Motivational Quotes

Purpose

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

- Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

Best Quotes about Purpose

They are not only idle who do nothing, but they are idle also who might be better employed.

Socrates

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Eliot, George

The purpose in life is to collaborate for a common cause; the problem is nobody seems to know what it is.

Gschwandtner, Gerhard

Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose.

Proverb

The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Eliot, George

Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is.

Thurber, James

It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.

Gide, Andre

You, betrayed by time and space, Seek and find your proper place.

Wizard, Her Majesty's

You have to know what is right for you and go after it regardless of what others say.

Brown, Les

10.

Lack of something to feel important about is almost the greatest tragedy a man may have.

Morgan, Arthur E.

11.

Are we interested in sight seeing or soul saving?

12.

Give me a man who says, This one thing I do, and not, These fifty things, I dabble in.

Moody, Dwight L.

13.

It is essential that we enable young people to see themselves as participants in one of the most exciting eras in history, and to have a sense of purpose in relation to it.

Rockefeller, Nelson

14.

I live for my sons. I would be lost without them.

Diana, Princess of Wales

15.

If you don't stand up for something, you may fall for anything.

Brown, Les

16.

If we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything.

17.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

18.

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

Thurber, James

19.

We know there is intention and purpose in the universe, because there is intention and purpose in us.

Shaw, George Bernard

20.

Only the consciousness of a purpose that is mightier than any man and worthy of all men can fortify and inspirit and compose the souls of men.

Lippmann, Walter

21.

When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.

Stone, W. Clement

22.

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

Carlyle, Thomas

23.

Pep without purpose is piffle.

24.

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it.

Buddha

25.

Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes; lesser ones exist on wishes and inclinations.

Hildebrand, Kenneth

26.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

Seneca

27.

A pilgrim is a wanderer with purpose.

Pilgrim, Peace

28.

There is no road to success but through a clear strong purpose. Nothing can take its place. A purpose underlies character, culture, position, attainment of every part.

Munger, Thornton T.

29.

The only way you can be successful on a post or win at it is to be at cause over it.

Hubbard, L. Ron

30.

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right.

Schulz, Charles M.

31.

What on earth are you doing for Heaven's sake?

32.

Many men go fishing their entire lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.

Thoreau, Henry David

33.

For I say unto you in all sadness of conviction that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists. Only when you have worked alone -- when you have felt around you are a black gulf of solitude more isolating than that which surrounds the dying man, and in hope and despair have trusted to your own unshaken will -- then only can you gain the secret isolated joy of the thinker, who knows that a hundred years after he is dead and forgotten men who have never heard of him will be moving to the measure of his thought -- the subtle rapture of postponed power, which the world knows not because it has no external trappings, but which to his prophetic vision is more real than that which commands an army. And if this joy should not be yours, still it is only thus you can know that you have done what lay in you to do -- can say that you have lived, and be ready for the end.

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell

34.

How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become -- to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

35.

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Hudgins, Ken

36.

People should follow their own energy.

Schultz, Will

37.

You can come to understand your purpose in life by slowing down and feeling your heart's desires.

Wieder, Marcia

38.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

Sophocles

39.

What we determine we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory.

Shakespeare, William

40.

The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have something to live for.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

41.

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

Cowper, William

42.

Mix a conviction with a man and something happens.

Powell, Adam Clayton

43.

A purpose you impart is no longer your own.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

44.

Many good purposes lie in the churchyard.

Henry, Philip

45.

There is no better test of a man's work than time, which also reveals the thoughts which lay hidden in his breast.

Simonides

46.

The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with a sense of destination and the energy to get started.

Cousins, Norman

47.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily focus his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him. He should make this purpose his supreme duty, and should devote himself to its attainment, not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephemeral fancies, longings, and imaginings. This is the royal road to self-control and true concentration of thought. Even if he fails again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome), the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.

Allen, James

48.

At a turbulent public meeting once I lost my temper and said some harsh and sarcastic things. The proposal I was supporting was promptly defeated. My father who was there, said nothing, but that night, on my pillow I found a marked passage from Aristotle: Anybody can become angry--that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way -- that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.

Gordon, Arthur

49.

Purpose is what gives life a meaning.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

50.

Everything happens for a reason and a purpose, and it serves you.

Robbins, Anthony