Motivational Quotes

Purpose

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

Best Quotes about Purpose

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

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

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

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

Hildebrand, Kenneth

The aims of life are the best defense against death.

Levi, Primo

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

Wizard, Her Majesty's

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

Morgan, Arthur E.

Winners are people with definite purpose in life.

Waitley, Denis

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

Halas, George

10.

You are only as strong as your purpose, therefore let us choose reasons to act that are big bold righteous and eternal.

Munro, Barry

11.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

12.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. [2 Corinthians 5:20]

Bible

13.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

14.

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

Wieder, Marcia

15.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

16.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

17.

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

Brooks, Garth

18.

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

Socrates

19.

Mix a conviction with a man and something happens.

Powell, Adam Clayton

20.

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.

21.

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

22.

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

Shakespeare, William

23.

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Hudgins, Ken

24.

People should follow their own energy.

Schultz, Will

25.

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

Sharpman, Al

26.

Many good purposes lie in the churchyard.

Henry, Philip

27.

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

Seneca

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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.

31.

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

32.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

33.

Your cause belongs to those that can avenge your wrongs.

Winkworth

34.

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

Eliot, George

35.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

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

Thurber, James

37.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

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

39.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

Dyer, Wayne

40.

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

41.

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

42.

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

Moody, Dwight L.

43.

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

44.

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

45.

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

Picasso, Pablo

46.

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

Ustinov, Peter

47.

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

48.

The purpose of man is in action not thought.

Carlyle, Thomas

49.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward toward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Bible

50.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Eliot, George