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Purpose Quotes

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Purpose Quotes

“I am persuaded, that if any attempt is made to improve the education of the poor, and such an unmanly spirit should guide the resolution of a society or committee for that purpose, it would render the design abortive.”

IfsShouldMadeSpiritPurposePoorDesignGuidesResolutionCommittees
Book:Improvements in Education, as it Respects the Industrious Classes of the Community: Containing Among Other Important Particulars, an Account of the Institution for the Education of One Thousand Poor Children, Borough Road, Southwark; and of the New System of Education on which it is Conducted
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“Those who, animal-like, live solely according to the senses... misuse God's creation in order to indulge the passions. They do not understand the principle of that wisdom which is revealed to all: that we should know and praise God through His creation and that by means of the visible world we should understand whence we came, what we are, for what purpose we were made and where we are going. On the contrary, they travel through this present age in darkness... with... ignorance of God.”

KnowsWorldShouldMeanMadeAgeChristianPurposeOrderPassionAnimalPrinciplesDarknessCreationIgnorancePraiseContrarySensesVisibleOrthodoxIndulgeMisusePraise GodGod's Creation
Author:Maximus the Confessor
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“Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the conscience of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose.”

MenShouldPurposeLeftAtheismCitizensConscienceConstitutionPositive AtheismDesirableConquest
Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“We should not knowingly allow any species or race to go extinct. And let us go beyond mere salvage to begin the restoration of natural environments, in order to enlarge wild populations and stanch the hemorrhaging of biological wealth. There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.”

ShouldStillsAgePurposeOrderNaturalWealthRaceEnvironmentDiversityMereSpeciesPopulationSurroundRestorationWondrousNatural EnvironmentSalvageDiversity Of Life
Author:E. O. Wilson
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“The question that faces every man born into this world is not what should be his purpose, which he should set about to achieve, but just what to do with life? The answer, that he should order his life so that he can find the greatest happiness in it, is more a practical question, similar to that of how a man should spend his weekend, then a metaphysical proposition as to what is the mystic purpose of his life in the scheme of the universe.”

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Book:Lin Yutang - The Importance Of Living
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“So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females; who are observed, like the ladies in the times of chivalry, to attend to the car of the victor. The final cause of this contest amongst the males seems to be, that the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved.”

ShouldSeemsPurposeCausesAnimalCarSurvivalFemaleSpeciesMalesFinalsPossessionActiveStrongestReceivingContestsExclusiveHornsAdversariesThrustChivalryStags
Author:Erasmus Darwin
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“My own doctrine of organization is that any body of people coming together for a purpose (whatever it may be) should consist of persons wholly wedded to said purpose and should consist of nobody else. If the purpose be Cannibalism (preference for Ham a la Capitalism) then nobody but a Cannibal should be admitted. There should be plenty of discussion and disagreement as to how and the means but none whatever as to ends.”

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Author:Benton MacKaye
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“We have come tardily to the tremendous task of cleaning up our environment. We should have moved with similar zeal at least a decade ago. But no purpose is served by post-mortems. With visionary zeal but the greatest realism, we must now address ourselves to the vast problems that confront us.”

ShouldProblemPurposeEnvironmentTasksShould HaveMovedDecadesPostsAddressesRealismCleaningOur EnvironmentZealVisionariesCleaning Up
Book:Selected speeches
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“Genius, when employed in works whose tendency it is to demoralize and to degrade us, should be contemplated with abhorrence rather than with admiration; such a monument of its power, may indeed be stamped with immortality, but like the Coliseum at Rome, we deplore its magnificence because we detest the purposes for which it was designed.”

ShouldMayPurposeGeniusTendenciesImmortalityAdmirationRomeEmployedMonumentDegradeDetestMagnificenceAbhorrenceColiseum
Book:Lacon: or, Many things in few words
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“Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle , but he thought very highly of Democritus , Although he did not deny that the course of nature exemplifies a Divine purpose, he objected to any admixture of teleological explanation in the actual investigation of phenomena; everything, he held, should be explained as following necessarily from efficient causes .”

