Very Meaningful Quotes & Sayings

To change criminal justice policy in any meaningful way means to propose changing a very longstanding system. It's not realistic to think you can do it overnight. — Kamala Harris

My thoughts about pornography tend to revolve around the fact that while very few of us are zombies, detectives, cowboys, or spacemen, there are an infinite number of books that are recounting the stories of those lifestyles. However, all of us have some sort of feelings or opinions about sex. And yet the only art form which in any way is able to discuss sex, or depict sex, is this grubby despised under the counter art form, which has absolutely no standards. This was what Lost Girls was intended as a remedy for, that there is no reason why a horny piece of literature, that is purely about sex, could not be as beautiful, as meaningful, and have as absorbing characters as any other piece of fiction. — Alan Moore

It had always seemed to him a very plush kind of problem, a privilege, really, to consider whether life was meaningful or not. — Hanya Yanagihara

I believe that earning your living doing something you enjoy is one of the very best ways to nourish yourself. But even if you are employed at something that is not your ideal work, it is important to find ways to take as much pleasure in it as possible. Living in the present moment can make ordinary activities more interesting and joyful; you may be surprised, if you only look, at what you will find. If you try to stay connected with why you are doing what you are doing, for example, then even the parts of your life that aren't especially interesting can become more meaningful. — Nathaniel Branden

GNP is therefore in a certain sense a value-neutral quantity: a measure of activity, not of activity of any kind of value. A first argument against continued growth is just this. The GNP does not give any guarantee of meaningfulness of that which is created. Growth in GNP does not imply any growth in access to intrinsic values and progress along the course of self-realization. Obviously any kind of economic growth which is not related to intrinsic values is neutral or detrimental. The measure of GNP is somehow related to the fierceness of activity in the society but this fierceness may very well have more to do with a lack of ability of the members of the society to engage in meaningful activity than a measure of something humanity should look upon with joy. There is no clear relation to life quality. — Arne Naess

Do you love me?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. "Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!"
"What do you mean?" Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it's become almost obsolete," his mother explained carefully.
Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.
"And of course our community can't function smoothly if people don't use precise language. You could ask, 'Do you enjoy me?' The answer is 'Yes,'" his mother said.
"Or," his father suggested, "'Do you take pride in my accomplishments?' And the answer is wholeheartedly 'Yes.'"
"Do you understand why it's inappropriate to use a word like 'love'?" Mother asked.
Jonas nodded. "Yes, thank you, I do," he replied slowly.
It was his first lie to his parents. — Lois Lowry

I think America understands that energy security is a very important part of our national security. But if we are going to address energy security in a meaningful way going forward, we need to do it in a new manner. We cannot just be doing the same old thing. — Chris Van Hollen

From a personal perspective, because I'm on a watchlist and went through years of trying to find out why, of having the government refuse to confirm or deny the very existence of such a list, it's so meaningful to have its existence brought into the open so that the public knows there is a watchlist, and so that the courts can now address the legality of it. I mean, the person who revealed this has done a huge public service and I'm personally thankful. — Laura Poitras

He considered for a moment, then started to play a piece that was very familiar to Ruth, although she had no idea what it was. It was lilting and wistful, and she could have sung the melody if she had wished.
"Alright?" He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
"Yes. Exactly."
It was effortless and perfect, and he played it through to the end, closing with the softest and most delicate chords, which hung and faded in the quiet hall like the grains of dust raining through the evening light. Ruth was touched. It was all she had wanted. He did not move until there was complete silence again, then he closed the lid without saying anything, and stood up, shoving back the chair. ... "What was that piece?"
"A Brahms waltz."
"Hasn't it got a name?" she wanted it to remember.
"Number fifteen. Opus thirty-nine."
It hadn't sounded like numbers to Ruth. — K.M. Peyton

You're not enjoying yourself," Syl said. "You're starting to sound a lot like my mother." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Repetitive." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Very funny." "Says the man not laughing," she replied, folding her arms. — Brandon Sanderson

I think loving Jesus is something you feel. I think it is something very difficult to get on paper. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful. The — Donald Miller

