Quotes about purpose
page 2

“The purpose of life is not to do what we want but what needs to be done.”

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

Life

“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

Source: Men at Arms

People

“Natural selection saw to it that professional heroes who at a crucial moment tended to ask themselves questions like 'What is my purpose in life?' very quickly lacked both.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Interesting Times: The Play

Life, Question, Nature

“Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Back To Work

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

Smile, Soul, Evil, Heart

“The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"Ars Poetica?"

Housing, Personality

“I have always had such sincere love for truth, that I have often begun by telling stories for the purpose of getting truth to enter the heads of those who could not appreciate its charms.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

Memoirs (trans. Machen 1894), book 1, Preface http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/preface2.html Referenced

Love, Truth, Sincerity

“The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow.”

T. Harv Eker (1954) American writer

Source: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

People

“We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.”

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

Error, Past

“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. … The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

World

“A soul needs a purpose to live and so I concluded that my purpose was to kill everyone besides myself. I felt alive.

--Gaara”

Masashi Kishimoto (1974) Japanese manga artist

Soul

“But the purpose of the book is not the horror, it is horror's defeat.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Source: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Books

“There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.”

Anne Rice book Servant of the Bones

Source: Servant of the Bones

Life, World, Beauty, Understanding

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

“We are not created for any grander purpose than the ants that are there or the flies that are hovering around us or the mosquitoes that are sucking our blood.”

U.G. Krishnamurti (1918–2007) Indian philosopher

Source: No Way Out (2002), Ch. 4: You Invent Your Reality

“Move forward with no second-guessing, no guilt trips, no hesitation. Your purpose is to recreate yourself anew in each moment.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Thinking, Time, Night

“You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are!”

Eckhart Tolle book The Power of Now

The Power of Now (1997)

Universe

“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Life

“Effort within the mind further limits the mind, because effort implies struggle towards a goal and when you have a goal, a purpose, an end in view, you have placed a limit on the mind.”

Bruce Lee book Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Source: Tao of Jeet Kune Do

Effort

“Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Life, Sense

“You are my life, but you are not my purpose.”

Nina Malkin

Source: Swoon

Life, Missing You, For Parents, For Wife

“The purpose of this lectchoor is to let you know where we are. We are in the deep cack. It couldn't be worse if it was raining arseholes. Any questions?”

Terry Pratchett book Monstrous Regiment

Source: Monstrous Regiment

Question

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

“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

“Anyone can become angry —that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —this is not easy.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Source: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Source: ARISTOTLE, The Nicomachean Ethics

Way, Time, Personality

“Everyone must work to live, but the purpose of life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Life, Help

“The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Variant: The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

Life, Help

“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

“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair… the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) English crime writer, playwright, essayist and Christian writer

Hate, World, Hell, Despair

“The President of the Universe holds no real power. His sole purpose is to take attention away from where the power truly exists…”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Universe

“We are marching in a compact group along a precipitous and difficult path, firmly holding each other by the hand. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies and are under their almost constant fire. We have combined voluntarily, precisely for the purpose of fighting the enemy, and not to retreat into the adjacent marsh, the inhabitants of which, from the very outset, have reproached us with having separated ourselves into a an exclusive group and with having chosen the path of struggle instead of the path of conciliation.”

Vladimir Lenin book What Is to Be Done?

Source: What is to be Done? (1902), Chapter One, A. "What is 'Freedom of Criticism'?", Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
Source: What Is to Be Done?

Fight

“Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual.

-Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan.”

Frank Herbert book Dune Messiah

Source: Dune Messiah

Suffering, Time, Princess

“But what if I fail of my purpose here? It is but to keep the nerves at strain, to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that's why I made works of art.”

Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) American artist

Love, Happiness, Sadness, Hope

“Success is…
knowing your purpose in life,
growing to reach your maximum potential, and
sowing seeds that benefit others.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Life, Success, Motivational, Success

“Literature always anticipates life. It doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Literature

“The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth.”

Frank Herbert book Children of Dune

Source: Children of Dune

Truth, Nature, Change

“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Life

“The overall purpose of human communication is - or should be - reconciliation. It should ultimately serve to lower or remove the walls of misunderstanding which unduly separate us human beings, one from another.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace

Communication

“The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Victor Frankenstein in Ch. 5

Life, Health, Beauty, Dreams

“The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)
Context: The press to-day is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty.

“The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.”

Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet

Books, Thinking

“We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.”

Gary L. Francione (1954) American legal scholar

Pleasure, Animals

“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Life, Art, Soul

“An awakened imagination works with a purpose. It creates and conserves the desirable, and transforms or destroys the undesirable.”

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) American author and lecturer

Imagination

“Is there any real purpose in being alive if all we are going to do is get up every day and live only for ourselves?
Live your life to help others. Give & live selflessly.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Life, Help

“Nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul can focus its intellectual eye”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Robert Walton in "Letter 1"
Source: Frankenstein (1818)
Context: I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose — a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

Soul

“Nothing will divert me from my purpose.”

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

“If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.”

T.D. Jakes (1957) American bishop

Passion

“I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Interview with Divina Infusino in American Way (15 June 1995)

Life, Thinking

“Don't be obsessed with tactics but with purpose. Tactics have a half life.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Life

“The highways are crowded with people who drive as if their sole purpose in getting behind the wheel is to avenge every wrong done them by man, beast or fate. The only thing that keeps them in line is their fear of death, jail and lawsuits.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

Death, Fate, People, Fear

“Any intelligent person knows that life is a beautiful thing and that the purpose of life is to be happy," said my father as he watched the three beauties. "But it seems only idiots are ever happy. How can we explain this?”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

Source: The Museum of Innocence

Life, Happiness, Beauty, Intelligence

“Since everything that lives is obliged to expend and receive life, there is an exchange of modifications between the living creature and its environment.
And yet, once that vital necessity is satisfied, our species—a positively strange species—thinks it must create for itself other needs and tasks besides that of preserving life. … Whatever may be the origin or cause of this curious deviation, the human species is engaged in an immense adventure, an adventure whose objective and end it does not know. …
The same senses, the same muscles, the same limbs—more, the same types of signs, the same instruments of exchange, the same languages, the same modes of logic—enter into the most indispensable acts of our lives, as they figure into the most gratuitous. …
In short, man has not two sets of tools, he has only one, and this one set must serve him for the preservation of his life and his physiological rhythm, and expend itself at other times on illusions and on the labours of our great adventure. …
The same muscles and nerves produce walking as well as dancing, exactly as our linguistic faculty enables us to express our needs and ideas, while the same words and forms can be combined to produce works of poetry. A single mechanism is employed in both cases for two entirely different purposes.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 158-159

Life, Idea, Thinking, Sense

“So what mediates between the domains of order and chaos? Consciousness, as far as I can tell. It's the hero, that's one way of thinking about it. It's the Logos, that's another way of thinking about it. It's the word that generates order out of chaos at the beginning of time. It's the consciousness that's interacting with the matter of the world produces Being. That's basically it. That's basically you, for all intents and purposes. So how do we do that? Well, the unconscious does it to some degree, because it's with our fantasy that we first meet the unknown.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

World, Way, Thinking, Time

“Christ came to give us a justifying righteousness, and He also came to make us holy — not chiefly for the purpose of evidencing here our possession of a justifying righteousness — but for the purpose of forming and fitting us for a blessed eternity.”

Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Scottish mathematician and a leader of the Free Church of Scotland

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 317.

Christ

“It is absolutely critical that we understand this is not just a challenge, it's an opportunity, because if we create a new energy economy, we can create five million new jobs, easily, here in the United States.
It can be an engine that drives us into the future the same way the computer was the engine for economic growth over the last couple of decades.
And we can do it, but we're going to have to make an investment. The same way the computer was originally invented by a bunch of government scientists who were trying to figure out, for defense purposes, how to communicate, we've got to understand that this is a national security issue, as well.
And that's why we've got to make some investments and I've called for investments in solar, wind, geothermal.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Comments on energy and environmental policies, in the Second Presidential Debate (7 October 2008) http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/07/presidential.debate.transcript 2008

Way, Communication, Understanding, Future

“It is to be observed throughout Mr. Burke's book that he never speaks of plots against the Revolution; and it is from those plots that all the mischiefs have arisen. It suits his purpose to exhibit the consequences without their causes. It is one of the arts of the drama to do so. If the crimes of men were exhibited with their sufferings, stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the audience would be inclined to approve where it was intended they should commiserate.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Men, Books, Art, Suffering

“It is not my purpose here to discuss the question of vegetarianism, or to meet the objections that may be urged against it; though it must be admitted that of these objections not one can withstand a loyal and scrupulous inquiry. I, for my part, can affirm that those whom I have known to submit themselves to this regimen have found its result to be improved or restored health, marked addition of strength, and the acquisition by the mind of a clearness, brightness, well-being, such as might follow the release from some secular, loathsome, detestable dungeon.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Source: The Buried Temple (1902), Ch. III: "The Kingdom of Matter", § 5

Health, Question, Parting

“Our admiration for natural beauty /…/ cares not to understand either the physical theories which explain what it admires, or the psychological theories which explain its admiration. It does not deny the truth of the first, nor (within due limits) the sufficiency of the second. But it requires more. It feels itself belittled unless conscious purpose can be found somewhere in its pedigree. Physics and psycho-physics, by themselves, suffice not. It longs to regard beauty as a revelation—a revelation from spirit to spirit, not from one kind of atomic agitation to the "psychic" accompaniment of another. On this condition only can its highest values be maintained.'”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

Truth, Beauty, Feeling, Understanding

“A social world [is] a comprehensive and given reality confronting the individual in a manner analogous to the reality of the natural world… In early phases of socialization the child is quite incapable of distinguishing between the objectivity of natural phenomena and the objectivity of the social formations… The objective reality of institutions is not diminished if the individual does not understand their purpose or their mode of operation…He must ‘go out’ and learn about them, just as he must learn about nature.”

Peter L. Berger book The Social Construction of Reality

Source: The Social Construction of Reality, 1966, p. 59-61

World, Understanding, Nature, Reality

“Everything purposeful is meaningless, and everything meaningful is purposeless.”

Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) German psychologist and philosopher

Source: Rhythmen und Runen (1944), p. 280

“My first near-death experience was an accident, a botched anesthesia during a triple bypass. I had listened to several people on TV talk shows who had gone down the blue tunnel to the Pearly Gates, and even beyond the Pearly Gates, or so they said, and then come back to life again. But I certainly wouldn't have set out on such a risky expedition on purpose, without first having survived one …
To go through the Pearly Gates, no matter how tempting the interviewee on the other side, as I myself discovered the hard way, is to run the risk that crotchety Saint Peter, depending on his mood, may never let you out again. Think of how heartbroken your friends and relatives would be if, by going through the Pearly Gates to talk to Napoleon, say, you in effect committed suicide.”

Kurt Vonnegut book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Life, Death, People, Way

““You finally fell in love, I see,” said Salo.
“Only an Earthling year ago,” said Constant. “It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

Kurt Vonnegut book The Sirens of Titan

Epilogue “Reunion with Stony” (p. 313)
The Sirens of Titan (1959)

Love, Life

“Beneficence is a duty. He who often practices this, and sees his beneficent purpose succeed, comes at last really to love him whom he has benefited. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," this does not mean, "Thou shalt first of all love, and by means of love (in the next place) do him good"; but: "Do good to thy neighbour, and this beneficence will produce in thee the love of men (as a settled habit of inclination to beneficence)."”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Metaphysical Elements of Ethics (1780). Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, translation available at Philosophy.eserver.org http://philosophy.eserver.org/kant/metaphys-elements-of-ethics.txt. From section "Preliminary Notions of the Susceptibility of the Mind for Notions of Duty Generally", Part C ("Of love to men")

Love, Men

“Insurrection is the exclusive right of the people and of the citizen. Every foreigner, every man clothed with public authority, is outlawed if he proposes it and must be put to death as a usurper of sovereignty and as interested in fomenting troubles for the purpose of doing evil or of adorning himself. Insurrections taking place under a despotism are always salutary. Those which break out in a free state are sometimes dangerous for liberty itself, because the revolt usurps its sublime pretexts and its sacred name. Revolts in free states leave long and painful wounds which bleed a whole century.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

(1794) [Source: Saint-Just, Fragments sur les institutions républicaines]

Death, Pain, People, Evil

“By saying that He will even hand us over to burning for the sake of sufferings, torment and all sorts of ills, we are attributing to the divine Nature an enmity towards the very rational beings which He created through grace; the same is true if we say that He acts or thinks with spite and with a vengeful purpose, as though He was avenging Himself. Among all His actions there is none which is not entirely a matter of mercy, love and compassion: this constitutes the beginning and the end of His dealings with us.”

Isaac of Nineveh (640–700) Eastern Orthodox saint

XXXIX, 22, p. 172
‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI

Love, Nature, Thinking, Suffering

“So we find that the three possible solutions of the great problem of increasing human energy are answered by the three words: food, peace, work. Many a year I have thought and pondered, lost myself in speculations and theories, considering man as a mass moved by a force, viewing his inexplicable movement in the light of a mechanical one, and applying the simple principles of mechanics to the analysis of the same until I arrived at these solutions, only to realize that they were taught to me in my early childhood. These three words sound the key-notes of the Christian religion. Their scientific meaning and purpose now clear to me: food to increase the mass, peace to diminish the retarding force, and work to increase the force accelerating human movement. These are the only three solutions which are possible of that great problem, and all of them have one object, one end, namely, to increase human energy. When we recognize this, we cannot help wondering how profoundly wise and scientific and how immensely practical the Christian religion is, and in what a marked contrast it stands in this respect to other religions. It is unmistakably the result of practical experiment and scientific observation which have extended through the ages, while other religions seem to be the outcome of merely abstract reasoning. Work, untiring effort, useful and accumulative, with periods of rest and recuperation aiming at higher efficiency, is its chief and ever-recurring command. Thus we are inspired both by Christianity and Science to do our utmost toward increasing the performance of mankind. This most important of human problems I shall now specifically consider.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

The Problem of Increasing Human Energy (1900)

Age, Peace, Religion, Food

“First of all I want to remind you of the essential features of models. In my opinion they are: (i) drawing up a list of the variables to be considered; (ii) drawing up a list of the equations or relations the variables have to obey and (iii) testing the validity of the equations, which implies the estimation of their coefficients, if any. As a consequence of especially (iii) we may have to revise (i) and (ii) so as to arrive at a satisfactory degree of realism of the theory embodied in the model. Then, the model may be used for various purposes, that is, for the solution of various problems. The advantages of models are, on one hand, that they force us to present a "complete" theory by which I mean a theory taking into account all relevant phenomena and relations and, on the other hand, the confrontation with observation, that is, reality. Of course these remarks are far from new.”

Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist

"The Use of Models: Experience," 1969

Problem, Reality, Drawing

“Successful men of all the ages have learned to multiply themselves by gathering thought energy into a high potential and using it in the direction of the purpose intended. Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men’s lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man’s life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws. The geniuses have learned how to gather thought energy together to use for transforming their conceptions into material forms. The thinking of creative and successful men is never exerted in any direction other that that intended. That is why great men produce a prodigious amount of work, seemingly without effort and without fatigue. The amount of work such men leave to posterity is amazing. When one considers such men of our times as Edison, Henry Ford or Theodore Roosevelt, one will find the three characteristics I have mentioned common to every one of them.”

