comprehend what it is in the souls who await this misery. Nothing worthwhile can survive the heat. The birds and the bees are harbingers of hell, ushering in a season of disease. There is nothing in these months that speaks to me. It conspires to keep me from ever reaching home. — Damien Echols