“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

Last update Sept. 29, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done." by Christopher Paolini?
Christopher Paolini photo
Christopher Paolini 166
American author 1983

Related quotes

“When we surrender when we do not fight with life when it calls upon us we are lifted and the strength to do what needs to be done finds us.”

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (1954) Canadian author

Source: The Invitation

“To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.”

Cynthia Ozick (1928) American writer
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo

“It is important to focus more on what we need than on what we want, because much of what we want unnecessarily complicates our lives. The answer is to approach the Divinity in the mood of. "Thy will be done. Use me for Your purposes." Even higher than that sentiment is to request that God remove our free will so that we cannot even exercise it. We are then fully available for the Lord's service.”

Bhakti Tirtha Swami (1950–2005) American Hindu writer

Source: Books, Spiritual Warrior, Volume I: Uncovering Spiritual Truths in Psychic Phenomena (Hari-Nama Press, 1996), Chapter 4: Fire and Brimstone, Horns and Tail, p. 67

Ma Ying-jeou photo

“Not everyone understands this. But we (ROC government) have done what needed to be done, and we will keep doing so until the very end.”

Ma Ying-jeou (1950) Taiwanese politician, president of the Republic of China

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.
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.
Other topics

Bill Clinton photo

“What are the needs of the world? What can I do that won't be done if I don't do it?”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

ABC Primetime Live interview during opening of his presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., November 2004
2000s

Ayn Rand photo

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Joyce Meyer photo

“We must meditate on what God has done in our life instead of what we are still waiting on Him to do.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker
Mitch Albom photo

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Terence McKenna photo

“What we need to do is transcend these localized grids of fate, which make us what we are but don't want to be.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

Psychedelic Society (1984)
Context: !-- ~28m57s -->Because too much we have lived in the light of the idea that your ideology will be dictated to you essentially by geography! And if you're born in India, you'll find out that the Cosmos is one way; if you're born in Brooklyn, you find out it's another way. What we need to do is transcend these localized grids of fate, which make us what we are but don't want to be.

Johann Gottfried Herder photo

“To think what is true, to sense what is beautiful and to want what is good, hereby the spirit finds purpose of a life in reason.”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Related topics