Quotes about Purpose

What is actually man's concern is not to fulfill himself or to actualize himself but to fulfill meaning and to realize value. And only to the extent to which he fulfills concrete and personal meaning of his own existence will he also fulfill himself. Self-fulfillment occurs by itself; not through intention but as effect.

The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

The transitoriness of our existence in no way makes it meaningless. But it does constitute our responsibility; for now everything hinges upon our realizing the transitory possibilities.

Freedom is part of the story and half of the truth. Being free is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is being responsible. Freedom may degenerate into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

To have a good conscience can never be the basis of a morally good existence; it is, rather, the result.

Our industrialized society is out to satisfy all needs, and our consumer society is even out to create needs in order to satisfy them; but the most human of all human needs—the need to see a meaning in one's life—remains unsatisfied. People may have enough to live by; but more often than not they do not have anything to live for.

before parting that night we agreed that the objects of life were to produce good people and good books.

For nothing matters except life; and, of course, order.

What she liked was simply life. 'That's what I do it for', she said, speaking aloud, to life.

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide.