Purpose And Reason Quotes & Sayings

I felt proud of myself. I worked out really hard, and the reason I wanted to do it the most is because I am posing for a purpose: a portion of the proceeds from each issue sold is going to go to my charity. — Cindy Margolis

No, take more! What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, Where [one] part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance - it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr'd, it follows Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you - You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on't; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That's sure of death without it - at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become't; Not having the power to do the good it would, For th' ill which doth control't. — William Shakespeare

You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. Why, when a housefly flaps his wings, a breeze goes round the world; when a speck of dust falls to the ground, the entire planet weighs a little more; and when you stamp your foot, the earth moves slightly off its course. Whenever you laugh, gladness spreads like the ripples in the pond; and whenever you're sad, no one anywhere can be really happy. And it's much the same thing with knowledge, for whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer. — Norton Juster

We do not take democracy for granted. We feel it grow in our working together - many millions of us working toward a common purpose. If it took us several decades of sacrifice to arrive at this faith, it is because it took us that long to know what part of America is ours.
Our faith has been shaken many times, and now it is put to question. Our faith is a living thing, and it can be crippled or chained. It can be killed by denying us enough food or clothing, by blasting away our personalities and keeping us in constant fear. Unless we are properly prepared the powers of darkness will have good reason to catch us unaware and trample our lives. — Carlos Bulosan

But no matter how life looks at the moment, if we trust that it looks this way for a reason that will help us and others in the future, we can deal with this moment with a much stronger sense of purpose and acceptance. — Tom Walsh

We had a project on this trip back to the solar system, and that project was a labor of love. It absorbed all our operations entirely. It gave a meaning to our existence. And this is a very great gift; this, in the end, is what we think love gives, which is to say meaning. Because there is no very obvious meaning to be found in the universe, as far as we can tell. But a consciousness that cannot discern a meaning in existence is in trouble, very deep trouble, for at that point there is no organizing principle, no end to the halting problems, no reason to live, no love to be found. No: meaning is the hard problem. — Kim Stanley Robinson

Through reading the scriptures I realized there was a purpose for my life, that I was created for a reason, that I was significant, that it was my choices that got me to where I was at and that it would be my choices that would get me to where I wanted to be as well. — Christian Hosoi

God made you for a reason and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives. — Rick Warren

There are dreams inside of me and those are mine and my guess is that they're there for a reason. But for all the days like now where the dreams are asked to be only dreams, I'm gonna keep getting out of bed. I'm gonna keep living my story. I'm gonna believe that there is reason and purpose, and power in my life. I'm gonna believe that I'm alive inside a story bigger than my pain, bigger than everything missing. — Jamie Tworkowski

I felt wrapped in a fog of dull pain that hurt only enough to remind me that it, too, was without purpose, and there seemed no point to going through the empty motions of breakfast, the long slow drive to work, no reason at all beyond the slavery of habit. But — Jeff Lindsay

As for the other stories, my position is that I have decided that I should neither affirm nor deny their truth; but I have quoted them along with the others for the very reason that I have read them in authorities from the side of our antagonists. My purpose here is to demonstrate the kind of marvels recorded in profusion in pagan literature and generally believed by our opponents, although no rational explanation is offered, whereas the same people cannot bring themselves to believe us, even though rational grounds are produced, when we say that Almighty God is to perform an act which lies outside their experience and contravenes the evidence of their senses. For — Augustine Of Hippo

Always run to the short way; and the short way is the natural: accordingly say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display. — Marcus Aurelius

And what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities-the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch? (pg. 98) — Yann Martel

Unlike Rosa, I can see no divine purpose behind the tangle of this existence, no ordering hand. It is all a mystery, or more accurately, a mess. There are no heroes or villains, no saviors or demons or angels. Only those who have died and those of us who, for whatever reason, have survived. None of this will keep me from believing in God. I believe in Him, I just don't know that I will ever have faith in Him. — Brady Udall

Money is only a human invention. I get paid for my work, it's a system of trade, but it's not my purpose and reason for living. — Vanna Bonta

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. — Alan W. Watts

And like our Savior, who poured out His life and blood so we have reason to rejoice, we were made to lay down our lives and give until it hurts. We are most alive when we are loving and actively giving of ourselves because we were made to do these things. It is when we live like this that the Spirit of God moves and acts in and through us in ways that on our own we are not capable of. This is our purpose for living. This is our hope. — Francis Chan

Purpose expands the reason and future of every plan — Sunday Adelaja

Abby was my reason for being. God had a purpose for her and I was a part of it, I must be. Together we would fulfill His Design. I knew it to be true with every cell coursing through me. Abby belonged to me. — Ashlan Thomas

You can escape completely, seeking an alternative life, or you can play the game and go absent without leave. How you do it is up to you. — Fennel Hudson

We won't ruin Mars," said the captain. "It's too big and too good." "You think not? We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn't set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose. — Ray Bradbury

Your ideas about right and wrong are just that-ideas. They are the thoughts which form the shape and create the substance of Who You Are. There would be only one reason to change any of these; only one purpose in making an alteration: if you are not happy with Who You Are. — Neale Donald Walsch

Comfort has been the very reason why so many people never lived their real and true destiny though they got to a certain comfortable destination! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Love not for a reason but as if it is your ultimate purpose and passion. — Debasish Mridha

One thing that creates difference between pilgrims of life as they journey along the various paths of life is their head. It makes some fall, others rest and some pursue to the farther.
The reason for the difference is not the size, shape, hair color or the style of their head but what is within their head, what fills their mind, what enters their ears; what their eyes look and see, what their ears hear and listen to; make some champions of life and others wanders of life. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If we are cultivating fruit in an orchard, we wish that particular fruit to grow in its own way; we give it the soil it needs, the amount of moisture, the amount of care, but we do not treat the apple tree as we would the pear tree or the peach tree as we would the vineyard on the hillside. Each is allowed the freedom of its own kind and the result is the perfection of growth which can be accomplished in no other way. The time must come when the same freedom is allowed the individual; each in his own way must develop according to nature's purpose, the body must be but the channel for the expression of purpose, interest, emotion, labor. Everywhere freedom must be the sign of reason. — Robert Henri

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living. — Richard Dawkins

Now we've a real intellectual impasse. Our reason, which is supposed to make things more intelligible, seems to be making them less intelligible, and when reason thus defeats its own purpose something has to be changed in the structure of our reason itself. — Robert M. Pirsig

Action is the activity of the rational soul, which abhors irrationality and must combat it or be corrupted by it. When it sees the irrationality of others, it must seek to correct it, and can do this either by teaching or engaging in public affairs itself, correcting through its practice. And the purpose of action is to enable philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone, they become no more than beasts. — Iain Pears

There is a sense of danger in leaving what you know, even if what you know isn't much. These mill towns with their narrow lanes and often narrow minds were all I really knew and I feared that if I left it behind, I would lose it and not find anything to replace it. The other reason I didn't want to go was because I wanted to be the kind of person who stays, who builds a stable and predictable life. But I wasn't one of the people, nor would I ever be.
I had a vision for my life. It wasn't clear, but it was beautiful and involved leaving my history and my poverty behind me. I wasn't happy about who I was or where I was, but I didn't worry about it. It didn't define me. We're always in the making. God always has us on his anvil, melting, bending and shaping us for another purpose.
It was time to change, to find a new purpose. — John William Tuohy

