Life Meaning by Famous Personality

Quotes on the Meaning of Life

What is the essence of life? To serve others and to do good.
-- Aristotle (384-322 BC)

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose." 
-- Robert Byrne

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive." 
-- Joseph Campbell

"It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe." 
-- Thomas Carlyle

I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance. 
-- Pablo Casals

The first thing to do in life is to do with purpose what one purposes to do.
-- Pablo Casals

"Each of us is meant to have a character all our own, to be what no other can exactly be, and do what no other can exactly do." 
-- William Ellery Channing

 

Most of what we take as being important is not material, whether it's music or feelings or love. They're things we can't really see or touch. They're not material, but they're vitally important to us. 
-- Judy Collins

"Reverence for life is more than solicitude or sensitivity for life. It is a sense of the whole, a capacity for inspired response, a respect for the intricate universe of individual life. It is the supreme awareness of awareness itself." 
-- Norman Cousins

"Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him." 
-- Norman Cousins

* Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. 
 - The Dalai Lama

"Walk in the ways of thine heart." 
-- Ecclesiastes 11:19

 

 

"The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth..." 
-- Albert Einstein

"The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with Truth." 
-- Eliza Farnham

 

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made." 
-- Benjamin Franklin

Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of. 
-- Benjamin Franklin

* Be the change you want to see in the world.
-- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Let no one be like another, yet everyone like the highest. How is this done? Be each one perfect in himself." 
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The man who is born with a talent which he is meat to use, finds his greatest happiness in using it."
 -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 "We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark." 
-- Whoopi Goldberg

You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life. 
-- Herbie Hancock

You don't need the fame to be vital. 
-- Herbie Hancock

"If you live for love you spread kindness and compassion everywhere you go. When you stop believing in your heart you are but a sterile vessel wandering in the wilderness." 
 -- Francis Hegmeyer

It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see the other and honor him for what he is. 
-- Hermann Hesse

"Walk in the light of your own fire, and in the flame which ye have kindled." 
-- Isaiah 50:11

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. Now put foundations under them." 
-- Osa Johnson

Life without a purpose is a languid, drifting thing; every day we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves, 'This day let me make a sound beginning 
-- Thomas Kempis

 

I find trying to solve problems and save lives is far more important than my film career.
-- Nicole Kidman

My trust in a higher power that wants me to survive and have love in my life, is what keeps me moving forward. 
-- Kenny Loggins

* "That consciousness is everything and that all things begin with a thought. That we are responsible for our own fate, we reap what we sow, we get what we give, we pull in what we put out. I know these things for sure." 
-- Madonna

It is not "history" which uses men as a means of achieving -- as if it were an individual person -- its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends. 
-– Karl Marx

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love. 
-- David McCullough

"Use those talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: The woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best." 
-- Bernard Meltzer

"The beautiful in life...
Some talk of it in poetry,
Some grow it from the soil,
Some build it in a steeple,
Some show it through their toil.
Some breathe it into music,
Some mold it into art,
Some shape it into bread loaves...
Some hold it in their hearts." 
-- Bernard Meltzer

"We spend all our time looking for some concept of Truth, but Truth is what is left when we drop all concepts." 
-- David Merzel

"The great and glorious masterpiece of humanity is to know how to live with a purpose." 
-- Montaigne

MEANING OF LIFE: 
TO SHINE A LIGHT 
WHERE THERE IS NO LIGHT 
AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY 
FOR SHINING THAT LIGHT.
-- Noelani Musicaro

MEANING OF LIFE: 
TO SHINE A LIGHT 
WHERE THERE IS NO LIGHT 
AND TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SHINING THAT LIGHT.
-- Noelani Musicaro

"Everything in life is most fundamentally a gift. And you receive it best and you live it best by holding it with very open hands." 
-- Leo O'Donovan

"Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions, and financial ploys are not merely counter-productive but trivial."
-- Tom Robbins

"Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life." 
-- Seneca

"This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not be false to any man." 
-- William Shakespeare

 

"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. Life is no 'brief candle" to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." 
-- George Bernard Shaw

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. 
-- William Shedd

 

The first part of the Answer to the Question of the 'Meaning of Life' is about the way to truly Live. And that is to love and be loved by the people in your life with all your heart, and to seek to live in the Now – to strive to be present with them, and remember this mission and purpose through the struggles and the joy, and to share together the amazing journey of life. The second part is to see Life as more than your own life and your own time. To see that throughout time, humanity has shared a vision of ‘peace on earth’. And though it is an impossible dream, only a life lived in service to humanity – in honor of this shared goal – can help to validate the struggles of the 93 billion people who have lived and died, the 7 billion dreams of those alive today, and the hope of humanity to come. The third is to find a balance between the two – between living your individual life to the fullest, while striving to help humanity evolve to a higher consciousness of compassion, meaning and purpose. 
-- Robert Alan Silverstein

 

To freely bloom - that is my definition of success. 
-- Gerry Spence

"He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king." 
-- St. Augustine

 

 

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence." 
-- Henry David Thoreau

"Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him." 
-- Henry David Thoreau

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." 
-- Henry David Thoreau

"I learned at least this by my experiments. That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." 
-- Henry David Thoreau

The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come. 
-- Peter Ustinov