Purpose Direction Quotes & Sayings

One is often so busy doing life that it is easy to avoid evaluating whether you are putting your energy in the direction you value most. — Deborah Day

Take a step that has a purpose of leading you to where you have planned to go. When the destination is right and the direction is wrong, it is impossible to get there. Make a step. — Israelmore Ayivor

Relations between a man and a woman are always strange: nothing can be foreseen, they have no predictable direction, no law. Sometimes you come to a dead end, where there is nothing to do but sit down and weep; all the words have been said, and to no purpose; all the arguments have been thought of, and shattered. But then sometimes, at a chance look or word, the wall doesn't start to crack, but simply melts away. And where there was nothing but darkness, a clear path appears again, where two people can walk.
Just a path - perhaps only for a minute. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Everyone has their own calling, but not everyone is looking for the phone, or either they missed the call, or just not answered it. — Anthony Liccione

Once in a while stop to look down at your shoelaces, but never lose sight of your direction when you raise your head — Will Leamon

But beware of this about callings: they may not lead us where we intended to go or even where we want to go. If we choose to follow, we may have to be willing to let go of the life we already planned and accept whatever is waiting for us. And if the calling is true, though we may not have gone where we intended, we will surely end up where we need to be. — Steve Goodier

To find one's purpose is to discover one's worth, discern one's direction, wholly dedicate oneself to the journey, and forge an unbending determination that I will not leave the world the way I found it. This week's blog outlines the finding of our purpose. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Without sense of purpose and clear direction of your life, you will only be building a fake brand of you — Bernard Kelvin Clive

Whereas purpose provides the juice and the direction, principles define the parameters of action and the criteria for excellence of behavior. — David Allen

In our search to obtain relief from the stresses of life, may we earnestly seek ways to simplify our lives. May we comply with the inspired counsel and direction the Lord has given us in the great plan of happiness. May we be worthy to have the companionship of the Holy Ghost and follow the guidance of the Spirit as we navigate this mortal journey. May we prepare ourselves to accomplish the ultimate purpose of this mortal test-to return and live with our Heavenly Father. — L. Tom Perry

Their world is governed by children, little despots whose needs - school and camp and activities and tutors - dictate every decision, and will for the next ten, fifteen, eighteen years[...] Having children has provided their adulthood with an instant and nonnegotiable sense of purpose and direction. — Hanya Yanagihara

Ah, I am weary of this fight, Claudia ... Weary not because I am tired, but because our struggle seems to move in one direction only ... towards chaos. Today I have more questions than answers. This is why I have come so far: to find clarity. To find the wisdom left behind by the Great Mentor, so that I may better understand the purpose of our fight, and my place in it. Should anything happen to me, dear Claudia ... should my skills fail me, or my ambition lead me astray, do not seek revenge or retribution in my memory, but fight to continue the search for truth so that all may benefit. My story is one of many thousands, and the world will suffer if it ends too soon. — Oliver Bowden

Nothing that happens to you was meant to be. The only thing about you that was meant to be is you. Blaze your own trail. — George Alexiou

Hard work pays, but not all the time! Hard work without a good sense of purpose, due diligence and a true direction and vision only leads to the ditch. Life is a battle and only those who fight well, by working hard with a good sense of purpose and direction, win! Work hard with diligence and find a good time for pleasure, for pleasure is a treasure! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I take action in the direction of my dreams, passions, talents, and interests. I know that I have a much-needed life purpose, which I embrace without delay. I focus only on today with respect to my goals, trusting that all of my tomorrows will work out well. — Doreen Virtue

When we know our values, we can easily measure whether or not our actions are in accordance with them. Values are the measuring sticks with which we determine the worthiness of our actions. To be better associated with one's own values is to remove a lot of the needless activities of daily life. — Chris Matakas

When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel. — Stephen Fry

Linked together as a team with one goal, we soon realized we were only as strong as our weakest link. But did we condemn the weaker
member? That wouldn't serve any purpose. Instead, the stronger guys responded by carrying more weight than the weaker teammate. Encouragement was key in reaching the top of the stadium, standing as one.
Sometimes one person on your team may not be as strong as another. Strengths usually differ. Likewise, in an encounter with another, someone may have a different set of beliefs or ideas.To accomplish any goal, embracing the strengths and weaknesses of each member and compensating where necessary are the best ways to make it to the top. — Jake Byrne

What is this all about,' asked Sai, but her mouth couldn't address her ear in the tumult; her mind couldn't talk to her heart. 'Shame on myself,' she said ... Who was she ... she with her self-importance, her demand for happiness, yelling it at fate, at the deaf heavens, screaming for her joy to be brought forth..?
How dare ... How dare you not ...
Why shouldn't I have ... How dare ... I deserve ... Her small greedy soul ... Her tantrums and fits ... Her mean tears ... Her crying, enough for all the sadness in the world, was only for herself. Life wasn't single in its purpose ... or even its direction ... The simplicity of what she'd been taught wouldn't hold. Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it. — Kiran Desai

Sports programs are an important part of young people's lives but should never over-shadow the true purpose of high school and that is to earn a diploma. So often today sports have become more important than an education. This must be remedied because the true focus must always be toward the student's academic development. — George M. Gilbert

He ran a hand over his face and shook his head. "Lass, I have never lied to you. I adore you and there have never been any other women from the future here. And these"- he flung a tampon in the air- "cleaning swabs, I cannot fathom why they upset you so greatly, but I assure you I have never let the maids use them."
Lisa's brow furrowed. No man could be so stupid. "Cleaning Swabs?"
He snatched up a gun and jerked the barrel in her direction, and an unwrapped tampon shot out. It was coated with black from the slow corrosion of the steel. She eyed it for a moment, bent, and plucked it from the floor. "You clean your guns with these?"
He lowered the gun. "Is that not the purpose for which they were designed? I vow I could not conceive of another."
Didn't you read the box?"
There were too many words I didn't understand! — Karen Marie Moning

He walks through the river of refugees and soldiers, giving purpose and direction to people who would otherwise be lost. — Susan Ee

In Jones's experience, the decision to turn one's life around in a different direction rarely arrived with fireworks and marching bands. Often, the decision came with tears and regret. Then, almost impossibly, the power of forgiveness would fill an unseen void, allowing a new day's optimism and sense of purpose to take hold and point that life in a new direction. — Andy Andrews

If you have a sense of purpose and a sense of direction, I believe people will follow you. Democracy isn't just about deducing what the people want. Democracy is leading the people as well. — Margaret Thatcher

Recently, the search for what he calls "the splinters that make up different attention problems" has taken Castellanos in a new direction. First, he explains that your brain is far less concerned with your brilliant ideas or searing emotions than with its own internal "gyroscopic busyness," which consumes 65 percent of its total energy. Every fifty seconds, its activity fluctuates, causing what he calls a "brownout." No one knows the purpose of these neurological events, but Castellanos has a thesis: the clockwork pulses enable the brain's circuits to stay "logged on" and available to communicate with one another, even when they're not being used. "Imagine you're a cabdriver on your day off," Castellanos says. "You don't need to use your workday circuits on a Sunday, but to keep those channels open, your brain sends a ping through them every minute or so. The fluctuations are the brain's investment in maintaining its circuits online. — Winifred Gallagher

Our highest endeavor must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth, and a feeling of responsibility - these three forces are the very nerve of education. — Rudolf Steiner

For centuries, dreams have been used to communicate instruction and direction to people of purpose - great men and women. God used dreams to prepare Joseph for his future as a leader of nations. He gave battle plans to Gideon in a dream. Joan of Arc, Jacob, George Washington, Marie Curie, and the apostle Paul were all guided by their dreams. — Andy Andrews

In the end, everything happens for a reason. Paths are meant to be crossed for a higher purpose than what we realize at the moment. Life for everyone goes on. This is just a fork in the road that has taken me for a slight detour. Tomorrow I'll pick up a new map and set my sights on a new direction. — A.M. Willard

So often we speak of finding our callings, when often our callings find us. We can choose to honor or ignore them; to fight or embrace them. When we allow love to guide our thoughts, we are open to their gift. When we allow fear to arise and dictate our direction, we deny ourselves and the world the gift of our true selves. — Sharon E. Reed

When we honestly take stock of our ability, we are then granted the opportunity to improve our circumstance. Accessing where you stand is the only way to stand somewhere else. — Chris Matakas

If all you do is set goals and achieve them then you have learned to be a doer. Happiness isn't at the end of the next goal. It is the journey of aligning your choices to mold your character into the type of person who lives their belief system, then creates a life purpose that reflects that same person. — Shannon L. Alder

Have courage to go your own way and fulfil the dreams that are unique and important to you. — Fennel Hudson

When you don't know where you are going in life (No Clear Destination), you don't need direction ... you need Divine Revelation — Fela Durotoye

Go relentlessly in the direction of your ultimate purpose of life and that which makes you happy. — Debasish Mridha

