Quotes about Purpose

There is only one inborn error, and that is the notion that we exist in order to be happy….So long as we persist in this inborn error, and indeed even become confirmed in it through optimistic dogmas, the world seems to us full of contradictions.

Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of any talent tries to use it.

The more I use my strength in the service of my vision the less I am afraid...

I wish to live whatever life I have as fully and as sweetly as possible

Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants.

Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences. The work, not the people. Your own action, not any possible object of your charity.

Look, Gail. Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life. Your strength? Your work. He tossed the branch aside. The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . .

I want to know that I've accomplished something. I want to feel that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure it wasn't all-for nothing.

A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.

I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it, too. Or else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry

There's nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work.

You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached.