Motivational Quotes

Purpose

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

- Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Best Quotes about Purpose

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

Brown, Les

Pep without purpose is piffle.

Blessed are the single-hearted, for they shall enjoy much peace. If you refuse to be hurried and pressed, if you stay your soul on God, nothing can keep you from that clearness of spirit which is life and peace. In that stillness you will know what His will is.

Carmichael, Amy

Many people flounder about in life because they do not have a purpose, an objective toward which to work.

Halas, George

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

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

Thoreau, Henry David

The great and glorious masterpiece of man is how to live with purpose.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Bring me men to match my mountains: Bring me men to match my plains: Men with empires in their purpose and new eras in their brains.

Foss, Sam Walter

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

Morgan, Arthur E.

10.

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

11.

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

Brown, Les

12.

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

Gide, Andre

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.

Purpose is what gives life a meaning.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

15.

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

Carlyle, Thomas

16.

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

17.

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

Shakespeare, William

18.

The one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

19.

It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.

O'Connor, Mary

20.

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

Wieder, Marcia

21.

When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.

Patanjali

22.

Better to die of something than to die in old age of nothing.

Sharpman, Al

23.

Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose. Power undirected by high purpose spells calamity, and high purpose by itself is utterly useless if the power to put it into effect is lacking.

Roosevelt, Theodore

24.

Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

25.

What allows us, as human beings, to psychologically survive life on earth, with all of its pain, drama, and challenges, is a sense of purpose and meaning

Angelis, Barbara De

26.

I know of no such unquestionable badge and ensign of a sovereign mind as that of tenacity of purpose...

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

27.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

Sophocles

29.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Eliot, George

30.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

31.

Anyone can live heroically and successfully for one day. The man who achieves a high purpose makes that day the pattern for all the days of his life.

32.

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

Wizard, Her Majesty's

33.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

34.

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

Hildebrand, Kenneth

35.

It is your work in life that is your ultimate seduction.

Picasso, Pablo

36.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

37.

I see no business in life but the work of Christ.

Martyn, Henry

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Buddha

41.

To be a Sufi is to cease from taking trouble; and there is no greater trouble for thee than thine own self, for when thou art occupied with thyself, thou remainest away from God.

Sa'id, Abu

42.

One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house f the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. [Psalms 27:4]

Bible

43.

Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.

Disraeli, Benjamin

44.

The secret to success is constancy to purpose.

Disraeli, Benjamin

45.

The longest journey is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest for the source of his being.

Hammarskjold, Dag

46.

I just wake up and say, You're a bum, go do something worthwhile today.

Brooks, Garth

47.

No one sat me down with a piece of paper and said, ?This is what is expected of you. But I?m lucky enough in the fact that I have found my role I love being with people.?

Diana, Princess of Wales

48.

Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our duty is to furnish it well.

Ustinov, Peter

49.

The aims of life are the best defense against death.

Levi, Primo

50.

The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De