Walter Russell (1871–1963) American philosopher

The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe

Life, Men, Age, Thinking

“Aren’t our eyes made to be torn out, and our hearts for the same purpose? At the same time it’s really not that bad; that’s an exaggeration and a lie, everything is exaggeration, the only truth is longing, which cannot be exaggerated. But even the truth of longing is not so much its own truth; it’s really an expression of everything else, which is a lie. This sounds crazy and distorted, but it’s true.
Moreover, perhaps it isn’t love when I say you are what I love the most — you are the knife I turn inside myself, this is love.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Milena

Hat matt nicht die Augen, um sich sie auszureißen und das Herz zum gleichen Zweck? Dabei ist es ja nicht so schlimm, das ist Übertreibung und Lüge, alles ist Übertreibung, nur die Sehnsucht ist wahr, die kann man nicht übertreiben. Aber selbst die Wahrheit der Sehnsucht ist nicht so sehr ihre Wahrheit, als vielmehr der Ausdruck der Lüge alles übrigen sonst. Es klingt verdreht, aber es ist so. Auch ist es vielleicht nicht eigentlich Liebe wenn ich sage, daß Du mir das Liebste bist; Liebe ist, daß Du mir das Messer bist, mit dem ich in mir wühle. Letter to Milena Jesenská (14 September 1920) http://www.abyssal.de/zitate/liebe.htm Variant translations: In this love you are like a knife, with which I explore myself. Letters to Milena (1952)

Love, Truth, Lie, Time

“[T]he successes of modern control theory in the design of highly accurate space navigation systems have stimulated its use in the theoretical analyses of economic and biological systems. Similarly, the effectiveness of computer simulation techniques in the macroscopic analyses of physical systems has brought into vogue the use of computer-based econometric models for purposes of forecasting, economic planning, arid management.”

Lotfi A. Zadeh (1921–2017) Electrical engineer and computer scientist

Source: 1970s, Outline of a new approach to the analysis of complex systems and decision processes (1973), p. 28

Success

“The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.”

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

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda http://books.google.com/books?id=9tQsg5ITfHsC&q=%22The+State+is+a+collection+of+officials+different+for+different+purposes+drawing+comfortable+incomes+so+long+as+the+status+quo+is+preserved+The+only+alteration+they+are+likely+to+desire+in+the+status+quo+is+an+increase+of+bureaucracy+and+the+power+of+bureaucrats%22&pg=PA134#v=onepage

Drawing

“Transaction costs were used in the one case to show that if they are not included in the analysis, the firm has no purpose, while in the other I showed, as I thought, that if transaction costs were not introduced into the analysis, for the range of problems considered, the law had no purpose.”

Ronald H. Coase The Nature of the Firm

Ronald H. Coase (1988). "The Nature of the Firm: Influence." Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 4 (No. 1, Spring): 33—47. p. 34; as cited in Eggertsson (1990; xiii)
1960s-1980s

Law, Problem

“I definitely had an eating disorder. What was really frustrating for me was that everyone thought I was anorexic, and I wasn't. I was really depressed and self-loathing. For me, it wasn't about being thin, it was about getting rid of the bait attached to my body. A lot of it came from the self-loathing that came from being raped at the point of developing my voluptuousness. I just thought that if you had a body and if you had anything on you that would be grabbed, it would be grabbed. So I did purposely get rid of it…I mean, my plan is to gain enough weight that I can really be considered voluptuous, and do my 'First Taste' video. And I am preparing myself for what is going to happen. Because soon they will be saying that I'm fat. And it will hurt me.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Rolling Stone, "The Caged Bird Sings" January [1998]

Hurt

“There are three forces on the side of life which require no exceptional mental endowment, which are not very rare at present, and might be very common under better social institutions. They are love, the instinct of constructiveness, and the joy of life. All three are checked and enfeebled at present by the conditions under which men live—not only the less outwardly fortunate, but also the majority of the well-to-do. Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that we can endure the oppressions and unfairnesses by which we profit. The conventional conception of what constitutes success leads most men to live a life in which their most vital impulses are sacrificed, and the joy of life is lost in listless weariness. Our economic system compels almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to secure a certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor of the community, the expansive affections of individuals, and the power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary and can be ended by wisdom and courage. If they were ended, the impulsive life of men would become wholly different, and the human race might travel towards a new happiness and a new vigor.”

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

Source: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 18-19

Love, Life, Wisdom, Men

“No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

English and Welsh (1955)

Love, Study

“If the task of philosophy is to break the domination of words over the human mind […], then my concept notation, being developed for these purposes, can be a useful instrument for philosophers […] I believe the cause of logic has been advanced already by the invention of this concept notation.”

Gottlob Frege book Begriffsschrift

Begriffsschrift (1879) Preface to the Begriffsschrift

“I was unable to devote myself to the learning of this algebra and the continued concentration upon it, because of obstacles in the vagaries of time which hindered me; for we have been deprived of all the people of knowledge save for a group, small in number, with many troubles, whose concern in life is to snatch the opportunity, when time is asleep, to devote themselves meanwhile to the investigation and perfection of a science; for the majority of people who imitate philosophers confuse the true with the false, and they do nothing but deceive and pretend knowledge, and they do not use what they know of the sciences except for base and material purposes; and if they see a certain person seeking for the right and preferring the truth, doing his best to refute the false and untrue and leaving aside hypocrisy and deceit, they make a fool of him and mock him.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra (1070).

Life, People, Truth, Fools

“I do not forget the position, assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding, in any case, upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.”

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

1860s, First Inaugural Address (1861)

People, Question, Decision, Evil

“I. The Jews, as a class, violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department, and also Department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department.
II. Within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order by Post Commanders, they will see that all of this class of people are furnished with passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification, will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners unless furnished with permits from these Head Quarters.
III. No permits will be given these people to visit Head Quarters for the purpose of making personal application for trade permits.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

General Order Number 11 (17 December 1862); Abraham Lincoln on learning of this order drafted a note to his General-in-Chief of the Army, Henry Wager Halleck instructing him to rescind it. Halleck wrote to Grant:
It may be proper to give you some explanation of the revocation of your order expelling all Jews from your Dept. The President has no objection to your expelling traders & Jew pedlars, which I suppose was the object of your order, but as it in terms prescribed an entire religious class, some of whom are fighting in our ranks, the President deemed it necessary to revoke it.
1860s

People, Personality

“What can art accomplish? The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being.”

Svetlana Alexievich (1948) Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose writer

Speech at the Nobel Banquet https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/alexievich-speech_en.html (10 December 2015)

Art

“For when every judgement is the act of hym that judgeth, it behoveth that every man performe hys worke and purpose, not by any forayne or straunge power or facultie, but by his owne proper power, and strength.”

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Tr. George Colville (1556); source https://books.google.com/books?id=649EAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA129 The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book V

“Schumpeter’s approach has an important implication for political behavior. If the constellation of economic interests regularly changes because of innovation and entry, politicians face a fundamentally different world than those in a natural state: open access orders cannot manipulate interests in the same way as natural states do. Too much behavior and formation of interests take place beyond the state’s control. Politicians in both natural states and open access orders want to create rents. Rent-creation at once rewards their supporters and binds their constituents to support them. Because, however, open access orders enable any citizen to form an organization for a wide variety of purposes, rents created by either the political process or economic innovation attract competitors in the form of new organizations. In Schumpeterian terms, political entrepreneurs put together new organizations to compete for the rents and, in so doing, reduce existing rents and struggle to create new ones. As a result, creative destruction reigns in open access politics just as it does in open access economies. Much of the creation of new interests is beyond the control of the state. The creation of new interests and the generation of new sources of rents occur continuously in open access orders.”

Douglass C. North (1920–2015) American Economist

Source: Violence and Social Orders (2009), Ch. 1 : The Conceptual Framework

World, Way, Behavior, Support

“If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious Hellenes should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos…”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

As quoted in "On the Fortune of Alexander" by Plutarch, 332 a-b

Family, Peace, Justice, Search

“Humanity had to inflict terrible injuries on itself before the self, the identical, purpose-directed, masculine character of human beings was created, and something of this process is repeated in every childhood.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Furchtbares hat die Menschheit sich antun müssen, bis das Selbst, der identische, zweckgerichtete, männliche Charakter des Menschen geschaffen war, und etwas davon wird noch in jeder Kindheit wiederholt.
E. Jephcott, trans., p. 26
Dialektik der Aufklärung [Dialectic of Enlightenment] (1944)

Childhood

“Ethics could teach us only those purposes and ideals. If the teachers seeks insight into the means by which the aim can be reached, into the facts by which the child can be molded, his way must lead from ethics to psychology. (…) Water flows downhill, anyhow, but to bring the water uphill hydraulic forces are indeed necessary. To overcome nature and instead to prepare for a life of ideals, to inhibit personal desires and instead to learn to serve the higher purposes indeed demands most serious and most systematic efforts. It is the teachers' task to make these efforts with all his best knowledge of mind and body, of social and of cultural values.”