ShouldPurposeCoursesCausesDivineMathematicsFollowingDenyExplanationEfficientInvestigationHostileDespisedDivine PurposeUndervalued
Book:History of Western Philosophy
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“Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal. Her giving to man reason and the freedom of the will which depends upon it is clear indication of her purpose. Man accordingly was not to be guided by instinct, not nurtured and instructed with ready-made knowledge; rather, he should bring forth everything out of his own resources.”

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Author:Immanuel Kant
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“I am afraid! It is not starving I fear, or talking to people, or even being alone. But I cannot bear to be useless and ineffectual. There must be some meaning to me, if not to my life; there must surely be some purpose that has my name written on it. If this is not so, if I am deceiving myself about this too, then why should I want to become real? What reason have I to live anywhere?”

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Book:A fine and private place: The last unicorn
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“It seems that it is impossible to live without discovering the purpose of your life. And the first thing which a person should do is to understand the meaning of life. But the majority of people who consider themselves to be educated are proud that they have reached such great height that they cease to care about the meaning of existence.”

PeopleShouldFirstsPersonsSeemsCarePurposeExistenceImpossibleProudMajorityCeaseEducatedHeightMeaning Of LifeDiscoveringGreat Heights
Author:Leo Tolstoy
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“If time is treated in modern physics as a dimension on a par with the dimensions of space, why should we a priori exclude the possibility that we are pulled as well as pushed along its axis? The future has, after all, as much or as little reality as the past, and there is nothing logically inconceivable in introducing, as a working hypothesis, an element of finality, supplementary to the element of causality, into our equations. It betrays a great lack of imagination to believe that the concept of "purpose" must necessarily be associated with some anthropomorphic deity.”

IfsShouldBelieveWellsLittlesRealityPastPurposeImaginationSpaceModernPossibilityElementsConceptsPhysicsTreatedDimensionsBetrayIntroducingHypothesisEquationsDeitiesAxesFinalityCausalityModern Physics
Author:Arthur Koestler
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“The purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information, nor to build up a totalitarian world picture of natural Laws in which every event that is not compulsory is forbidden. We should think of it rather as a logically articulated structure of justifiable beliefs about nature.”

ThinkingWorldShouldLawPurposeBeliefNaturalEventsInformationStructureForbiddenNatural LawScientific MethodFactualCompulsoryInventoryEnquiry
Book:Induction and intuition in scientific thought
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“There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.”

ShouldReasonProblemFacesPurposeApproachSolveReason WhyHidingGravity
Book:The Roosevelt Policy: Speeches, Letters and State Papers, Relating to Corporate Wealth and Closely Allied Topics, of Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States
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“The history of science should not be an instrument to defend any kind of social or philosophic theory; it should be used only for its own purpose, to illustrate impartially the working of reason against unreason, the gradual unfolding of truth, in all its forms, whether pleasant or unpleasant, useful of useless, welcome or unwelcome.”

ShouldKindReasonFormUsedPurposeSocialTheoryInstrumentsWelcomeUselessPleasantUnfoldingPhilosophicHistory Of ScienceUnwelcome
Book:Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece
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“What does purpose mean? It means the deepest desire for our short lives to mean something. . . . To speak a language of purpose is to return to first principles and to be able to answer, in plain English, the plain questions of Why? Why should we chip in to help someone else? Why should we defer gratification? Why should we care about the long term? Why should we trust anyone who seems to be limiting our ability to do what we want?”

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Author:Eric Liu
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“The problem of restoring integration and co-operation between man's beliefs about the world in which he lives and his beliefs about values and purposes that should direct his conduct is the deepest problem modern life. It is the problem of any philosophy that is not isolated from life.”

MenWorldShouldPhilosophyProblemWisdomPurposeValuesBeliefModernDirectOperationsIsolatedIntegrationModern LifeRestoring
Book:The Later Works, 1925-1953: 1929
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“Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.”

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Book:The Lives of the English Poets
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“Recognising that an ostentatious cult of heroism and state service served an important propaganda function for the British elite does not mean, of course, that we should dismiss it as artificial or insincere. All aristocracies have a strong military tradition, and for many British patricians the protracted warfare of the period was a godsend. It gave them a job, and, more important, a purpose, an opportunity to carry out what they had been trained to do since childhood: ride horses, fire guns, exercise their undoubted physical courage and tell other people what to do.”

