quotations and passages on purpose

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

Robert Byrne

It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one
special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform
a hundred other tasks, but if you have not performed the task
you were sent for, it is as if you have done nothing at all.
So people have come into the world for particular tasks, and
that is our purpose. If we don't perform it, we will have done nothing.

Rumi

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

George Bernard Shaw

One needs something to believe in, something for which
one can have whole-hearted enthusiasm. One needs to feel
that one's life has meaning, that one is needed in this world.

Hannah Senesh

Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness.
It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

I'm doing what I think I was put on this earth to do.
And I'm really grateful to have something that I'm passionate
about and that I think is profoundly important.

Marian Wright Edelman

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Susan Ertz

We are here on earth to do good for others.
What the others are here for, I don't know.

W.H. Auden

Purpose serves as a principle around which to organize our lives.

Anonymous

Great minds have purposes, little minds have wishes.

Washington Irving

What people actually need is not a tensionless state
but rather the striving and struggling for some goal
worthy of them. What they need is not the discharge
of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential
meaning waiting to be fulfilled by them.

Victor Frankl

Never forget that the purpose for which a we live is the improvement
of ourselves, so that we may go out of this world having,
in our great sphere or our small one, done some little good for
our fellow creatures and labored a little to diminish
the sin and sorrow that are in the world.

William E. Gladstone

Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose,
and devote yourself unreservedly to it.

James Allen

The first principle of ethical power is purpose. By purpose, I don't mean
your objective or intention-something toward which you are always striving.
Purpose is something bigger. It is the picture you have of yourself--the kind
of person you want to be or the kind of life you want to lead.

Ken Blanchard

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.

Leo Buscaglia

The person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder -- waif, a nothing,
a no body. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength
of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.

Thomas Carlyle

The secret to success is constancy to purpose.

Benjamin Disraeli

Multitudes of people, drifting aimlessly to and fro without a set purpose,
deny themselves such fulfillment of their capacities, and the satisfying
happiness which attends it. They are not wicked, they are only shallow.
They are not mean or vicious; they simply are empty -- shake them and
they would rattle like gourds. They lack range, depth, and conviction.
Without purpose their lives ultimately wander into the morass of
dissatisfaction. As we harness our abilities to a steady purpose and
undertake the long pull toward its accomplishment, rich compensations
reward us. A sense of purpose simplifies life and therefore
concentrates our abilities; and concentration adds power.

Kenneth Hildebrand

There is no road to success but through a clear strong purpose.
Nothing can take its place. A purpose underlies character,
culture, position, attainment of every part.

Thornton T. Munger

We are all designed for a specific purpose; we all have something
for which each of us, and each of us alone, is responsible.

Naomi Stephan

What allows us, as human beings, to psychologically survive life on earth,
with all of its pain, drama, and challenges, is a sense of purpose and meaning.

Barbara De Angelis

To have a purpose that is worthwhile, and that is steadily being
accomplished, that is one of the secrets of life that is worth living.

Herbert Casson

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