Quotes about meaning
page 31

“Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

“To be a child means to owe one's existence to another, and even in our adult life we never quite reach the point where we no longer have to give thanks for being the person we are.”

Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905–1988) Swedish Catholic theologian

Source: Unless You Become Like This Child

Life, Personality

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

As quoted in The Story of Our Money (1946) by Olive Cushing Dwinell, p. 71; this is in an author's note following a quote by Alexander Hamilton. After the author's note there is the sentence "From Writings of Madison, previously quoted. Vol. 2, p. 14". This is apparently an editor's error since the note is clearly Dwinell's. See the talk page for more details.
Misattributed

Money, History

“What is going on with you?" she says, shaking her head and pushing me away. "What's up with all the love and affection? I mean, you of all people, you of the eternal iPod-hoodie combo.”

Alyson Nöel book Evermore

Source: Evermore

Love, People

“I am not imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss

“…Tell me, has anything odd happened to you recently?
What do you mean, odd?'
Unusual. Deviating from the customary. Something outside the usual parameters of normalcy. An occurrence of unprecedented weird.”

Jasper Fforde book Lost in a Good Book

Source: Lost in a Good Book

“By morning she was dead. She had not died of starvation or committed suicide by any conventional means. She had simply willed herself to die, and being a strong-willed woman, she had succeeded. She had missed dying on her birthday by two days.”

John Berendt Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Source: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Birthday, Suicide, Strong, Dead

“There is no such thing as a perfect, ideal, or 'correct' translation. A translator is always trying to extend his knowledge and improve his means of expression; he is always pursuing facts and words.”

Peter Newmark (1916–2011) English translation scholar

Source: Manual De Traduccion / A Textbook of Translation

Knowledge, Perfection

“You've never been in love," she said. "You don't understand."

"If being in love means giving up your freedom, not to mention your opportunities," Caitlin said, "Then I haven't missed anything.”

Judy Blume Summer Sisters

Source: Summer Sisters

Love, Understanding, Freedom

“To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

Life, Thinking

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”

Paul Fussell book The Great War and Modern Memory

Source: The Great War and Modern Memory

War

“Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power… Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

Life, Art

“That's not a real answer.'
Says who?'
Says me. I mean real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence.'
Clowns.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

Death, Fear, Failure, Question

“How can you tell? That I like books, I mean.

The look on your face when you walked in, somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Books

“I wonder where we go when we die?”
“…Pittsburgh?”
“You mean if we’re good or if we’re bad?”

Bill Watterson (1958) American comic artist

“It's hard to be the one always waiting. I mean, there's something to be said for the hero who charges off to battle, but when you get right down to it there's a whole story in who's left behind.”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

Waiting

“Everyone’s death means something”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Death

“I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference.”

Harper Lee book Go Set a Watchman

Source: Go Set a Watchman

Justice, Understanding, Drawing

“What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. That is what it means to fly upside down.”

Dallas Willard (1935–2013) American philosopher

Source: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

Stupidity, Flying

“It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty…”

Jon Krakauer book Into the Wild

Source: Into the Wild

Beauty, Intelligence, Learning

“We have a talent for disguising greed under the cloak of freedom. As for past acts of depravity, we prefer to ignore those. Progress, after all, means to look ever forward, and whatever we have trampled in our wake is best forgotten.”

Steven Erikson book Midnight Tides

Source: Midnight Tides

Freedom, Past

“So what’s your favorite Synism? (Kiara)
Duwad. (Nykyrian)
Which means? (Kiara)
You’re not old enough for me to answer that. Hell, I’m not even old enough to say it. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Hell

“I would rather feel compassion than know the meaning of it. I would hope to act with compassion without thinking of personal gain.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Hope, Feeling, Thinking, Personality

“Love is only a word, until someone arrives to give it meaning.
Don't give up. Remember, it's always the last key on the key ring that opens the door.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Source: Manuscript Found in Accra

Love

“Do you mean to tell me that you're thinking seriously of building, when and if you are an architect?”
“Yes.”
“My dear fellow, who will let you?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, who will stop me?”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Thinking

“Alone. It's one of those small words that means entirely too much. Like fear. Or trust.”

Jim Butcher book Fool Moon

Source: Fool Moon

Fear

“To remain in the past means to be dead.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

Past, Dead

“Sitting on my stool I thought of a bumper sticker: "If Mean People Suck, Why Isn't My Dick In Your Mouth?”

Paul Neilan American novelist

Source: Apathy and Other Small Victories

People

“Gideon touched her cheek, lightly, with the tips of his fingers. “Did you know your name means ‘wisdom’? It was very well-given.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Wisdom

“To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph (2011)

Life

“Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Law

“There is no dignity
quite so impressive,
and no independence
quite so important,
as living within your means.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

“No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Between the Lines

Hope

“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Religion, Science

“Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now.”

Michael Ondaatje book The English Patient

Source: The English Patient

Love, Thinking

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Life, Fear, Change

“I mean, we're all going to die. We know that on an intellectual level. We figure it out when we're still fairly young, and it scares us so badly that we convince ourselves we're immortal for more than a decade afterwards.”

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

“For now, poetry has the capacity - in its own ways and by its own means - to remind us of something we are forbidden to see.”

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) American poet, essayist and feminist

Way

“I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality.”

Rabih Alameddine book Koolaids: The Art of War

Source: Koolaids: The Art of War

Life, Reality

“How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.”

Theodore Dreiser book Sister Carrie

Source: Sister Carrie

“it is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Variant: I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
Context: I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

“Can you see me? Can you hear me? Does anything I say mean anything to you?”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.”

Pete Hamill (1935) American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator

Beauty, Bird, Sun

“By means of all created things, without excaption, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, when in fact we live steeped in its burning layers”

Pierre Teilhard De Chardin (1881–1955) French philosopher and Jesuit priest

Imagination, Distant

“Jason scratched his head. "You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, ‘festus’ means ‘happy’? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Variant: You named him Fetus? You know in Latin Fetus means happy? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?
Source: The Lost Hero

World, Happiness

“He looks at you like you're someone he's never met before, much less someone he once loved with high passion. The irony is, you can hardly blame him. I mean, check yourself out. You're a pathetic mess, unrecognizable even to your own eyes.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love

Love, Passion

“All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.”

George Eliot book Daniel Deronda

Source: Daniel Deronda

Dependency

“There’s nothing wrong with not looking like something. It just means you don’t fit the stereotype yet.”

Haruki Murakami book 1Q84

Source: 1Q84

“If love means anything at all it means extending your hand to the unlovable.”

Quentin Crisp (1908–1999) writer, Actor

Love

“Isn’t that what it means to be civilized? That you can wait to get what you want?”

Orson Scott Card book Ender's Shadow

Source: Ender's Shadow

Waiting

“Color is only beautiful when it means something.”

Robert Henri (1865–1929) American painter

Beauty, Color

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don't mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.”

Sarah Vowell The Wordy Shipmates

Source: The Wordy Shipmates

People, Idea

“The best way to capture moments is to pay attention. This is how we cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

Way

“There is something beautiful about all scars of whatever nature. A scar means the hurt is over, the wound is closed and healed, done with.”

Harry Crews (1935–2012) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Hurtful, Beauty, Nature, Hurt

“What If Following Her Heart
Means Rose Could Lose Her
Best Friend Forever?”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

Heart

“There are no coincidences. And everything means something.”

Cate Tiernan (1961) American novelist

Source: Sweep: Volume 1

“I mean it," I said. "You're in danger."

"Relax, Harry. I'm not letting anyone lick me, and I'm not looking anyone in the eyes. It's kind of like visiting New York.”

Jim Butcher book Grave Peril

Source: Grave Peril

“I don't want more sense!" I said loudly, beating against the silence of the room. "Not if sense means I'll stop loving anyone. What is there besides people that's worth holding on to?”

Naomi Novik book Uprooted

Source: Uprooted

Love, People, Sense, Silence

“Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!”

Anne Tyler The Accidental Tourist

Source: The Accidental Tourist

Thinking

“When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means that they do not (i)emerge(i), do not (i)leave(i): they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies.”

Roland Barthes (1915–1980) French philosopher, critic and literary theorist

Source: Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

“Charlie, you’re one of the most gifted people I’ve ever known. And I don’t mean in terms of my other students. I mean in terms of anyone I’ve ever met.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

People

“Suddenly, I don't know what to say. It happens often to me. I know what I want to say, I think about whether it is what I mean, but when the moment comes to speak, I can't say it.
- Nana Kleinfrankenheim, Vivre Sa Vie.”

Jean-Luc Godard (1930) French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic

Thinking

“Sometimes thou seem'st not as thyself alone,
But as the meaning of all things that are.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti The House of Life

Heart's Compass.
The House of Life (1870—1881)

“Just because you leave someone doesn’t mean you ever let them go.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Leaving Time

“Some old guy once said that the meaning of life is that it ends.”

Lee Child book A Wanted Man

Source: A Wanted Man

Life, Guy

“We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

Toni Morrison (1931–2019) American writer

Nobel Prize Lecture (1993)
Context: Word-work is sublime... because it is generative; it makes meaning that secures our difference, our human difference — the way in which we are like no other life.
We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Life

“I'm just a girl in a nurse's uniform, but that doesn't mean I know how to save these men, and they- they are men in uniforms, but that doesn't mean they know how to die.”

Marcus Sedgwick (1968) British writer and illustrator

Source: The Foreshadowing

Men, Girl

“I have already spent roughly five thousand hours asleep next to you. This has to mean something.”

David Levithan The Lover's Dictionary

Source: The Lover's Dictionary

“That’s what they mean by the womb of time: the agony and the despair of spreading bones, the hard girdle in which lie the outraged entrails of events.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

Source: As I Lay Dying

Lie, Time, Despair

“I do not feel inhibited or bound by what I am. That does not mean that I have never had bad scenes relating to being Black and/or a woman, it means that other people’s craziness has not managed to make me crazy.”

Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) American poet

People, Feeling

“We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so.”

