Quotes about Purpose
Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun. If you do not, the sun will soon set, and you with it.
— Marcus Aurelius
In your actions, don't procrastinate. In your conversations, don't confuse. In your thoughts, don't wander. In your soul, don't be passive or aggressive. In your life, don't be all about business.
— Marcus Aurelius
You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.
— Marcus Aurelius
If unwilling to rise in the morning, say to thyself, 'I awake to do the work of a man.
— Marcus Aurelius
Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what's in front of you with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.
— Marcus Aurelius
Why all this guesswork? You can see what needs to be done. If you can see the road, follow it.
— Marcus Aurelius
Everything has come into being for a purpose - a horse, say, a vine. Does this surprise you? Even the sun will say, 'I came into being for a purpose': likewise the other gods. For what purpose, then, were you created? For your pleasure? Just see whether this idea can be entertained.
— Marcus Aurelius
Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What's surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, "I have a purpose," and the other gods as well. And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning.
— Marcus Aurelius
Labour not as one to whom it is appointed to be wretched, nor as one that either would be pitied, or admired; but let this be thine only care and desire; so always and in all things to prosecute or to forbear, as the law of charity, or mutual society doth require.
— Marcus Aurelius
Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what's left and live it properly.
— Marcus Aurelius
Now forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature demands. Focus on that, and don't let anything distract you. You've wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or self-indulgence. Nowhere.
— Marcus Aurelius
To undertake nothing: i. at random or without a purpose; ii. for any reason but the common good.
— Marcus Aurelius