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Meaningful Life Quotes

Browse 338 quotes about Meaningful Life.

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Meaningful Life Quotes

“We learn about life by exploring the texture and depth of space that composes our private inner world. In solitude we revisit our wounded feelings, sins, doubts, and deepest despair, replay poignant memories of loved ones, project what we are becoming, and ascertain the purpose of our being.”

Life LessonsMemoriesSolitudeLife Lessons QuotesIntrospectionInner SelfMeaningful LifeIntrospectiveSolitude QuotesPurposeful LifePrivate ThoughtsInner Vampire
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“I am constantly mystified by what John ends up remembering… I just don’t understand why he’s able to hang on to information like that, while so many other more important memories evaporate. Then again, I suppose so much of what stays with us is often insignificant. The memories we take to the ends of our lives have no real rhyme or reason, especially when you think of the endless things that you do over the course of a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. All the cups of coffee, hand-washings, changes of clothes, lunches, goings to the bathroom, headaches, naps, walks to school, trips to the grocery store, conversations about the weather—all the things so unimportant they should be immediately forgotten. Yet they aren’t. I often think of the Chinese red bathrobe I had when I was twenty-seven years old; the sound of our first cat Charlie’s feet on the linoleum of our old house; the hot rarefied air around aluminum pot the moment before the kernels of popcorn burst open. I think of these things as often as I think about getting married or giving birth or the end of the Second World War. What is truly amazing is that before you know it, sixty years go by and you can remember maybe eight or nine important events, along with a thousand meaningless ones. How can that be? You want to think there’s a pattern to it all because it makes you feel better, gives you some sense of a reason why we’re here, but there really isn’t any. People look for God in these patterns, these reasons, but only because they don’t know where else to look. Things happen to us: some of it important, most of it not, and a little of it stays with us till the end. What stays after that? I’ll be damned if I know. (pp.174-175)”

ReasonMomentsTimeMemoriesAgingLifetimeMemoryPatternsAfter DeathMeaningful LifeTime PassingOrdinary LifeEnd Of LifeMemory LossEnd Of Life Musings
Book:The Leisure Seeker
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“What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. It is that synthesizing spirit, that "shaping" force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine.”

DeathImaginationVisionCreativityMeaningful LifeBlandnessPoverty Of SpiritCreative Death
Book:The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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“Narcissistic pleasure seekers routinely avoid developing the humility required to manufacture a life of full measure. Shallow persons such as me hide their insecurities behind a false persona of bravado, boasting of their inconsequential deeds, pyrrhic victories, and adamant refusals to tackle any task that they fear.”

HumilityPrideInsecurityNarcissismMeaningful LifePurpose Driven LifePurposeful LivingBravadoBoastingBoastfulEgoistBoastfulnessBoasting QuotesPersonal Insight
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Every form of life must struggle. Life is an aberration; death is ordinary. Life requires obstruction, conflict, reverses, and resolve. Life requires questing. Questing provides the meaning that we seek, a purpose to justify the inevitable struggle to live knowing the absurdity that we must die.”

StruggleFailureConflictAdversitySeekingLife And DeathResolveMeaningful LifeAdversity QuotesFailure QuotesJourney Of LifePurposeful LivingQuestResoluteConflictsSetbacksPurposeful LifeStrugglingMeaningfulnessExistential AngstStruggle For LifePurposeful JourneyQuesting
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“An artist adopts a radically different view regarding the importance of time than a businessperson does. Instead of perceiving time as a merchantable facet doled out incrementally according to marketplace demands, an artist portrays time as an agent of destruction. The irrevocability of time frames the human condition. Time might the medium of all human experience, but its passage obscures and eventually obliterates all human endeavors. Time unchecked leads to a blank slate of nothingness. Time’s destructive march towards meaningless is arrested through memory and art depicting humankind’s struggles and accomplishments.”

ArtArtistTimeCreativityDestructionMemoryMeaningful LifeTime PassingPassage Of TimeArtists QuotesArt QuotesArt QuotationsArt Quote
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“A person desires more out of life than simply makeshift survival. How does a person live sensationally? Must we pursue pleasure wherever and however we can find it? Alternatively, must a person suppress or at least check some of their instinctive, beastly desires to forge a quality state of happiness? Arguably, a majority of people benefit when each person labors to control their personage. On the other hand, perchance the Ancient Romans were correct openly to embrace the notion that humankind’s base nature demands that all full-bodied persons act to satiate their rapacious lust. Perhaps various religious doctrines and philosophical grumps were correct to embrace an alternative creed that personal happiness and stable community relationships are dependent upon conditioning the masses to exercise self-discipline. Perhaps other thinkers who advocate living passionately devoted to achieving virtuous goals while resisting a path of debauchery present the most gallant argument how to live brilliantly in the face of absurdity. Perchance the test of any ethical code governing how we should live must begin by questioning whether living in accordance with the prescribed guidelines assist us achieve emotional equanimity? Does our lifestyle choice bring harmony to the mind and body? Does our personal protocol facilitate carefree immersion in daily affairs? Does our code of conduct allow us to transcend the impoverishment, corruption, and brutality of our times? Does our moral etiquette enable us to glean satisfaction in the commonplace acts of living carefully? Does our philosophical and ethical methodology allow us to strain the innermost contentment and joy from the purity of nature’s bounty?”

