Motivational Quotes

Purpose

Many good purposes lie in the churchyard.

- Henry, Philip

Best Quotes about Purpose

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

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

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

Simonides

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

He who clings to life shall lose it -- but losing it in a right cause will gain it.

Man becomes greater in proportion to knowing himself and his faculties. Let him become conscious of what he is and he will soon also learn what he should be.

Schelling, Felix E.

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

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

Diana, Princess of Wales

Ordinary people think merely of spending time. Great people think of using it.

10.

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

Socrates

11.

We need not only a purpose in life to give meaning to our existence but also something to give meaning to our suffering. We need as much something to suffer for as something to live for.

Hoffer, Eric

12.

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

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

15.

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

Sharpman, Al

16.

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

Martyn, Henry

17.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

18.

The sense of paralysis proceeds not so much out of the mammoth size of the problem but out of the puniness of the purpose.

Cousins, Norman

19.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

20.

What we must try to be, of course, is ourselves and wholeheartedly. We must find out what we really are and what we really want.

Boswell, Nelson

21.

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

22.

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

Morgan, Arthur E.

23.

Many good purposes lie in the churchyard.

Henry, Philip

24.

I think that a lot of women are made to feel that they have not done the one thing that they were put on the earth to do if they didn't do the normal thing, if they didn't take the most traveled path. And it's unfortunate.

Griffith, Nanci

25.

The presence of a long-term, conscious goal has helped me maintain stability through the ubiquitous changes of over half a century.

Craig Mary

26.

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

27.

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.

28.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

29.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

30.

Multitudes of people, drifting aimlessly to and fro without a set purpose, deny themselves such fulfillment of their capacities, and the satisfying happiness which attends it. They are not wicked, they are only shallow. They are not mean or vicious; they simply are empty -- shake them and they would rattle like gourds. They lack range, depth, and conviction. Without purpose their lives ultimately wander into the morass of dissatisfaction. As we harness our abilities to a steady purpose and undertake the long pull toward its accomplishment, rich compensations reward us. A sense of purpose simplifies life and therefore concentrates our abilities; and concentration adds power.

Hildebrand, Kenneth

31.

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

32.

In a just cause the weak will beat the strong.

Sophocles

33.

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

Thurber, James

34.

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

Brown, Les

35.

Purpose is what gives life a meaning.

Parkhurst, Charles H.

36.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

37.

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

38.

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

39.

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

40.

The whole life is but a point of time; let us enjoy it, therefore, while it lasts, and not spend it to no purpose.

Plutarch

41.

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

Frankl, Viktor E.

42.

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

43.

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

Buddha

44.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

45.

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

Halas, George

46.

Mix a conviction with a man and something happens.