Terry Brooks (1944) American writer

Love, Life, Way

“No public man in these islands ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Our Theatres In The Nineties (1930)
1930s

“What a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean.”

P.G. Wodehouse book My Man Jeeves

Source: My Man Jeeves

Life

“If suffering like hers had any use, she reasoned, it was not to the sufferer. The only way that an individual's pain gained meaning was through its communication to others.”

Diane Wood Middlebrook (1939–2007) biographer

Source: Anne Sexton: A Biography

Pain, Way, Communication, Suffering

“We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves.”

George Eliot book The Lifted Veil

Source: The Lifted Veil

Life, Learning

“Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader’s eye. Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin.”

Ruth Ozeki book A Tale for the Time Being

Source: A Tale for the Time Being

“But… as bad as it was, I learned something about myself. That I could go through something like that and survive. I mean, I know it could have been worse--a lot worse-- but for me, it was all I could have handled at the time. And I learned from it.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Learning, Time

“Enlightenment means taking full responsibility for your life.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Life

“It means the third rail has seven hundred volts of direct current running through it. Touch it and you're human popcorn”

James Patterson (1947) American author

“I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men.”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life

Men, Knowledge, Reading

“Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Being Peace

Way, Understanding, Knowledge

“Fortunately women have the miraculous ability to change the meaning of their actions after the event.”

Milan Kundera book Laughable Loves

Source: Laughable Loves

Women, Change

“It is a world of impulse. It is a world of sincerity. It is a world in which every word spoken speaks just to that moment, every glance given has only one meaning, each touch has no past or no future, each kiss is a kiss of immediacy.”

Alan Lightman book Einstein's Dreams

Source: Einstein's Dreams

World, Kiss, Past, Future

“Books mean all possibilities. They mean moving out of yourself, losing yourself, dying of thirst and living to your full. They mean everything.”

Ali Smith (1962) Scottish writer

Books

“Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They're compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

People

“It really is the year 2007. Which means I must be…

Oh my God. I'm twenty-eight.

I'm old.”

Sophie Kinsella book Remember Me?

Source: Remember Me?

God

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“Whoever it was, whether I knew them or not, if I could help in some way, I would. I mean, if you can help, you have to help. Don't you think? - Poppy Wyatt”

Sophie Kinsella book I've Got Your Number

Source: I've Got Your Number

Way, Thinking, Help

“Memories were moving pictures in which meaning was constantly in flux. They were stories people told themselves.”

Melissa de la Cruz book The Van Alen Legacy

Source: The Van Alen Legacy

People, Memory

“There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

Life

“Any idea is a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize something means to think it.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel book Elements of the Philosophy of Right

Jede Vorstellung ist eine Verallgemeinerung, und diese gehört dem Denken an. Etwas allgemein machen, heißt, es denken.
"Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse", Berlin, 1833, p. 35
"Every representation is a generalization, and this is inherent in thought. To generalize something means to think it."
"Any idea is a universalization, and universalizing is a property of thinking. To universalize something means to think."
"An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think."
Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821)

Idea, Thinking

“We must look at ourselves over and over again in order to learn to love, to discover what has kept our hearts closed, and what it means to allow our hearts to open.”

Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer

Source: A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life

Love, Learning, Heart

“Love - true love - is a precious thing. It is painful, uncomfortable, makes fools of us all, but it is what breathes meaning and color and purpose into our lives.”

Kate Mosse book Sepulchre

Source: Sepulchre

Love, Pain, Fools, Color

“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Variant: I don’t think people are really seeking the meaning of Life. I think we’re seeking an experience of being alive…we want to feel the rapture of being alive

Life, People

“Being an adult means accepting those situations where no action is possible.”

John D. MacDonald book The Green Ripper

Source: The Green Ripper

“Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting meaning. This is why we're here. To make each other feel safe.”

Andre Agassi book Open. An Autobiography

Source: Open

Feeling, Help, Perfection

“Gale and I were thrown together by a mutual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other's survival means our own death. How do you side step that?”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

Death

“Other people apologize and don't mean t "Sorry, but you shouldn't have…" or "Sorry, but I just didn't…" They apologize while telling you that they were right all along, which is the opposite of an actual apology.”

E. Lockhart (1967) American writer of novels as E. Lockhart (mainly for teenage girls) and of picture books under real name Emily J…

Source: The Boyfriend List: 15 Guys, 11 Shrink Appointments, 4 Ceramic Frogs and Me, Ruby Oliver

People

“Geometry has two great treasures: one is the Theorem of Phythagoras, the other the division of a line in extreme and mean ratio. The first we can compare to a mass of gold; the other we may call a precious jewel.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

As quoted by Karl Fink, Geschichte der Elementar-Mathematik (1890) translated as A Brief History of Mathematics https://books.google.com/books?id=3hkPAAAAIAAJ (1900, 1903) by Wooster Woodruff Beman, David Eugene Smith. Also see Carl Benjamin Boyer, A History of Mathematics (1968). <br class="br">Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596)

“Justice must always question itself, just as society can exist only by means of the work it does on itself and on its institutions.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Justice, Question

Quotes about meaning page 31

Quotes about meaning
page 31