Motivational Quotes

Purpose

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

Best Quotes about Purpose

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

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

Many good purposes lie in the churchyard.

Henry, Philip

Your purpose is to make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, feel what you felt. Relevant detail, couched in concrete, colorful language, is the best way to recreate the incident as it happened and to picture it for the audience.

Carnegie, Dale

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

Proverb

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

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

Hudgins, Ken

10.

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

11.

Mix a conviction with a man and something happens.

Powell, Adam Clayton

12.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

14.

Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.

Allen, James

15.

A just cause is not ruined by a few mistakes.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

16.

Your cause belongs to those that can avenge your wrongs.

Winkworth

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

Sharpman, Al

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.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

22.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

Eliot, George

23.

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

Brown, Les

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Shaw, George Bernard

31.

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

Gschwandtner, Gerhard

32.

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

33.

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

Brooks, Garth

34.

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

35.

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

Wieder, Marcia

36.

A purpose you impart is no longer your own.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

37.

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

38.

Allen, James

39.

The secret to success is constancy to purpose.

Disraeli, Benjamin

40.

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

Martyn, Henry

41.

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

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

45.

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

Ustinov, Peter

46.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end

Hemingway, Ernest

47.

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

Brown, Les

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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.