A book reaches a different crowd of people. There are 50 different stories of very different individuals participating in their communities either locally or nationally in meaningful ways. — Joan Blades

Sense of humor means seeing both poles of a situation as they are, from an aerial point of view. There is good and there is bad and you see both with a panoramic view as though from above. Then you begin to feel that these little people on the ground, killing each other or making love or just being little people, are very insignificant in the sense that, if they begin to make a big deal of their warfare or lovemaking, then we begin to see the ironic aspect of their clamor. If we try very hard to build something tremendous, really meaningful, powerful - "I'm really searching for something, I'm really trying to fight my faults," or "I'm really trying to be good" - then it loses its seriousness, becomes a paper tiger; it is extremely ironic. — Chogyam Trungpa

He waits for the kid to decide whether to pull the gun up or simply to drop it - and all the while, even as he tracks the progress of the gun, he is also watching the kid's face, to see whether he is dangerous or simply frightened. is there a more beautiful example of a snap judgment? this is the gift of training and expertise - the ability to extract an enormous amount of meaningful information from the very thinnest slice of experience. — Malcolm Gladwell

As for the various religions, there's no doubt that they are very meaningful to adherents, and allow them to delude themselves into thinking there is some meaning to their lives beyond what we agree is the case. I'd never try to talk them out of the delusions, which are necessary for them to live a life that makes some sense to them. These beliefs can provide a framework for deeds that are noble or savage, and anywhere in between, and there's every reason to focus attention on the deeds and the background for them, to the extent that we can grasp it. — Noam Chomsky

Working in Washington, trying to make a difference, that was a very meaningful time for me, a period of personal growth. — Tim Finchem

Families come into therapy with their own structure, and tone, and rules. Their organization, their pattern, has been established over years of living, and it is extremely meaningful and very painful for them. They would not be in therapy if they were happy with it. But however faulty, the family counts on the familiarity and predictability of their world. If they are going to turn loose this painful predictability and attempt to reorganize themselves, they need firm external support. The family crucible must has a shape, a form, a discipline of sorts, and the therapist has to provide it. The family has to know whether we can provide it, and so they test us. — Augustus Y. Napier

I have now been an officer in this Church for a very long time. I am an old man who cannot deny the calendar. I have lived long enough and served in enough different capacities to have removed from my mind, if such were necessary, any doubt of the divinity of this, the work of God. We respect those of other churches. We desire their friendship and hope to render meaningful service with them. We know they all do good, but we unabashedly state - and this frequently brings criticism upon us - that this is the true and living Church of our Father in Heaven and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. — Gordon B. Hinckley

And to bring people together we need a simple and straightforward progressive agenda which speaks to the needs of our people, and which provides us with a vision of a very different America. And what is that agenda? Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. It begins with jobs. If we are truly serious about reversing the decline of the middle class we need a major federal jobs program which puts millions of Americans back to work at decent-paying jobs. At a time when our roads, bridges, water systems, rail, and airports are decaying, the most effective way to rapidly create meaningful jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. That's why I've introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over five years to modernize our country's physical infrastructure. This legislation would create and maintain at least thirteen million good-paying jobs, while making our country more productive, efficient, and safe. And I promise you, as president I will lead that legislation into law. Trade. — Bernie Sanders

For many years now I have listened to the stories of people with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain. Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very best stories are made of. If we think we have no stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer and more meaningful than we appreciate. — Rachel Naomi Remen

I spent a good part of the nineties roaming the Earth writing about conflict. It was very grueling. I was beginning to find this way of life was, wow, addictive and deeply meaningful. — Janine Di Giovanni

Imagine being able to plot in advance, in systematic fashion, the approach of all meaningful coincidences. Is that a priori, by the very meaning of the word, not a contradiction? After all, a coincidence, or as Pauli called it, a manifestation of synchronicity, is by its very nature not dependent on the past; hence nothing exists as a harbinger of it (cf. David Hume on the topic; in particular the train whistle versus the train). This state, not knowing what is going to happen next and therefore having no way of controlling it, is the sine qua non of the unhappy world of the schizophrenic; he is helpless, passive, and instead of doing things, he is done to. Reality happens to him
a sort of perpetual auto accident, going on and on without relief. — Philip K. Dick

Our most meaningful relationships are so often those that continued beyond the very juncture at which they came the closest to ending. — Cheryl Strayed

Science fiction and fantasy are very closely related genres, and a lot of people say that the genres are so close that there's actually no meaningful distinction to be made between the two. But I think that there does exist an useful distinction to be made between magic and science. One way to look at it is in terms of whether a given phenomenon can be mass-produced. — Ted Chiang

The people in your life are important. Meaningful relationships with those people are very important. — Ed Bradley

The pleasure a man gets from a landscape would [not] last long if he were convinced a priori that the forms and colors he sees are just forms and colors, that all structures in which they play a role are purely subjective and have no relation whatsoever to any meaningful order or totality, that they simply and necessarily express nothing ... No walk through the landscape is necessary any longer; and thus the very concept of landscape as experienced by a pedestrian becomes meaningless and arbitrary. Landscape deteriorates altogether into landscaping. — Max Horkheimer

I feel so fortunate, Because some people think, well you're just relegated to the sideline. But I feel valued there. They trust me. We work very, very hard at making it worthwhile. We are not going to just be down there spewing a bunch of blah. With our halftime talking to the coaches we are really trying to get something meaningful there and something that helps spin the game forward. — Michele Tafoya

I'm very proud of all my children. They all have Christian families; they read the Bible; they pray; the kids go to Sunday school; they know the Ten Commandments by heart. That's my greatest honor, and I couldn't do anything to glorify God that could surpass that. That's very meaningful. — Robert H. Schuller

I'm not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you're supposed to think are deep because they're in italics. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about sentences like this:
The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.
Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are less meaningful. All right? — Jesse Andrews

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society. — Noam Chomsky

But there is a second answer to the question of why greatness, one that is at the very heart of what motivated us to undertake this huge project in the first place: the search for meaning, or more precisely, the search for meaningful work. I — James C. Collins

The very foundation of private property and free contracting wears away in a nation in which its most vital, most concrete, most meaningful types of private property and free contracting disappear from the moral horizon of the people. — Joseph A. Schumpeter

No," said Blackwell, "she won't, because that would be a violation of the very personal terms I will have established in our conversation. That's the key word here, Laney, 'personal.' 'Up close, and.' We will not meet, we will not carve out this deep and meaningful and bloody unforgettable episode of mutual face-time as representatives of our respective faceless corporations. Not at all. It's one-on-one time for your Kathy and I, and it may well prove to be as intimate, and I may hope enlightening, as any she ever had. Because I will bring a new certainty into her life, and we all need certainties. They help build character. And I will leave your Kathy with the deepest possible conviction that if she crosses me, she will die-but only after she's been made to desire that, absolutely." And Black-well's smile, then, giving Laney the full benefit of his dental prosthesis, was hideous. "Now how was it exactly you were supposed to contact her, to give her your decision? — William Gibson

I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do now that is as meaningful as that? I don't know the answer yet. — Ellen Barkin

I experienced direct telepathy with other people, and during one such incident, I I received a channelling of cosmic information from some being in another realm. It came directly through a friend who was tripping on acid, and as he began speaking stream-of-consciousness to me and my girlfriend - and both of us were very stoned on grass - his words conveyed cosmic instructions and information we all three knew to be profoundly important and meaningful. — Susan Schneider

Happiness is a social creature. If you try to pursue it in a vacuum, it's very difficult to sustain it. But as soon as you get people focused on creating meaningful connections in the midst of their work, or increasing the meaning and depth of their relationships outside of work, we find happiness rising in step with that social connection. — Shawn Achor

We package everything as a product so we can derive income from it. Then we can occupy ourselves with higher-order psychological lifestyle things. This is a very new issue. Money still matters, but other factors have joined the status game - like how interesting, how meaningful your work is. — Tino Sehgal