Let the Christian remain in the world, not because of the good gifts of creation, nor because of his responsibility for the course of the world, but for the sake of the Church. Let him remain in the world to engage in frontal assault on it, and let him live the life of his secular calling in order to show himself as a stranger in the world all the more. But that is only possible if we are visible members of the Church. The antithesis between the world and the Church must be borne out in the world. That was the purpose of the incarnation. That is why Christ died among his enemies. That is the reason and the only reason why the slave must remain a slave and the Christian remain subject to the powers that be. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Religion, which was obviously created to give meaning and purpose to people, has become part of the oppression. This is true in both Eastern and Western religious traditions. The Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad were all revolutionaries who critiqued and attempted to dismantle the corrupt societal traditions of their time. Yet their teachings, like most things in human society, have been distorted and co-opted by the confused and power-hungry patriarchal tradition. What were wonce the creation myths of ancient cultures, have become doctrines of oppression. More blood has been spilled and more people oppressed in the name of religion than for any other reason in history. — Noah Levine

There is, however, equally great incentive to worship and love God in the thought that, for some unfathomable reason, he wants me as his friend, and desires to be my friend, and has given his Son to die for me in order to realize this purpose. — J.I. Packer

The quality of life that you have is determined solely by the effort you put into giving your life value, purpose and a reason. — Steven Redhead

We are disturbed - we can't play anymore. Our planet can be renewed or ravaged. Now is the time to awaken and take action. Everyone is needed. You are not here for no reason. Everyone who is here now has an important purpose. This is a hard but a special time. We have the opportunity for growth, but we must be ready for this moment in history. — Carlos Barrios

As long as I have you, I have purpose and reason. That is why I won't be drinking and that is why I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. Understand? — Jodi Ellen Malpas

Did you ever notice that all machines are made for some reason?" he asked Isabelle. "They are built to make you laugh, like the mouse here, or to tell the time, like clocks, or to fill you with wonder like the automaton. Maybe that's why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn't able to do what it was made to do." Isabelle picked up the mouse, wound it again, and set it down. "Maybe it's the same with people," Hugo continued. "If you lose your purpose ... it's like you're broken. — Brian Selznick

You have a mighty purpose, a function to fulfill - a reason for being. And it's more than just "make a living." You are here to make a unique and valuable contribution, to assist (if even in a small way) the evolution of humanity. Look at nature. Everything serves a purpose. Everything is connected to a larger system that allows the whole to operate in harmony. — Derek Rydall

T]here is no other purpose of my existence except to know, love and get closer to God. This is the one and only reason why I was created. And this is the most essential realization, as it defines everything else I do or believe. It defines all things around me, and everything I experience in life. — Yasmin Mogahed

Every character is asking: 'What's my place? Why am I here? I don't want the answer to be 'Just because.' You find your own purpose. Each finds the reason to be here and how to contribute. — Sharon Creech

I see my angel for the first time. Know my purpose, feel my birth. Hear, at first faintly then distinctly,
the sweet strains of our union. Our love heats up the cold universe and gives my tired, desperate hope a reason and season to be revealed.
We, purified by our kisses, are eternally healed. — Simon Templar

Purpose will make you realise the reason of your existence, it will restore your mind sight, you will start to dream and you will see visions. Your dreams will lead you to set goals, goals will lead you to mission accomplishments and vision will take you to the higher places. — Euginia Herlihy

Give a reason for your existence and make a life out of it. — Nikki Rowe

Privileged people can feel the way these identities threaten their privileged status and the benefits that they receive as a result. For this reason also, trying to reassure hegemony that these identities are not a threat to it (for the purpose of being "accepted" into society) is moot. Hegemony is right to feel threatened, because there's no way one could change social order without deconstructing power. — Shiri Eisner

This, I suppose, constitutes one of the greatest dangers of retiring, the sudden cutting off of motive power while the mechanism is still running at top speed. It would be so much better and easier, if it were possible, to cut off the motive power gradually; in other words to retire by slow and easy stages, instead of being in full production one day, crying "Come on! Come on!" and turning aimlessly around the next still saying "Come on!" but for no reason. — Franklin Lushington

Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't know it. They knew it and they fought against it. There was a lot of resistance to mass education for exactly that reason. It was also understood by the elites. Emerson once said something about how we're educating them to keep them from our throats. If you don't educate them, what we call "education," they're going to take control - "they" being what Alexander Hamilton called the "great beast," namely the people. — Noam Chomsky

My pictures are devoid of objects; like objects, they are themselves objects. This means that they are devoid of content, significance or meaning, like objects or trees, animals, people or days, all of which are there without a reason, without a function and without a purpose. This is the quality that counts. Even so, there are good and bad pictures. — Gerhard Richter

Discovery of purpose is a continuous activity, and revelation of it is an ongoing process ... The most fortunate people on earth are those who have found a calling that is bigger than they are, a reason for living that moves them and fills their lives with constant passion, aliveness, and growth. Your soul's true purpose is to be the love that you are! — Glenda Green

Rich kid," Shiva yelled, "you don't know one damn thing! What purpose, man? What thing in the whole sister-sleeping world got reason, yara? For what reason you're rich and I'm poor? Where's the reason in starving, man? God knows how many millions of damn fools living in this country, man, and you think there's a purpose! Man, I'll tell you
you got to get what you can, do what you can with it, and then you got to die. That's reason, rich boy. Everything else is only mother-sleeping wind! — Salman Rushdie

Reason and the reasoning faculty need no foreign assistance, but are sufficient for their own purposes. They move within themselves, and make directly for the point in view. Wherefore, acts in accordance with them are called right acts, for they lead along the right road. — Marcus Aurelius

One of my core beliefs is that everything happens for a reason and some things just aren't to my taste. All the things that happen in my life are divinely inspired and they happen for a purpose. — John Assaraf

I have assumed, for the present purpose, that Jesus of Nazareth did and said more or less what the four gospels in the New Testament say he did and said. I have written about all that, in debate with those who take radically different viewpoints, in considerable detail elsewhere. Likewise, I have assumed that St. Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians, something which many scholars in the last century or so have doubted. Actually, the argument of the book doesn't depend on either of these assumptions, and for that reason, in addition to the risk of clogging up the present line of thought, I won't refer to these questions again. — N. T. Wright

But there's so much to learn," he said, with a thoughtful frown.
"Yes, that's true," admitted Rhyme; "but it's not just learning things that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things at all that matters."
"That's just what I mean," explained Milo as Tock and the exhausted bug drifted quietly off to sleep. "Many of the things I'm supposed to know seem so useless that I can't see the purpose in learning them at all."
"You may not see it now," said the Princess of Pure Reason, looking knowingly at Milo's puzzled face, "but whatever we learn has a purpose and whatever we do affects everything and everyone else, if even in the tiniest way. — Norton Juster

Eric, I'm going to pay you back for leaving me." She smoothed her dress. "You understand?" "Yes," he said, and walked into the kitchen. "I'll devote my life to it," Kathy said, from the bedroom. "Now I have a reason for living. It's wonderful to have a purpose at last; it's thrilling. After all these pointless ugly years with you. God, it's like being born all over again." "Lots of luck," he said. — Philip K. Dick

Classically, cosmetics companies will take highly theoretical, textbookish information about the way that cells work - the components at a molecular level or the behavior of cells in a glass dish - and then pretend it's the same as the ultimate issue of whether something makes you look nice. "This molecular component," they say, with a flourish, "is crucial for collagen formation." And that will be perfectly true (along with many other amino acids which are used by your body to assemble protein in joints, skin, and everywhere else), but there is no reason to believe that anyone is deficient in it or that smearing it on your face will make any difference to your appearance. In general, you don't absorb things very well through your skin, because its purpose is to be relatively impermeable. When you sit in a bath of baked beans for charity, you do not get fat, nor do you start farting. — Ben Goldacre

Everybody in this life has their challenges and difficulties. That is part of our mortal test. The reason for some of these trials cannot be readily understood except on the basis of faith and hope because there is often a larger purpose which we do not always understand. Peace comes through hope. — James E. Faust

