Quotes about meaning
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“This is [her] soul group.’
What do you mean?’
It’s a group of souls with whom she resonates closely.”

James Redfield book The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

Source: The Tenth Insight: Holding the Vision

“don't treat me like a child."
He smiled. "Of course I do, but you seem to have this ridiculous notion that being treated like a child means to be treated with less respect than an adult.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: The Faceless Ones

Smile

“Success in fighting means not coming at your opponent the way he wants to fight you.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

Source: Vegas Moon

Way, Success, Fight

“Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn't hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.”

Raymond Carver (1938–1988) American short story author and poet

Source: Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Time, Hurt

“Just because something is beautiful doesn´t mean it´s good.”

Alex Flinn book Beastly

Source: Beastly

Beauty

“For it all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”

C.G. Jung book Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Source: Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933), p. 67

Life, Dependency

“Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

“Leonard asks me if there's anything I need to know before he dies, I think about it for a minute, turn to him, say what's the meaning of life, Leonard? He laughs, says that's an easy one, my son, it's whatever you want it to be.”

James Frey My Friend Leonard

Source: My Friend Leonard

Life, Thinking

“Events in life mean nothing if you do not reflect on them in a deep way, and ideas from books are pointless if they have no application to life as you live it.”

Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War

Source: The 33 Strategies of War

Life, Books, Way, Idea

“The meaning of everything is the meaning I give it”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“It might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.”

Virginia Woolf book Mrs Dalloway

Source: Mrs. Dalloway

World

“Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.”

Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher

Source: Leisure: The Basis Of Culture

Way

“Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.”

Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer

Source: Firefly Lane

“People work too hard to figure out the meaning of their lives. Why me, why now. The truth is, sometimes things don't happen to you for a reason. Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time for someone else.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

People, Truth, Time

“Being open to correction means making ourselves vulnerable, and many people are not willing to do that.”

Myles Munroe (1954–2014) Bahamian Evangelical Christian minister

Source: Waiting and Dating

People

“I had to smile at the man. I mean, you have to smile at idiots and children.”

Jim Butcher book Fool Moon

Source: Fool Moon

Children, Smile

“How was she to tie herself to a man without permitting him to imprison her? And was there some means of acquiring things without those things possessing her?”

Clarice Lispector book Near to the Wild Heart

Source: Near to the Wild Heart

“Don't call yourself a secret
unless you mean to keep it.”

Leonard Cohen Selected Poems 1956–1968

Source: Selected Poems 1956-1968

Secret

“I know what we do is right but right doesn't always mean easy.”

Christopher Paolini book Brisingr

Source: Brisingr

“A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Hope

“This is why I forgive, but I don't forget. When you forget someone, the forgiveness doesn't mean anything anymore.”

Barry Lyga (1971) American writer

Source: I Hunt Killers

Forgiveness, Forgetting

“I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love.”

Clive Barker (1952) author, film director and visual artist

Love, Life, Soul, Learning

“More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Life, War, People, Birth

“Friendship… is not something you learn in school, but if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship you really haven't learned anything.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Friendship, For Friend, For Bestfriend, Friendship

“I mean you have been disappointed in love, but don't you know how many things there are to be disappointed in besides love? You are lucky to be still disappointed in love. Later it may be even more terrible.”

Saul Bellow book The Adventures of Augie March

Source: The Adventures of Augie March

Love, Disappointment

“Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

Jerk

“Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me quite nervous.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

People, Feeling, Weather

“A sigh isn't just a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can.”

Salman Rushdie book The Moor's Last Sigh

Source: The Moor's Last Sigh

World

“Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Life, Fate, Fools

“I am doing something I hate for you. This is what it means to be in love.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Everything Is Illuminated

Source: Everything Is Illuminated

Love, Hate

“How far do our feelings take their colour from the dive underground? I mean, what is the reality of any feeling?”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Feeling, Reality

“It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Art, Color, Suffering

“You speak horse?" Hazel asked.
"Speaking to horses is a Poseidon thing," Percy said. "Uh, I mean a Neptune thing."
"Then you and Arion should get along fine," Hazel said. "He's a son of Neptune too."
Percy turned pale. "Excuse me?”

Rick Riordan book The Son of Neptune

Source: The Son of Neptune

Horse

“Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Personality

“Maybe it just means that love can be stronger than fear.”

L.J. Smith The Forbidden Game

Source: The Forbidden Game

Love, Fear

“If you smile when you are alone, then you really mean it.”

Andy Rooney (1919–2011) writer, humorist, television personality

Cute, Smile

“So what does that actually mean?'
'To be honest, Ghastly, I haven't a bull's notion.'
'Elder Bespoke should be addressed by his full title,' Tipstaff said.
'Of course,' Skulduggery said. 'To be honest, Your Highness, I haven't a bull's notion.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

“I mean, it's very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but I really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them.”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

“No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone.”

Joseph Conrad book Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

Life, Truth, Dreams

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

Jean Baudrillard book Simulacra and Simulation

Source: Simulacra and Simulation

World

“Where I come from," said Archie, "a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her."
"Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean," said Samad tersely, "that it is a good idea.”

Zadie Smith book White Teeth

Source: White Teeth

Girl, Idea

“He does not always remain bent over the
pages; he often leans back and closes
his eyes over a line he has been reading
again, and its meaning spreads through
his blood.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Reading

“But believe me, just because the human mind can't imagine something happening… doesn't mean it won't.”

Dan Brown book Inferno

Source: Inferno

Imagination

“Ha. "Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner." There's a double meaning in that.
-Benedick (Much Ado)”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

A fragment of Miller's unfinished book on D. H. Lawrence, originally published in the London literary journal Purpose.
Source: Tropic of Capricorn (1939) "Creative Death", p. 2

Life, Life

“Actually, since I'm gay I think I should count for two guys instead of just one. I mean, in me you get the male point of view and you don't have to worry about me wanting to touch your boobies.”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Guy, Thinking

“I want to believe you, but if that's true, I just don't get it. Why does loving somebody mean you have to hurt them just as much? I mean, if that's the way it goes, what's the point of loving someone?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore

Love, Way, Hurt

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Country

“Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Source: Existentialism Is a Humanism (1946), p. 58

Life

“But many of us seek community solely to escape the fear of being alone. Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.”

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, Fear, Art, Communication

“If you hear a voice within you saying, "You are not a painter," then by all means paint, boy, and that voice will be silenced, but only by working. He who goes to trends and tells his troubles when he feels like that loses part of his manliness, part of the best that's in him; your friends can only be those who themselves struggle against it, who raise your activity by their own example of action.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter from Drenthe, The Netherlands, Oct. 1883, 'Van Gogh's Letters', http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/13/336.htm <br class="br">1880s, 1883

Feeling, Boy, Silence, Parting

“When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more, nor less.”

Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass

Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

“… and I discovered something: the meaning of my life was whatever I wanted it to be.”

Paulo Coelho book The Fifth Mountain

Source: The Fifth Mountain

Life

“For me, living means I can be responsive to the other person. It means I can show my emotions and my feelings. Talk to them. Feel with them …”

Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist

Feeling, Personality

“By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.”

Mark Twain book Following the Equator

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXXIX
Following the Equator (1897)

Learning

“How clever are you, my dear! You never mean a single word you say!”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words--"
"You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means, use them. You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

Bird, Effort

“The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

Change

“I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.”

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) American artist

“Being responsible is taking ownership of your life. It means you have taken the first radical step to becoming a complete human being—fully conscious and fully human. In taking responsibility and beginning the journey toward conscious living, you are putting an end to the age-old patterns of assigning blame outward or heavenward. You have begun the greatest adventure life has to offer: the voyage inward.”

Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy

Life, Age

“By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, then being on somebody else's.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Betrayal

“Failure doesn't mean anything, it just means changing paths.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Failure, Change

“Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“I have no way and therefore want no eyes
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen
our means secure us, and our mere defects
prove our commodities.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

Source: King Lear

Way

“Solemnity, I don't know what it's for. I mean, what is the point of it? The two most beautiful memorial services that I've ever attended both had a lot of humor. It somehow freed us all and made the services inspiring and cathartic. But solemnity, it serves pomposity. The self important always know at some level of their consciousness that their egotism is going to be punctured by humor. That's why they see it as a threat! And so, dishonestly, they pretend that their deficiency makes their views more substantial.”

John Cleese (1939) actor from England

Beauty, Memory

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

A Poet's Advice (1958)
Context: Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel …
the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

World, Fight, Night

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

For Him, Love, Passion

“Let yourself go. Pull out from the depths those thoughts that you do not understand, and spread them out in the sunlight and know the meaning of them.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Understanding

“I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Color

“Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Love, Life, God, Understanding

“When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

Shoe

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Life, Suffering

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Way, Thinking

“Only someone who (like the Intuitionist) denies that the concepts and axioms of classical set theory have any meaning could be satisfied with such a solution, not someone who believes them to describe some well-determined reality. For in reality Cantor's conjecture must be either true or false, and its undecidability from the axioms as known today can only mean that these axioms do not contain a complete description of reality.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

Reality, Falseness

“Fate can be one mean god at times.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: The Color of Magic

God, Fate, Time

“I mean, it's impossible to fake anything if you've already seen the other person in a way they'd never choose for you to. You can't go back from that.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Way, Personality

“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

People, Education

“Oh, I don’t mean you’re handsome, not the way people think of handsome. Your face seems kind. But your eyes - they’re beautiful. They’re wild, crazy, like some animal peering out of a forest on fire.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

People, Beauty, Way, Thinking

“Nice dress Zoey. It looks just like mine. Oh, wait! It used to be mine.

Aphrodite laughed a throaty, I'm-so-grown-and-you're-just-a-kid laugh.

I really hate it when girls do that. I mean, yes, she's older, but I have boobs, too.”

P. C. Cast book Marked

Source: Marked

Hate, Girl, Waiting

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living.”

Chris Hedges book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Source: War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Life, War

“Socialism means keeping account of everything. You will have socialism if you take stock of every piece of iron and cloth.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Clothes

“Whatever your income, always live below your means.”

Thomas J. Stanley (1944–2015) American businessman

Source: The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americas Wealthy

“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)

Love, Women, Men, Affliction

“Don't sign your name
between worlds,

surmount
the manifold of meanings,

trust the tearstain,
learn to live.”

Paul Celan (1920–1970) Romanian poet and translator

Source: Glottal Stop

World, Learning

“That does it," said Jace. "I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?" Isabelle said.
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Jace and Isabelle, pg. 155
Variant: "That does it, I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."
"Why?"
"So you can look up 'fun.' I'm not sure you know what it means."
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Christmas

“To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.”

Friedrich Nietzsche book Beyond Good and Evil

Source: Beyond Good and Evil

Life, Way, Feeling, Evil

“One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope.”

John Eldredge

Source: The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God

God, Lie, Hope, Imagination

“When you can't cheat the game, you'd best find a means to cheat the players.”

Scott Lynch book Red Seas Under Red Skies

Source: Red Seas Under Red Skies

Game, Cheating

“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

“Time means a lot to me because you see I am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Time, Joy

“Just remember, when someone has an accent, it means that he knows one more language than you do.”

Sidney Sheldon Windmills of the Gods

Source: Windmills of the Gods

“The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live — moreover, the only one.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

Life

“If you really want to upset a witch, do her a favor which she has no means of repaying. The unfulfilled obligation will nag at her like a hangnail.”

Terry Pratchett book Lords and Ladies

Source: Lords and Ladies

“We must consult our means rather than our wishes.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

“IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather.
"You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?"
YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.”

Terry Pratchett book Hogfather

Source: Hogfather

Fear, Cry

“The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Context: This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.62)

World, Understanding

“I mean, it's not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It's, like, part of you for good.”

Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye

Love, Way, Parting