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Author:Linda Colley
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“I myself am not comfortable with the notion of secularists congregating in groups, except perhaps for defensive purposes: the last thing a secularist should wish to do is to act like a religion, with its rigid hierarchies, its suppression of divergent opinion, and, above all, its ruthless attempts (now mercifully inhibited by laws) to outlaw "heresy" by brute force. Opinions must be changed, one at a time if necessary, but if there are those who wish to persist in religious belief, they should certainly be allowed to do so.”

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Author:S. T. Joshi
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“Towards orthodox religion, father's own attitude remained one of tolerance. He looked upon the New Testament as the noble story of a human being which, because of ignorance and the lack of printing presses, had become exaggerated. He maintained that religions served their purpose; some people depended on them all their lives to make them honest. Others did not need to be so held in line. But subjection to any church was a reflection on strength and character. You should be able to get from yourself what you had to go go church for.”

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Book:The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger
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“Rama Nama should come from the heart. In that event, Rama Nama could become an effective remedy against all ailments. A man who believes in Rama Nama would not make a fetish of the body but would regard it as a means of serving God. And for making it into a fit instrument for that purpose, Rama Nama is the sovereign means. To install Rama Nama in the heart requires infinite patience. It might even take ages. But the effort is worthwhile. Rama Nama cannot come from the heart unless one has cultivated the virtues of truth, honesty and purity within and without.”

MenShouldBelieveHeartMeanBodyMightAgePurposeEffortVirtueEventsHonestyFitInfiniteRegardInstrumentsPurityServingWorthwhileRemedyServing GodSovereignRamaFetishAilmentsTruth Honesty
Author:Mahatma Gandhi
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“When we find ourselves devoid of passion and purpose, the first thing we need to do is stop. But that's not easy. The rest of the world is zooming by at full speed. Left alone with ourselves, without a project to occupy us, we can become nervous and self-critical about what we should be doing and feeling. This can be so uncomfortable that we look for any distraction rather than allowing ourselves the space to be as we are.”

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Book:I Will Not Die An Unlived Life: Reclaiming Passion and Purpose
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“No writer, I believe, should attempt a novel before he is thirty, and not then unless he has been hopelessly and helplessly involved in life. For the writer who goes out to find material for a novel, as a fishermen goes out to sea to fish, will certainly not write a good novel. Life has to be lived thoughtlessly, unconsciously, at full tilt and for no purpose except its own sake before it becomes, eventually, good material for a novel.”

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Author:Pearl S. Buck
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“When we do not know the truth of a thing, it is good that there should exist a common error which determines the mind of man, as, for example, the moon, to which is attributed the change of seasons, the progress of diseases, etc. For the chief malady of man is a restless curiosity about things which he cannot understand; and it is not so bad for him to be in error as to be curious to no purpose.”

KnowsMenShouldMindTruthPurposeCommonProgressExampleMoonDiseaseSeasonsErrorsCuriosityDetermineCuriousChiefsMotiveEtcRestlessMaladySeasons Change
Book:Pascal's Pensees
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“He that would relish success to a purpose should keep his passions cool, and his expectations low; and then it is possible that his fortune might exceed his fancy; for an advantage always rises by surprise; and is almost always doubled by being unlooked for.”

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Book:Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of
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“Mind is the creator of everything. You should therefore guide it to create only good. If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic will power, it finally assumes a tangible outward form. When you are able to employ your will always for constructive purposes, you become the controller of your destiny.”

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Book:The Law of Success: Using the Power of Spirit to Create Health, Prosperity, and Happiness
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“For popular purposes, at least, the aim of literary artists should be similar to that of Rubens in his landscapes, of which, without neglecting the minor traits or finishing, he was chiefly solicitous to present the leading effect, or what we may call the inspiration.”

ShouldMayInspirationPurposeArtistEffectsAimLandscapeNeglectTraitsMinorsFinishingAuthorshipRubens
Book:Aphorisms and Reflections: A Miscellany of Thought and Opinion
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