All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce. The line of thinking that is traced in this book runs in an opposite direction - not only in questioning the idea of progress but also, and more fundamentally, in rejecting the idea that it is only through action that life can be meaningful. Politics is only a small part of human existence, and the human animal only a very small part of the world. Science and technology have given us powers we never had before, but not the ability to refashion our existence as we wish. Poetry and religion are more realistic guides to life. — John N. Gray

We have a new generation of very rich people who want to do more with their money than buy a lot of expensive toys. They want to live meaningful lives. — Peter Singer

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. ~ Anton Ego, Ratatouille — Walt Disney Company

When you say: The simple truth is this, and then you pause, and then you finish the sentence, people stop, and they think specifically about what you're saying. And it's, in essence, trying to boil it down to something that's very understandable and meaningful. — Frank Luntz

I think I have some very meaningful relationships with people; we all do. At the same time, I recognize that everyone is following their own heart; there's been people who have left my life, and I don't have a problem with that. This is a transitory world; we're all spirits just looking for love and finding it and holding on. — Cass McCombs

Make food a very incidental part of your life by filling your life so full of meaningful things that you'll hardly have time to think about food. — Peace Pilgrim

Nine different people gathered and became like a family. To me, it is a very meaningful tie. — Im Yoona

Any journey in life, if not done for human reasons of understanding and love, would be a very empty and lonely one. — Tim Robbins

The tree of life is the center of the universe. According to the purpose of God, the earth is the center of the universe, the garden of Eden is the center of the earth, and the tree of life is the center of the garden of Eden. We must realize that the whole universe is centered on this tree of life: nothing is more central and crucial to both God and man than this tree. It is very meaningful to see man in the garden standing before the tree of life. — Witness Lee

You're starting to sound a lot like my mother." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Repetitive." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Very funny. — Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't matter how many people you offend, as long as you're getting your message to your consumers. I say to those people who do not want to offend anybody: You are going to have a very, very difficult time having meaningful advertising. — Phil Knight

I was a very driven person, wanting to help and to do good, hopefully to write and teach in a meaningful way - wanting to make change. And I discovered humbly that life was changing me. — Mark Nepo

That's the problem, Frankie. That's why I'm not kissing you right now. A kiss just isn't a kiss. It's no ordinary thing. One day perhaps I can prove that to you. People have died from wanting - desiring - a mere kiss; it's more complex than you believe it to be. You're very pretty ... beautiful even. But you shouldn't let just any guy kiss you. It should be meaningful. And you shouldn't be so willing to share your lips with him. Sharing your lips loosely is nearly as intimate as sharing other parts of yourself. One teases and tempts the other, in a great prelude. I'd like to think you don't kiss very often. — Rae Hachton

I mean, Lady Gaga is trying to be a freak or whatever but that quality of being very meaningly and heartfelt, but also having a sense of humor about it, bands don't do that anymore. Lady Gaga's songs are cheesy. The Beatles weren't cheesy. That's the hardest thing with music: to not be cheesy, but also be meaningful. That's the goal, I think. — Mac DeMarco

When 'Mulholland Dr.' was voted the Best Film of the Decade, that was very meaningful for me. That film opened up incredible doors for me, and I believe that that was the reason I was given opportunities to play all kinds of characters. — Laura Harring

But you are absolutely right that when the international community decides to help in a meaningful manner a country like Afghanistan, then coordination between the various actors that are involved in these processes is very, very difficult indeed. — Lakhdar Brahimi

The true elitists in the literary world are the ones who have become annoyed by literary ambition in any form, who have converted the very meaning of ambition so totally that it now registers as an act of disdain, a hostility to the poor common reader, who should never be asked to do anything that might lead to a pulled muscle. (What a relief to be told there's no need to bother with a book that might seem thorny, or abstract, or unusual.) The elitists are the ones who become angry when it is suggested to them that a book with low sales might actually deserve a prize ( ... ) and readers were assured that the low sales figures for some of the titles could only mean that the books had failed our culture's single meaningful literary test. — Ben Marcus