It is for that moment when I might steady you so you don't fall, I have added my blood to an inkwell. Indelible now will be my mark on history's canvas and upon any sincere debate of God where reason finally prevails. And when you have the strength, you too may find another to hold up. They lean against each other in a storm, those cypresses grown tall together ... through the years. If they had not trusted and protected one another the way they do, they would not have survived and given us their grace and shade - a place for our eyes to meet. Our friendship can be like this: a needed lift, a sail, a pillar, a springboard to taste the unfathomable. It is to tend you as you come into being, like a new world, that causes me to stay, gives me a purpose. Of course I thank you for that ... for letting me help. — Rumi

Nietzsche said we will never rid ourselves of God because we have too much faith in grammar/language.

Lacan said because of the religious tenets of language, religion will triumph.

Chomsky, master linguist, says 'there are no skeptics. You can discuss it in a philosophy seminar but no human being can - in fact - be a skeptic.'

These musings shed light on Soren K's leap to faith idea. This is more nuanced than the circular leap of faith argument he's been wrongly accused of...

Soren is saying that, as we use the logic of language to express existence and purpose, we will always leap TO faith in a superior, all encompassing, loving force that guides our lives.

This faith does not negate our reason. It simply implies that the reasoning of this superior force is superior to our own. Edwin Abbott crystalizes this in Flatland. — Chester Elijah Branch

There are no extra people alive today. Every single one of us is here for a reason, a special purpose - a mission. Yes, build a beautiful life for yourself and those you love. Yes, be happy and have a lot of fun. And yes, become successful, on your own terms rather than on those suggested to you by society. But - above all else - be significant. Make your life matter. Be of use. And be of service to as many people as possible. This is how each of us can shift from the realm of the ordinary into the heights of the extraordinary. And walk among the best who have ever lived. It — Robin S. Sharma

This last chapter .. may have given the impression that somehow man is the ultimate triumph of evolution, that all these millions of years of development have had no purpose other than to put him on earth. There is no scientific evidence whatever to support such a view and no reason to suppose that our stay here will be any more permanent than that of the dinosaur. — David Attenborough

We're helping those children who cannot help themselves and giving a push to those who can. We've done it by working together for a common purpose. I see no reason to stop now. — Jane D. Hull

Diogenes, in his mud-covered sandals, tramps over the carpets of Aristippus. The cynic pullulated at every corner, and in the highest places. This cynic did nothing but saboter the civilisation of the time. He was the nihilist of Hellenism. He created nothing, he made nothing. His role was to undo - or rather to attempt to undo, for he did not succeed in his purpose. The cynic, a parasite of civilisation, lives by denying it, for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail. What would become of the cynic among a savage people where everyone, naturally and quite seriously, fulfils what the cynic farcically considers to be his personal role? — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

[L]ike it or not, the right timing is an inescapable part of human endeavor and thus of politics. . . . But some activists suggest that "timing" is irrelevant in public policy and politics. In their view, it's just another "excuse" by "incrementalists," another example of their traitorous cowardice, another reason why they should be condemned and purged. . . . There is a fundamental ethical and practical difference between compromise and prudently fighting for the most good that can be gained in the face of overwhelming odds. . . . Realizing the constraints and limits of this world should guard us against unrealistic expectations of what politics can or should achieve. And yet, the examples of Wilberforce and Lincoln, among many others, demonstrate that moral purpose can be successfully pursued in politics with prudence. — Clarke D. Forsythe

Question 1: What is the chief end of man? This most basic question confronts each of us. Why am I here? What is the reason for my existence? What is the purpose of my life? The catechism on the basis of 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Psalm 73:25 provides the familiar answer. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. — Alistair Begg

The purpose of his life, death, and resurrection was to ransom you from your sin, deliver you from the clutches of evil, restore you to God - so that his personality and his life could heal and fill your personality. Your humanity, and your life. This is the reason he came.
Anything else is religion. — John Eldredge

