“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”
Source: Spoon River Anthology
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Edgar Lee Masters12
American writer 1868–1950Related quotes
“The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia
Source: Their Morals and Ours
Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (2002), Ch. 2 : I'm Not an Accident
Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?
“What do you want meaning for? Life is desire, not meaning.”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker
Source: My Life In Pictures
Russell L. Ackoff (1919–2009) Scientist
Source: 1970s, On purposeful systems., 1972, p. 237, as cited in: William E. Smith (2008) The Creative Power. p. 58.
“Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
Journal entry (8 July 1916), p. 74e
1910s, Notebooks 1914-1916
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist
As quoted in Successful Aging : A Conference Report (1974) by Eric Pfeiffer, p. 142
Attributed
Bill McKibben (1960) American environmentalist and writer
Source: Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (2003), p. 199