Quotes about Meaning

Basically, the first half of life is writing the text, and the second half is writing the commentary on that text.

The soul needs meaning as much as the body needs food.

The hope is that science gives us objective truth; religion, however, gives us personal meaning or personal truth. They should not be seen as contraries.

You know after any truly initiating experience that you are part of a much bigger whole. Life is not about you henceforward, but you are about life.

If something comes toward you with grace and can pass through you and toward others with grace, you can trust it as the voice of God.

The task of the second half of life is, quite simply, to find the actual contents that this container was meant to hold and deliver.

Western people are a ritually starved people, and in this are different than most of human history.

But once we become practiced at a contemplative worldview, a "thisness" way of seeing, there is nothing trivial anymore and all is grace.

Each one of us has to find such a relationship in the suffering that we ourselves experience, be it the loss of a job or a home, the death of someone we love, rejection by our parents or our children, the breakdown of a marriage, institutional injustice, social violence or whatever. The causes of our personal suffering are many. And when we find the living, liberating answer that gives us meaning in the midst of suffering, we realize that it is a very personal answer.

Francis's all-night prayer, "Who are you, O God, and who am I?" is probably a perfect prayer, because it is the most honest prayer we can offer.

Humans are creators of meaning, and finding deep meaning in our experiences is not just another name for spirituality but is also the very shape of human happiness.

Life is not about me; it is about God, and God is about love. When we don't know love, when we don't experience love, when we experience only the insecurity and fragility of the small self, we become restless.