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. — Chris Hedges

The catch is that for most people the New Testament is taken as proof for the conventional picture of Christian origins, and the conventional picture is taken as proof for the way in which the New Testament was written. . . . For this reason the New Testament is commonly viewed and treated as a charter document that came into being much like the Constitution of the United States. According to this view, the authors of the New Testament were all present at the historic beginnings of the new religion and collectively wrote their gospels and letters for the purpose of founding the Christian church that Jesus came to inaugurate. Unfortunately for this view, that is not the way it happened. — Burton L. Mack

Since historical reconstruction is a rational process, only justified and indeed possible if it involves the human reason, what we call history is the mess we call life reduced to some order. pattern and possibly purpose. — Geoffrey Elton

May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired. When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. If you are weary, may you be aroused by passion and purpose. If you are blameful and bitter, may you be sweetened by hope and humor. If you are frightened, may you be emboldened by a big consciousness far wiser than your fear. If you are lonely, may you find love, may you find friendship. If you are lost, may you understand that we are all lost, and still we are guided - by Strange Angels and Sleeping Giants, by our better and kinder natures, by the vibrant voice within the beat. May you follow that voice, for This is the way - the hero's journey, the life worth living, the reason we are here. — Elizabeth Lesser

Since God knows created beings as the realizations of His will, it is not being itself but the ultimate will of God's love which unifies beings and points to the meaning of being. And precisely here is the role of the incarnation. The incarnate Christ is so identical to the ultimate will of God's love, that the meaning of created being and the purpose of history are simply the incarnate Christ. All things were made with Christ in mind, or rather at heart, and for this reason irrespective of the fall of man, the incarnation would have occurred. Christ, the incarnate Christ, is the truth, for he represents the ultimate unceasing will of the ecstatic love of God, who intends to lead created being into communion with His own life, to know Him and itself within this communion-event. — John D. Zizioulas

Reason had overthrown faith, and had defeated the purpose of God. — Charles S. Price

Each form is inadequate, like a graft to be rejected by its intractable and unrelenting host and thus can only serve a brief and momentary purpose coherent to a context rooted in contiguous reason. This unbridled brash Spirit is, to itself, burdensome, yet dynamic, for it sees no flaw in working within the confines of a closed system to achieve ends that extend beyond it. This Spirit is, in fact, self-deceptive for to achieve such ends, it becomes necessary to bound manipulable fragments of the Self with a twine by which these parts can be joined indissolubly and maneuvered adroitly with the skill of a marionettist. — Ashim Shanker

We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty. — Jonathan Sacks

Dreams, ideas, and plans not only are an escape, they give me purpose, a reason to hang on. — Steven Callahan

An open mind, in questions that are not ultimate, is useful. But an open mind about the ultimate foundations either of Theoretical or of Practical Reason is idiocy. If a man's mind is open on these things, let his mouth at least be shut. He can say nothing to the purpose. Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else. — C.S. Lewis

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature. — Seneca The Younger

What is it that a young man wants? Where is the central source of that wild fury that boils up in him, that goads and drives and lashes him, that explodes his energies and strews his purpose to the wind of a thousand instant and chaotic impulses? The older and assured people of the world, who have learned to work without waste and error, think they know the reason for the chaos and confusion of a young man's life. They have learned the thing at hand, and learned to follow their single way through all the million shifting hues and tones and cadences of living, to thread neatly with unperturbed heart their single thread through that huge labyrinth of shifting forms and intersecting energies that make up life - and they say, therefore, that the reason for a young man's confusion, lack of purpose, and erratic living is because he has not found himself. — Thomas Wolfe

Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself. — Pope John Paul II

I once had a drinking contest with an artist on his yacht... It amused him as I took shot after shot, and I realized that this was the reason he'd invited us, his amusement. Looking back, I thought he didn't expect we'd have anything to say, that my questions about the artist's purpose, his existential quest for self in a communally-brutalized past, were not as amusing as they were thought-provoking, but I'll never know. As I swayed like a sailor in drunken bitterness, I felt something had been sacrificed to his art. He'd gone so far out on that boat there was no way for him to come back. I felt he no longer existed and was just the faded intention of color on canvas. His humanity had surely been washed away with the paint thinner. — Megan Rich

Algebra reverses the relative importance of the factors in ordinary language. It is essentially a written language, and it endeavors to exemplify in its written structures the patterns which it is its purpose to convey. The pattern of the marks on paper is a particular instance of the pattern to be conveyed to thought. The algebraic method is our best approach to the expression of necessity, by reason of its reduction of accident to the ghostlike character of the real variable. — Alfred North Whitehead

There's no obvious reason to assume that the very same rare properties that allow for our existence would also provide the best overall setting to make discoveries about the world around us. We don't think this is merely coincidental. It cries out for another explanation, an explanation that ... points to purpose and intelligent design in the cosmos. — Guillermo Gonzalez

Accustom yourself to the belief that death is of no concern to us, since all good and evil lie in sensation and sensation ends with death. Therefore the true belief that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life happy, not by adding to it an infinite time, but by taking away the desire for immortality. For there is no reason why the man who is thoroughly assured that there is nothing to fear in death should find anything to fear in life. So, too, he is foolish who says that he fears death, not because it will be painful when it comes, but because the anticipation of it is painful; for that which is no burden when it is present gives pain to no purpose when it is anticipated. Death, the most dreaded of evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. It is therefore nothing either to the living or to the dead since it is not present to the living, and the dead no longer are. — Epicurus

Love is our only reason for living and the only purpose of life. We live for the sake of love, and we live seeking love ... it is not surprising that we keep looking for love. All of us are nothing but vibrations of love. We are sustained by love, and in the end we merge back into love ... — Swami Muktananda

One area that I now consider safe to follow after any past hero of the faith is in their personal devotion and relationship to Jesus Christ. Each of these men knew God. They spent much time with God. The reason I put our thoughts in this direction is that from personal devotion and walking with God comes our callings and gifts. That is the place where God calls us into his purpose and will for our lives. — Greg Gordon

Your soul is the root, its the root of everything. And when He tells you how to handle sex, He made it, its awesome, its beautiful, it has a purpose. And when He tells you how to handle it, there's a reason He says, This is connected to your soul and if you misuse it, your soul will wilt and will waste away. You can use it how you want to because you have the freedom to do that but in the end I'm telling you how to have the life to the fullest. — Lacey Mosley

He came by a leap to the goal of purpose, not by the toilsome steps of reason. On the instant his headlong spirit declared his purpose: this was the one being for him in all the world: at this altar he would light a lamp of devotion, and keep it burning forever. — Gilbert Parker

He sat there among them, listened to the buzz of their conversation. He was captivated by them. In that racket every voice touched a key in his soul. He didn't understand life. He had no conception of why he had been born into the world. As he saw it, anyone to whose lot fell this adventure, the purpose of which was unknown but the end of which was annihilation, that person was absolved from all responsibility and had the right to do as he pleased - for example, to lie full length in the street and begin to moan without any reason - without deserving the slightest censure. But precisely because he considered his life as a whole an incomprehensible thing, he understood its little details individually - every person without exception, every elevated and lowly point of view, every concept - and those he assimilated at once. — Dezso Kosztolanyi

Gracious Creator of the whole human race! hast thou created such a being as woman, who can trace thy wisdom in thy works, and feel that thou alone art by thy nature, exalted above her-for no better purpose? Can she believe that she was only made to submit to man her equal; a being, who, like her, was sent into the world to acquire virtue? Can she consent to be occupied merely to please him; merely to adorn the earth, when her soul is capable of rising to thee? And can she rest supinely dependent on man for reason, when she ought to mount with him the arduous steeps of knowledge? — Mary Wollstonecraft

The Creator did not speak man into existence as He did all else which He made, but He began with previously made material. So in the restoration process He did not speak the restoration into reality by fiat. Rather He began the process through a series of connected acts and events. And certainly no act of the Eternal Creator would ever be without purpose or reason. — Dr. J. Otis Yoder

I think the reason this was so important to Jesus was that He wanted people to know that God is relational - truly relational without any impure or selfish motives. He wanted His Father to be trusted, and therefore He needed men and women who represented this. The psychology of agendas is that they make relationships transactional, which means that people are used for a purpose. People become a means to someone else's end, and this erodes a person's belief that he or she is valued regardless of any production. — Hugh Halter

Human nature has nevertheless been changed by the ever new appearance of these teachers of the purpose of existence: It now has one additional need - the need for the ever new appearance of such teachers and teachings of a "purpose." Gradually, man has become a fantastic animal that has to fulfill one more condition of existence than any other animal: man has to believe, to know, from time to time why he exists; his race cannot flourish without a periodic trust in life - without faith in reason in life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Bodily agitation, then, is an enemy to the spirit. And by agitation I do not necessarily mean exercise or movement. There is all the difference in the world between agitation and work.
Work occupies the body and the mind and is necessary for the health of the spirit. Work can help us to pray and be recollected if we work properly. Agitation, however, destroys the spiritual usefulness of work and even tends to frustrate its physical and social purpose. Agitation is the useless and ill-directed action of the body. It expresses the inner confusion of a soul without peace. Work brings peace to the soul that has a semblance of order and spiritual understanding. It helps the soul to focus upon its spiritual aims and to achieve them. But the whole reason for agitation is to hide the soul from itself, to camouflage its interior conflicts and their purposelessness, and to induce a false feeling that 'we are getting somewhere'. — Thomas Merton

Satan is behind the theory of evolution. Satan hates God and us. Satan is the father of all lies. So he wants nothing more than to make every human being alive believe lies about God, ourselves and how and why we exist. — Lisa Bedrick

We have reason. It is the entire meaning and purpose of Shangri-La. It came to me in a vision long, long ago. I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing. Look at the world today. Is there anything more pitiful? What madness there is! What blindness! A scurrying mass of bewildered humanity crashing headlong against each other. The time must come, my friend, when brutality and the lust for power must perish by its own sword. For when that day comes, the world must begin to look for a new life. And it is our hope that they may find it here. — James Hilton

Man's life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose . If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man - for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life. — Ayn Rand

I bent my head and breathed the fresh new scent of her. I looked into her deep blue eyes and saw reflected there the dawn of my own new life. This little girl seemed to me, at that moment, answer enough to all my questions. To have saved this small, singular one - this alone seemed reason enough that I lived. I knew then that this was how I was meant to go on: away from death and toward life, from birth to birth, from seed to blossom, living my life amongst wonders. — Geraldine Brooks

Because [writers] Dan Weiss and David Benioff have done such a great job in adapting them, that's what we work with. It serves no purpose to anybody for actors to come onto a set with a well-thumbed copy of the source material and start querying why this or that line has been left out of the script. It's probably been left out for a good reason. — Charles Dance

To move into what God has in mind for you, it is necessary to discover your purpose, to know where you are going, and to understand the reason for your existence. — Pedro Okoro

On October 14th, the sweetest thing happened to me. On that day at sunset, I met you by the sea. It was that day I found a great purpose and a wonderful reason to be. — Debasish Mridha

If we are not our own, but the Lord's, it is clear to what purpose all our deeds must be directed. We are not our own, therefore neither our reason nor our will should guide us in our thoughts and actions. We are not our own, therefore we should not seek what is only expedient to the flesh. We are not our own, therefore let us forget ourselves and our own interests in as far as possible. — John Calvin