But we cannot go back to the life we shared with you yesterday, a life which you will spread before us so temptingly when you return. We have suffered too much to believe any more that the way to what we see as the Absolute can go in any other direction than through the deep valley of sorrow. Hell has not opened before our eyes to no purpose, and he who has once seen it cannot find his way back to earthly symposiums. — Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. — John F. Kennedy

You're living your days at the moment how a sheep grazes, meandering, not engaged with anything much. — Nikki Gemmell

We are children of chaos, and the deep structure of change is decay. At root, there is only corruption, and the unstemmable tide of chaos. Gone is purpose; all that is left is direction. This is the bleakness we have to accept as we peer deeply and dispassionately into the heart of the Universe. — Peter Atkins

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. — Tony Robbins

The alchemists of past centuries tried hard to make the elixir of life: ... Those efforts were in vain; it is not in our power to obtain the experiences and the views of the future by prolonging our lives forward in this direction. However, it is well possible in a certain sense to prolong our lives backwards by acquiring the experiences of those who existed before us and by learning to know their views as well as if we were their contemporaries. The means for doing this is also an elixir of life. — Hermann Franz Moritz Kopp

Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum — Robert M. Pirsig

All State education is a sort of dynamo machine for polarizing the popular mind; for turning and holding its lines of force in the direction supposed to be most effective for State purposes. — Henry Adams

What is a goal without a purpose? — J.R. Rim

This is your life. Be bold with it. Live it with energy and purpose in the direction that excites you. Listen to your heart, look for your dreams: they are God-inspired. — Bear Grylls

The other dangerous delusion from which those who are wilfully or otherwise blind to realities suffer, is summed up in the word "integration." To be integrated into a population means to become for all practical purposes indistinguishable from its other members.
Now, at all times, where there are marked physical differences, especially of colour, integration is difficult though, over a period, not impossible. There are among the Commonwealth immigrants who have come to live here in the last fifteen years or so, many thousands whose wish and purpose is to be integrated and whose every thought and endeavour is bent in that direction.
But to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one. — Enoch Powell

Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what a vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction. — Robert Lowell

'Nature is conquered by obedience' - and her resistless energies are at our bidding, as soon as we, by knowledge, work with them and not against them. We can choose out of her boundless stores the forces that serve our purpose in momentum, in direction, and so on, and their very invariability becomes the guarantee of our success. — Annie Besant

Sharing a clear and concise vision spawns a sense of purpose and direction. It attracts success toward you and helps you build an expanding team. — Farshad Asl

People from all walks of life share an innate drive for meaning, direction, and purpose. This drive to understand our life purpose seems as important to our psychological growth as eating is to our biological survival. — Dan Millman

Lasting happiness comes from steadily working to accomplish your goals and advancing in the direction of your life's purpose. — Robin Sharma

Fear and anxiety many times indicates that we are moving in a positive direction, out of the safe confines of our comfort zone, and in the direction of our true purpose. — Charles F. Glassman

Don't go in the opposite direction, locate your calling — Sunday Adelaja

Until you have a purpose and clear direction of your life (business) you would only be building a fake brand — Bernard Kelvin Clive

People often confuse "goal" and "purpose." A goal is something tangible; a purpose is a direction. A goal can be achieved; a purpose is fulfilled in each moment. We can set ad achieve many goals; a purpose remains constant for life. — Roger Delano Hinkins

What do you really want?
Did you know that every single one of your desires is an expression of your soul's longing to experience human life as you?
It's true.
These pure impulses get filtered through our conditioning and show up distorted at times, but follow them back to their source and nothing you desire is anything but good and possible. — Jacob Nordby

Don't let the tide of life shift you away, move intentionally in the right direction — Sunday Adelaja

The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they're doing but with no idea why they're doing it. In — William Deresiewicz

Stewart, with the help of his incredibly astute staff, was combining reporting with commentary, pointing a finger at stupidity and hollowness, and devising a creative hand grenade. All of it had political purpose and direction. It wasn't strictly ideological, although he's obviously left of center. And he was fearless, not in the sense that anybody was going to make him a political prisoner. But he punched up. He punched up, and the shots landed.

I don't think the world is any more absurd now than it's ever been, or more tragic, or more beautiful. But Jon took advantage of these new ways of seeing the world and took out his magic marker and drew circles around the idiocy. He set out to be a working comedian, and he ended up an invaluable patriot. He wants his country to be better, more decent, and to think harder.