And do it before you get with a girl you really want to settle down with. Because - trust me on this one - it's very, very hard to find a girl that you'd want to take home to Mom, have a meaningful relationship with and possibly bear your children, who will also finger-bang another girl while you do her doggy-style. Get it done. Get it out of the way. If you don't do it, you will regret it and never move past it. You will be the new virgin. And no one wants that, especially your girlfriend. — Olivia Munn

As time goes by the memories of sitting on the edge of a bed and reading aloud with your kid are going to be very meaningful in your own mental scrapbook. — Gary Ross

Church can be extremely boring. It can be very meaningful, it can be character forming, but can be have very little fizz in it. — Barbara Brown Taylor

It's strange how what drives us may abandon us midstream, how what tickles our ears with lies one moment may tell us truths that knock us on our emotional ass the next.
After all, it is an unbelievably real world, with Darwin scribbling his thoughts into books and telling us what monkeys we are. Each of us explores possibility, hungry for sustaining adoration, yet we know enough to render ourselves helpless.
We strive and strain, bellow and believe, we learn, and everything we learn tells us the same thing: life is one great meaningful experience in a meaningless world. Brilliance has many parts, yet each part is incomplete.
We live, heal and attempt to piece together a picture worth the price of our very lives.
The picture I saw presented demonic executioners, who crippled those daring to look and consumed souls without defense. They're everywhere. Some are people we know. Others are the great fears and addictions of our lives. — Christopher Hawke

Capturing intimacy is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in. That's what excites me and what I find beautiful in movies personally - that almost obscene sense that we shouldn't be this close to these people. I find that very inviting and meaningful as an audience member. — Ira Sachs

Few places in American culture have made as effective a case for entrepreneurship than hip-hop. Hip-hop tells young people that our society is offering very limited options for youth. And that while society points to a radical decline in living wage jobs for youth and meaningful and affordable education, hip-hop is offering an alternative legitimate economy that is giving youth hope. — Bakari Kitwana

Our life is a manifestation, and we can very well make that manifestation beautiful and meaningful and have a good influence. — Nhat Hanh

So my son is very curious, which is fantastic. He loves school. So I don't have to encourage him too much, but I love to do it because I know it's meaningful and words are powerful. — Debra Messing

For the first time in my life, I have tasted life. Life is wonderful but very dangerous. If you have the courage to live it - it's marvelous! — Lionel Barrymore

No tree becomes rooted and sturdy unless many a wind assails it. For by its very tossing it tightens its grip and plants its roots more securely; the fragile trees are those that have grown in a sunny valley. — Seneca The Younger

I have tried very hard to find meaning in what I do, but I have found instead a vast and limitless nothingness. I tried to embrace the nothingness, but it slipped through my grasp, and now there is nothing where the nothingness was. This may sound meaningful, but it isn't. — John S. Hall

But they are not going to take on Big Oil because Big Oil is very generous at campaign time, and this is all about the elections. They want to pretend that they are doing something meaningful. — Peter DeFazio

As we blossom or awaken, we begin to notice there is a force in the world that seems to be operating and leading us into a certain destiny. And it's very much a kind of detective effort on our own part to figure out what these things mean. The synchronicity is essentially a meaningful coincidence that brings us information at just the right time. While leading us forward, it also feels very inspiring and destined in a way. It feels like we're on a path of unfolding in our own personal evolution. — James Redfield

Brands are either built on reruns or coming attractions. The future has no road map while the past does. Creating a brand that blazes new trails can sometimes be bumpy but will also allow you to be the first to discover something new, something meaningful and something that makes others ask, "Why didn't we think of that?" Be very scared of "old tricks" and build a spirit of innovation. It's the "old tricks" that have the highest risk, not doing something bold. — David Brier

As I looked about the world, so much of it impoverished, I became increasingly uncomfortable about having so much while my brothers and sisters were starving. Finally I had to find another way. The turning point came when, in desperation and out of a very deep seeking for a meaningful way of life, I walked all one night through the woods. I came to a moonlit glade and prayed. — Peace Pilgrim

So the years passed and everyone grew old and Nell's husband died and Hilda grew to be a large, angry sort of woman very high up in local government. When Nell was eighty-four Hilda retired and they went to live at a sea-side place where Hilda had had meaningful holidays during the menopause with a woman called Audrey, now dead. — Jane Gardam

This occasion is personally very meaningful and I hope to visit Korea again if I have the chance. — Cathy Freeman

Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35). Whatever we take into us as food will be assimilated into our being. This is very meaningful and significant. God is life to us in the form of food. We need to receive Him by eating Him. Once God enters into us, He becomes the flow of life within us. For proper eating we need food and drink. John 6 covers the bread of life for our eating, and John 7 covers the living water for our drinking. — Witness Lee

Read good writing, and don't live in the present. Live in the deep past, with the language of the Koran or the Mabinogion or Mother Goose or Dickens or Dickinson or Baldwin or whatever speaks to you deeply. Literature is not high school and it's not actually necessary to know what everyone around you is wearing, in terms of style, and being influenced by people who are being published in this very moment is going to make you look just like them, which is probably not a good long-term goal for being yourself or making a meaningful contribution. At any point in history there is a great tide of writers of similar tone, they wash in, they wash out, the strange starfish stay behind, and the conches. — Rebecca Solnit

I write about things that tear me apart, and it's all very personal to me. It's funny to hear people disassemble the lyrics. If they get it wrong, it almost means more to me, because it's morphed into something that is meaningful to them. — Robby Takac

In 1971, 73 percent of incoming freshmen said that it is essential or very important to "develop a meaningful philosophy of life," 37 percent to be "very well-off financially" (not well-off, note, but very well-off). By 2011, the numbers were almost reversed, 47 percent and 80 percent, respectively. — William Deresiewicz

Cats can be a very affectionate type of animal, but it's an affection you have to win. Pretty much the way you earn the affection of your friends and your lovers and your wives and your girlfriends and anybody else that's meaningful in your life,' says Des philosophically. 'There's a period of time where you don't know your positioning, and you work for it. And then all of a sudden, the relationship is established and it's yours, it belongs to you, it's something tangible. You can feel it, you can touch it. — Denise Flaim

I was trying to think of something to say that would sound more meaningful, but when you get sown to it, words aren't very useful at baring our souls, they're just something else to hide behind. — Orhan Pamuk

I don't relax. I can't take vacations. I'm obsessive-compulsive, and I worry with every project that I'm going to fail. When it starts to go well, and I sense that something beautiful and important and meaningful is being created, it's a fantastic feeling, and I find it very hard to stop. — Mary Ellen Mark

In our hunger for guidance, we were ordinary. The American Freshman Survey, which has followed students since 1966, proves the point. One prompt in the questionnaire asks entering freshmen about "objectives considered to be essential or very important." In 1967, 86 percent of respondents checked "developing a meaningful philosophy of life," more than double the number who said "being very well off financially." Naturally, students looked to professors for moral and worldly understanding. Since then, though, finding meaning and making money have traded places. The first has plummeted to 45 percent; the second has soared to 82 percent. — Anonymous

We really feel very humbled that we are a part of so many lives around the globe and that we can help connect people from everywhere with and through our music. My experiences with fans are mostly wonderful and I am always so grateful when I see what kind of positive effect our music has on people. All of our fan experiences are memorable in different way, but it is especially powerful and meaningful when you can feel that someone is really inspired with what you are doing. This is especially true for the young generation. It feels good to know that we can get these kids to pick up classical instruments and see them as instruments they can rock on. — Luka Sulic

What's secretly in the water
of modern culture is that people
enter the world empty.
That's a very dangerous idea,
because if everybody's empty
than other people can get us
to do whatever they want
because there's nothing
in us to stand against it.

But if we came to do
something that's meaningful,
that involves giving and
making the world a more
beautiful, healthy, lively place,
then you become a difficult person
to move around and manipulate. — Michael Meade

Why is life at this point in the twentieth century so focused upon the very beginning of life and the very end of life? What about the 80 years we have to live between those two inexorable bookends? — Will Smith

I certainly don't agree with the bodybuilders who say you can get big forearms just by squeezing the dumbbell handles when doing curls. In a few cases this may be true, but those guys would build big forearms by merely eating eggs in the morning. Most bodybuilders, myself included, have to work very hard for any kind of meaningful forearm development. — Lou Ferrigno

Music is very nebulous, and you can conjure up a lot of moods with music. But lyrics - they're a lot more tangible. They're much more specific. And you want to say something meaningful and creative and artistic and that tells a story and that takes people someplace else. — Sarah McLachlan

First and foremost, you do not have to live up to or emulate the lives of any of your predecessors. But at the very least, you should know about them. You will have your own life, interests, and ideas of what you want or do not want in life. Do what you enjoy doing. Be honest with yourself and others. Don't think of satisfying anyone: your elders, peers, government, religion, or children who will come after you. Develop meaningful ideals, and become conscious of others, their existence, and their lives. — Yuri Kochiyama

I feel like my songs are very relevant and very meaningful, but I literally have to get rid of the nostalgia for shows because I would just be mess on-stage otherwise. — Ellie Goulding

It's not very hard to be clever. It's far harder to be simple, obvious, and meaningful. — Jake Barton

Buddhism is not concerned just with private destiny, but with the lives and consciousness of all beingsAny attempt to understand Buddhism apart from its social dimension is fundamentally a mistake. Until Western Buddhists understand this, their embrace of Buddhism will not help very much in the efforts to bring about meaningful and positive social change, or even in their struggle to transform their ego. — Sulak Sivaraksa

My skin is my canvas. The artwork on it represents something that is very powerful and meaningful in my life. I look at my skin as something of a living diary because all my tattoos represent a time in my life. And I never wish to shut the door on the past, so I carry it all with me. — Dave Navarro

My feeling is that in religion there are very serious things, like the existence of God and the brotherhood of man,
that are serious truths that we will one day learn to appreciate in perhaps a different language on a different scale ...
So I think there are real truths there, and in the sense the majesty of the universe is meaningful, and we do owe honor and awe to its Creator. — Michio Kaku

The positive emotions that arise in ... unpromising circumstances demonstrate that social ties and meaningful work are deeply desired, readily improvised, and intensely rewarding. The very structure of our economy and society prevent these goals from being achieved. — Rebecca Solnit

While it is all very well to distinguish happiness that is transient from that which is lasting, between ephemeral and genuine happiness, the only happiness it is meaningful to speak of when a person is dying from thirst is access to water. — Dalai Lama

It's very easy to go through your whole life and never really get anything done or have any real meaningful interactions or relationships. All of a sudden you're dead, and I'm going to say that's got to be a letdown. — Demetri Martin

Working with keys is always meaningful. Locking and opening is, in a sense, man's very purpose on this earth. — Henning Mankell

If somebody responds positively to what I'm doing - if there is a connection - that can be very meaningful. If someone reacts with displeasure, confusion, hostility, well, that is not pleasant, and can often be upsetting. — Michael Hersch

This is what true love is and yes it seems very small, and something that a person wouldn't think would be a sign of True Love, but I think that all of the important and meaningful signs come to us in "small signs" that we all tend to ignore it as something that isn't meaningful, because we all live life like we are in a rush to get somewhere and we never stop and actually pay more attention to "Now", if we all started to "live in the now" then I feel that life would become more important to everyone, and the majority of people could find happiness out of just living in the "Now" instead of living in the past or the future.
All that matters is Today, Right now is your life, take control of your happiness by living right now. — Austin V. Songer

I wonder a lot about making things meaningful. You want to do meaningful work and make art, but you're making records, which is good, but you don't want to weight them - it's a very curious thing. — Doseone

Dreams have a long history of delivering messages. At the very least they have been considered meaningful and mysterious. — Deepak Chopra

This freedom of movement is the very essence of our free society, setting us apart. Like the right of assembly and the right of association, it often makes all other rights meaningful-knowing, studying, arguing, exploring, conversing, observing and even thinking. Once the right to travel is curtailed, all other rights suffer, just as when curfew or home detention is placed on a person. — William O. Douglas

We work very, very hard to find that fine line where location is meaningful enough to be interesting to an advertiser but not so intrusive that it interrupts the creative flow of the show. — David Brenner