Quotes about purpose (3092 quotes, page 31)

“Here is one quality that one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Knowledge

“I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Country , Future , Wealth , Wisdom

“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Friendship , Friendship , For Friend , For Bestfriend

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

Cynthia Ozick (1928) American writer

Life

“Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“People who claim they are motivated by the Purpose end up behaving differently—and generally better—than people who serve other masters.”
“So it is like believing in God.”

Neal Stephenson book Seveneves

“Maybe yes. But without the theology, the scripture, the pigheaded certainty.”
Epilogue (p. 860)
Seveneves (2015), Part Three

God , People , Motivation

“If it is right that the State should resume its authority over the land for the purposes of burying the dead, it is surely also right that it should exercise its ownership where it is necessary it should do so to feed the living.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons

Dead , Exercises

“The main purpose of most genes in the human genome is regulating the expression of other genes in the genome.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 10 “Stress” (p. 150)

“It was in the Second World War, then, that the full force of the modern European state was mobilized for the first time, for the primary purpose of conquering and exploiting other Europeans.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

Chap. 1 : The Legacy of War
Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

Time , War , World

“I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of "humility."”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
Draft of a German reply to a letter sent to him in 1954 or 1955, p. 39
Attributed in posthumous publications, Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1979)

Personality , Nature , Thinking , Feeling

“My friends, all I'm trying to say is that if we are to go forward today, we've got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we've left behind. That's the only way that we would be able to make of our world a better world, and to make of this world what God wants it to be and the real purpose and meaning of it.”

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

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)

God , World , Way

“Is it for this purpose that we are strong—that we may have light burdens to bear?”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind

Light , Strong

“The use of destructive, noisy machinery for recreational purposes must become anathema to humans, as unthinkable as eating one’s young.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: The Margarets (2007), Chapter 14, “I Am Margaret/On Earth” (p. 114)

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong… I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

Source: Curious Character

Universe , Thinking , Way , Feeling

“Man is born to be happy and free, and everywhere he is enslaved and unhappy! Society exists for the purpose of conserving his rights and perfecting his being, and everywhere society degrades and oppresses him! The time has come to remind him of his true destiny.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Misc Quotes

Happiness , Perfection , Time

“When they are asked the question by a journalist, a country, a friend, an enemy or anybody, "What is the real purpose of the taliban movement?" the answer to them all is that the taliban's mission and purpose is to implement the sharia on this land of Allah. That is their answer, true purpose and their mission from the beginning.”

Mohammed Omar (1959–2013) Founder and former leader of the Taliban

Appeal to the ulama of Afghanistan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNAR3CZhUKo, 2 April 1996

Question , Country

“My main purpose is not about football or baseball, or anything like that. It’s about helping others. It’s about finding the people who need hope.”

Tim Tebow (1987) American football player, Heisman Trophy winner, quarterback

People , Help , Hope , Football

“The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to an end. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.”

Helen Schucman book A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles, (1976)

Time , Learning

“It takes less effort to stream a film at home these days. However, streaming should not fundamentally affect how a film is made, as long as the pleasure of watching films doesn’t change, and we as filmmakers continue to serve that purpose.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"5 Questions for Wong Kar Wai" in Notebook Feature (19 March 2021) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/5-questions-for-wong-kar-wai

Home , Pleasure , Change , Effort

“Please, for the love of god, do not rush an unsafe vaccine for political purposes.”

Robert B. Reich (1946) American political economist

22 October 2020 https://twitter.com/rbreich/status/1319446608367415302

God , Love

“…It was very purposeful that I included animals that I’ve never touched, never looked into their eyes. We should be able to care for creatures outside of [our immediate vicinity]. We should be able to care about plants and animals and people that we’ve never seen before.”

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (1974) American writer

On not encountering every single animal mentioned in her book World of Wonders in “Aimee Nezhukumatathil: What a Wonderful World” https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/aimee-nezhukumatathil-world-of-wonders-interview/ in Kirkus Reviews (2020 Dec 2)

People , Animals

“A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself gifts that may be true blessings, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice feeling deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation—to simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (2005)

Universe , Time , Feeling

“Common sense is the great thing in all this. You eat what you find through a minimum requirement keeps your body healthy. Each individual and each group finds for itself the diet which suits its purposes, climate, tradition and background.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (1980)

Sense

“No purpose is served by making private suffering into a public event.”

Charles Sheffield book Summertide

Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 23 (p. 254)

Suffering

“Men were born to die! Life has only one purpose: to understand the sense of your own misery.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act IV, scene iii.

Understanding , Sense , Life , Men