~ DAVID REMNICK, editor in chief, the New Yorker — Chris Smith

My research offers impressive evidence that we feel better when we attempt to make our world better ... to have a purpose beyond one's self lends to existence a meaning and direction - the most important characteristic of high well-being. — Gail Sheehy

Bush is going in the wrong way. And I dare say, that is what the strategy of his administration is, is just to wipe out government's purpose for any social and economic justice at all. And I'm going to take the country in an opposite direction than he's taking it. — Dennis Kucinich

Had the new people learned what Original Man was taught at a council of animals - never damage Creation, and never interfere with the sacred purpose of another being - the eagle would look down on a different world. The salmon would be crowding up the rivers, and passenger pigeons would darken the sky. Wolves, cranes, Nehalem, cougars, Lenape, old-growth forests would still be here, each fulfilling their sacred purpose. I would be speaking Potawatomi. We would see what Nanabozho saw. It does not bear too much imagining, for in that direction lies heartbreak. — Robin Wall Kimmerer

My parents and grandparents did not tolerate idle thoughts or behavior. If the action did not have a purpose or lead you in a positive direction, their feeling was "why bother?" This is how I was built. This is why I refuse to fail. — Carlos Wallace

Life becomes pleasurable when you are moving in the direction of your calling — Sunday Adelaja

When vision fails Direction is lost. When direction is lost Purpose may be forgotten. When purpose is forgotten Emotion rules alone. When emotion rules alone, Destruction ... destruction. F — Octavia E. Butler

Direction is only necessary when your destination is certain but the path to get there isn't clear to you — Fela Durotoye

A primary purpose for setting goals is to get you moving in the right direction. When you set goals, you have to keep them always in mind. — Stedman Graham

At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction. — Aldous Huxley

For years my only purpose was to do documentary photos for magazines, without any idea that they were part of a larger project. It was as if I were carried along by a stream - even though I believed that the current was taking me in the right direction. — Hiroshi Hamaya

Leadership is the influence of a person(s) on another person(s) which guides their efforts in a specific direction, with more purpose, clarity, and unity than they would have held on their own. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or set new goals and reenter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure. — Scott Adams

The real direction of your vision is as important as your vision. Notwithstanding how large the goal post might be, the power behind your shots least matter as its direction, for it is more of the direction that will determine the goals you shall score and the final score in the end — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

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

The paths we take in our lives are also in the hands of God, and He can guide our steps. Elder Richard G. Scott said, "The Lord has a purpose for you, individually. . . . Discover it and fulfill it. It will likely not be revealed all at once but will be unfolded line upon line. As you pray and work hard, you will find threads of understanding that will lead you to the path the Lord wants you to follow for the greatest enduring, meaningful attainment, contribution, joy, and peace of mind. Faithfully and courageously follow those threads of understanding and direction."2 — Brad Wilcox

We intend to lead a government of purpose and direction so that we can offer the people of this nation the opportunity to move forward to independence, democracy and equality. — Alex Salmond

You know, you don't need to grow old to die. I was dying at the age of 20 as a result of no direction and no purpose. — Grant Cardone

You are a great, mighty and powerful spiritual being with dignity, direction and purpose. — Dannion Brinkley

Leadership is a process that involves setting a PURPOSE AND DIRECTION which inspires people to combine and work towards willingly; paying attention to the MEANS, PACE AND QUALITY OF PROGRESS towards the aim; and upholding GROUP UNITY and INDIVIDUAL EFFECTIVENESS throughout. — James Scouller

As long as you SIT, you Stay In Trouble. Once you STAND, you Shift Toward A New Direction, take a STEP, and Start To Embrace Purpose, then WALK to Welcome Abundance, Love and Knowledge. — Niquenya D. Fulbright

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are going. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

The most important political effect of this displacement of civil by enterprise association has been the gradual loss of authority and decision-making from the bottom of society, and its transfer to the top. If you supply society with a dynamic purpose, especially one conceived in these linear terms, as moving always forwards towards greater equality, greater justice, greater prosperity or, in the case of the EU, 'ever closer union', you at the same time license the would-be leaders. You give credentials to those who promise to guide society along its allotted path, and you confer on them the authority to conscript, dictate, organize and punish the rest of us, regardless of how we might otherwise wish to lead our lives. In particular, you authorize the invasion of those institutions and associations that form the heart of civil society, in order to impose on them a direction and a goal that may have nothing to do with their intrinsic nature. — Roger Scruton

No matter how clear things might become in the forest of story, there was never a clear-cut solution, as there was in math. The role of a story was, in the broadest terms, to transpose a problem into another form. Depending on the nature and the direction of the problem, a solution might be suggested in the narrative. Tengo would return to the real world with that solution in hand. It was like a piece of paper bearing the indecipherable text of a magic spell. It served no immediate practical purpose, but it contained a possibility. — Haruki Murakami

Most people trusted in the future, assuming that their preferred version of it would unfold. Blindly planning for it, envisioning things that weren't the case. This was the working of the will. This was what gave the world purpose and direction. Not what was there but what was not. — Jhumpa Lahiri

This ancient affirmation of Scripture and the Christian tradition provides a teleological hope and direction that gives meaning to life now and moves us toward the future with faith and confidence in God's redemptive purpose and power. — Cynthia Peters Anderson

The only religion that can satisfy today's ideal is a religion that will give consecration to life, and direction to human endeavor, inspire men with faith in themselves, dedicate them to high moral purpose, and give them the strength to live through their failures, and to face with high courage their supreme tragedies. — Sterling M. McMurrin

You need to understand what goal you were created for and you need to understand your destination — Sunday Adelaja

A Vessel out at Sea is like a Woman, with out a Navigator it has no sense of Direction. A Navigator with out a Vessel has no Sense of Purpose. — Rey

It wasn't hard going to the gym, as long as he went as soon as he woke up, before he had time to think about not going. Those morning workouts made him feel like he was starting his day like a pinball, with a giant shot of momentum. The feeling sometimes didn't wear off until six or seven at night (when it was usually overtaken by the feeling that he was just bouncing haplessly from one situation to the next without any real purpose or direction). — Rainbow Rowell

Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome. — Douglas Preston

George W. Bush brought a lot of minorities into his administration, which was a positive thing, and they had some issues that they wanted to press, but 9/11 really gave them direction. It gave them a purpose. — Josh Brolin

When your drive is moving your purpose, focus must hold the wheels else your might miss the way. And do you know what that means? Avoid Crash!!!. Stay focused! — Israelmore Ayivor

... one thing we know for sure: everybody has to be somewhere. Is it possible you are somewhere you didn't fully realize? — Van Harden

To live a distant, withdrawn, and secluded life is diametrically opposed to spirituality as Jesus Christ taught it. The true test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritually lazy. While being tested, we want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of finding a quiet retreat. We use God only for the sake of getting peace and joy. We seek only our enjoyment of Jesus Christ, not a true realization of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things we are seeking are simply effects, and yet we try to make them causes. — Oswald Chambers

Indeed, there is nothing like suffering to remind us how much we need God. What good news that His purpose and plan for our lives moves in a different direction from ours! — Tullian Tchividjian

We must come to the Bible with the purpose of self-exposure consciously in mind. I suspect not many people make more than a token stab in that direction. It's extremely hard work. It makes Bible study alternately convicting and reassuring, painful and soothing, puzzling and calming, and sometimes dull - but not for long if our purpose is to see ourselves better. — Larry Crabb

I would have told them that he lived a life lacking in purpose or direction. Like those aimless rides I took him on. A life lived from the backseat, observed as it blurred by. An indifferent life. — Khaled Hosseini

A man's life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other. — John Burroughs

The Ketty Jay was staffed with drunkards and drifters, all of them running from something
whether it be memories or enemies or the drudgery of land-bound life
but since Yortland they'd been running in the same direction. United by that common purpose, they'd begun to turn into something resembling a crew. And Frey had begun to turn into something resembling a captain. — Chris Wooding

I think that intelligent forecasting (company revenues, earnings, etc.) should not seek to predict what will in fact happen in the future. Its purpose ought to be to illuminate the road, to point out obstacles and potential pitfalls and so assist management to tailor events and to bend them in a desired direction. Forecasting should be used as a device to put both problems and opportunities into perspective. It is a management tool, but it can never be a substitute for strategy, nor should it ever be used as the primary basis for portfolio investment decisions. — Peter Cundill

You are moving in the opposite direction when your life is about survival only — Sunday Adelaja

Man has risen, not fallen. He can choose to develop his capacities as the highest animal and to try to rise still farther, or he can choose otherwise. The choice is his responsibility, and his alone. There is no automatism that will carry him upward without choice or effort and there is no trend solely in the right direction. Evolution has no purpose; man must supply this for himself. The means to gaining right ends involve both organic evolution and human evolution, but human choice as to what are the right ends must be based on human evolution. — George Gaylord Simpson