Hugo Munsterberg (1863–1916) German-American psychologist, philosopher and agitator

Hugo Munsterberg, Psychology and the Teacher, 1909 (new edition, 2006), pp. 64-65.

Life, Way, Nature, Knowledge

“The average American citizen should have presented to him in a simple and easily comprehended form the truth about the business affairs that affect his daily life as consumer, employee, employer, as investor, as voter. […] There are concrete instances of unfair competition that can be reached under the Federal criminal legislation, and they should be attacked and destroyed in the courts. But the laws should be such that normally, and save in extraordinary, circumstances, there should be no need of recourse to the courts. What is needed is administrative supervision and control. This should be so exercised that the highways of commerce and opportunity should be open to all; and not nominally open, but really open, a consistent effort being made to deprive every man of any advantage that is not due to his own superiority and efficiency, controlled by moral purpose. […] Not only as a matter of justice and honesty, but as a matter of prime popular interest, we should see that this control is so exercised as to favor a proper return to the upright business manager and honest investor.”

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

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

Life, Truth, Justice, Law

“Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter, seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.”

W.B. Yeats book Michael Robartes and the Dancer

St. 3 Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), Easter, 1916 http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1477/

Winter, Heart, Summer

“It is of course a familiar precept that the teacher must try to arouse the interest of his pupils in all that he teaches. However, this precept is generally meant and understood to denote the idea that learning is the end and interest the means to attain it. I wish to reverse that relationship. Learning must serve the purpose of creating interest. Learning is transient, but interest must be lifelong.”

Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) German philosopher, psychologist, and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline

Herbart (1982c, p. 97), as cited in: Norbert Hilgenheger, "Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841)." Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny 3-4 (1999): 5-26.

Idea, Learning, Teachers

“Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Second Inaugural Address (January 2013)

History, Effort, Freedom, Light

“It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is: each the other's opposite and complement.”

Hermann Hesse book Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

Learning

“Certain Socialist writers are fond of describing the Social-Democratic State of the future as implying the "emancipation of the proletarian and the woman." As regards the latter point, however, if emancipation is taken to include domination, we have not to wait so long. The highest development of modern capitalism, as exemplified in the English-speaking countries, has placed man to all intents and purposes, legally under the heel of woman. So far as the relations of the sexes are concerned, it would be the task of Socialism to emancipate man from this position, if sex-equality be the goal aimed at. The first step on the road towards such equality would necessarily consist in the abolition of modern female privilege.”

Ernest Belfort Bax (1854–1926) British barrister and journalist

Chapter 12: Socialists and Feminists http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Legal_Subjection_of_Men#Socialists_And_Feminists The Legal Subjection of Men (1908)

Sex, Waiting, Future, Country

“As a military man who has given half a century of active Service, I say in all sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions which they have generated. There are powerful voices around the world who still give evidence to the old Roman precept—if you desire peace, prepare for war. This is absolute nuclear nonsense.”

Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900–1979) British statesman and naval officer

Speech in Strasbourg, 11 May 1979.

War, World, Peace, Sincerity

“Maybe the growth of "God" signifies the existence of God. That is: if history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral growth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe — conceivably — the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”

Robert Wright book The Evolution of God

The Evolution of God. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2009, p. 286.

God, People, History, Nature

“Why is art beautiful? Because it's useless. Why is life ugly? Because it's all ends and purposes and intentions.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., p. 279
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Porque é bela a arte? Porque é inútil. Porque é feia a vida? Porque é toda fins e propósitos e intenções.

Life, Beauty, Art