“Philosophers can debate the meaning of life, but you need a Lord who can declare the meaning of life.”

Source: Robopocalypse

Journal entry (11 June 1916), p. 72e and 73e
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916
Context: What do I know about God and the purpose of life?
I know that this world exists.
That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field.
That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning.
This meaning does not lie in it but outside of it.
That life is the world.
That my will penetrates the world.
That my will is good or evil.
Therefore that good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world.
The meaning of life, i. e. the meaning of the world, we can call God.
And connect with this the comparison of God to a father.
To pray is to think about the meaning of life.

Source: Shadow Kiss

Source: The Book Thief

Section 75
The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

Source: The Bertrams (1859), Ch. 30
Context: It would seem that the full meaning of the word marriage can never be known by those who, at their first outspring into life, are surrounded by all that money can give. It requires the single sitting-room, the single fire, the necessary little efforts of self-devotion, the inward declaration that some struggle shall be made for that other one.