HappinessSurvivalLifestylePhilosophy Of LifeMeaningful LifePersonal SatisfactionPersonal PhilosophyCode Of Conduct
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Gazing into the heavens on a starry night a person sees the reflection of their own soul staring back at them. Perceiving our microscopic place in the revolving cosmos, we search to ascertain a meaning for our existence; we stretch our minds to comprehend a reason that justifies our fleeting journey in a universe composed of dark energy. Comprehension of a full-bodied meaning for living seems to lie just beyond my grasp. Perhaps I struggle dialing into a meaning for life because living entails adapting to a constant state of chaos. Can I harmonize the noisy commotion and distracting clutter in my life? I need to overcome personal inertia by learning to become comfortable with these changing times. In actuality, I have no choice but to capitulate to the evolution of facets in the world. Everything in the universe is undergoing constant change. Alike all humankind, I am also in the process of evolving. Who I was will undoubtedly affect who I will become. Who I am now is not who I will always be. The demands imposed upon us by the exterior world prevent stagnation of our interior world. We must all respond to change by either growing or dying. Even a blockhead such as me proves alterable, because inherent mutability ensures the survival of all persons. The entire world is interconnected; we are part of the cosmic consciousness. Many factors beyond our direct control influence us.”

ConsciousnessEvolveMeaning Of LifeMeaningful LifeAdaptabilityInterconnectionCosmic ConsciousnessAdaptChanging TimesInterconnectivity
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“Living a self-indulgent lifestyle of a hedonistic without a grounding central purpose leads a person adrift in the slipstream of life. A person is bound to suffer unless they discern a meaning to existence and then strive in a passionate manner to fulfill their essential purpose.”

MeaningfulMeaningful LifePurpose Driven LifePassionate LivingPassionate LifeSuffering Of HumanityAdriftHedonisticMeaning Of ExistenceHedonists
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“We must be resolute in ascertaining and pursuing prudent personal goals. How freeing it would be not to want, not to need, and not to covet anything, except for an opportunity to work to my fullest mental, physical, and emotional capacity for people who I respect and care for. I wish to surrender my naked ambition and sense of self-importance in exchange for edifying other people’s lives. I desire to work towards developing a deep affection for the world that surrounds me; exhibit in a more wholesome fashion that I cherish my family; broaden the sphere of personal interest; and labor to expand and explore my creative nature.”

EnlightenmentPersonal GrowthPersonal DevelopmentPurpose Of LifeMeaningful LifePurpose Driven LifeResolutePersonal Development QuotesPersonal Goals
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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“When I use the word “spiritual,” I don’t necessarily mean religious faith. It is quite obvious that there are two levels of spirituality—spirituality with religious faith and that without. Obviously, an individual can manage to lead a meaningful life without religious faith, but you can’t be a happy person without the spirituality of basic human values. As long as we remain human, there is no way that we can neglect this.”

HappinessSpiritualityBuddhismEnlightenmentAwakeningMeaningful LifeThe Path Of The BodhisattvaDalai LamaUniversal Human Values
Book:Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience
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“I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. My goal is not to remain the same but to live in such a way that each day, year, moment, relationship, conversation , and crisis is the material I use to become a truer, more beautiful version of myself.”

PurposeMeaning Of LifePurpose Of LifeMeaningful LifeWhy We Are HereWhy We LiveMy PurposeWhy Are We Here
Book:Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living / A Toolkit for Modern Life
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“Despite the trappings of living a gilded life, a final reckoning awaits each of us, a fateful conclusion that no conscientious human can put off admitting to until their final heartbeat. Until that compressed moment of elucidation arrives, many people including me mesmerize ourselves by raking in guilt-lined pleasures as fast as we can. Lost in the erratic shuffle of daily forging is the modest precept that it is how we live that defines us.”

Meaning Of LifeMeaningful LifePurpose Driven LifePurposeful LivingPurposeful Journey
Author:Kilroy J. Oldster
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“The false sense of adventure wrought from walking a gangplank of amorous tropism embroiders a shallow life. Only religious mystics or persons exhibiting tremendous internal resources dedicate their lives to seeking a meaningful existence that transcends the festive indulgence of taking a pleasure cruise through life.”

Meaning Of LifeMeaningful LifePurpose Driven LifePurposeful LivingMeaning Of Life QuotesMeaningful Existence
Book:Dead Toad Scrolls
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