“The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.”
Christopher Paolini book Brisingr
Variant: The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.
Source: Brisingr
Ma Ying-jeou (2013) cited in: " Time not right for political talks with China: Ma http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2013/10/26/2003575395" in Taipei Times, 26 October 2013. <br class="br">Statement made in commenting his record-low approval rating and saying that he has no desire to change the cross-strait relations policies, 25 October 2013. <br class="br">Other topics
“The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.”
Christopher Paolini book Brisingr
Variant: The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done. This is what fate demands of us.
Source: Brisingr
Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)
1920s, The Reign of Law (1925)
Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer
Speech to the Pembrokeshire Constituency Labour Party in Haverfordwest (26 July 1974), quoted in The Times (27 July 1974), p. 3
1970s
Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist
Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: Our ability to destroy ourselves is the mirror image of our ability to save ourselves, and what is lacking is the clear vision of what should be done... What needs to be done is that fundamental, ontological conceptions of reality need to be redone. We need a new language, and to have a new language we must have a new reality... A new reality will generate a new language, a new language will fix a new reality, and make it part of this reality.
Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Variant: We need to forgive ourselves. For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done. You can't get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened.
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie
“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
“Variant: What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.”
Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XVIII.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author
Source: The Invitation
Nancy Pelosi (1940) American politician, first female Speaker of the House of Representatives, born 1940
Remarks to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, quoted in "Pelosi makes unannounced trip to Kyiv, becoming highest-ranking US official to meet with Zelensky since the war began" by Michelle Watson and Eliza Mackintosh, CNN https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/01/politics/pelosi-zelensky-kyiv-ukraine-intl/index.html] (1 May 2022)]; also in "Pelosi meets Zelenskyy in Ukraine, says commitment is to be there for you until the fight is done'", Global News (1 May 2022) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga34dmkMwBU