Quotes on Purpose
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.
Abraham Lincoln
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If you don't know where you're going, it doesn't matter if your alarm doesn't go off in the morning.
Denis Waitley
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I have always recognized that the object of business is to make money in an honorable manner. I have endeavored to remember that the object of life is to do good.
Peter Cooper
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Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Horace Mann
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I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau
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Only a life lived for others is the life worthwhile.
Albert Einstein
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What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.
Albert Einstein
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Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Henry David Thoreau
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The worst days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who don't.
Jim Rohn
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We were meant to be masters of destiny, not victims of fate.
Ronald Wilson Reagan
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If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it's moving you away from your goals.
Brian Tracy
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Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
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The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
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Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Susan Ertz
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The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
Anatole France
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There comes a special moment in everyone’s life, a moment for which that person was born. That special opportunity, when he seizes it, will fulfill his mission – a mission for which he is uniquely qualified. In that moment, he finds greatness. It is his finest hour.
Sir Winston Churchill
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Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi
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If your only goal is to become rich, you will never achieve it.
John Rockefeller
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The great thing in this world is not so much where you stand, as in what direction you are moving.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together.
Bette Davis
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A determinate purpose in life and a steady adhesion to it through all disadvantages are indispensable conditions of success.
William Punshon
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I look on that man as happy who, when there is a question of success, looks into his work for a reply.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
Kenneth Hildebrand
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Many persons 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
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To love what you do and feel that it matters - how could anything be more fun?
Katharine Graham
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Men who have attained things worth having in this world have worked while others idled, have persevered when others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success so often erroneously attributed to good luck.
Grenville Kleiser
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Talent for talent's sake is a bauble and a show. Talent working with joy in the cause of universal truth lifts the possessor to new power as a benefactor.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Heads are strongest when they are cool and hearts are strongest when they beat in response to noble ideals.
Ralph Bunche
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Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.
James Allen
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To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.
James Allen
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Having conceived of his purpose, a man should mentally mark out a straight pathway to its achievement, looking neither to the right nor the left. Doubts and fears should be rigorously excluded; they are disintegrating elements which break up the straight line of effort, rendering it crooked, ineffectual, useless. Thoughts of doubt and fear never accomplish anything, and never can. They always lead to failure. Purpose, energy, power to do, and all strong thoughts cease when doubt and fear creep in.
James Allen
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Thought allied fearlessly to purpose becomes creative force.
James Allen
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Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is a part of an unending plan.
Calvin Coolidge
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We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.
Dwight Eisenhower
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You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.
Woodrow Wilson
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Find a purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best.
David McKay
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Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
Vincent van Gogh
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It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?
James Thurber
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While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction.
James Cabell
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Nothing is more liberating than to fight for a cause larger than yourself, something that encompasses you but is not defined by your existence alone.
John McCain
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I think you're out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don't like because you think it will look good on your resume.
Warren Buffett
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Chance can allow you to accomplish a goal every once in a while, but consistent achievement happens only if you love what you are doing.
Bart Conner
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A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
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Realize what you want. It stops you from chasing butterflies and puts you to work digging gold.
William Moulton Marsden
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There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.
Napoleon Hill
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In order to do what really matters to you, you have to, first of all, know what really matters to you.
Edward Hallowell
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Working at something you don't care about is the very best way to waste your life.
Brian Tracy
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Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.
Vincent van Gogh
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Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.
William Somerset Maugham
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When you have once devoted your life, you are no longer the equal of other men, or, rather, other men are no longer your equals; and whosoever has taken this resolution feels his strength and resources doubled.
Alexandre Dumas
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Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
Viktor Frankl
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What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Viktor Frankl
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For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
Viktor Frankl
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Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Viktor Frankl
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The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
Viktor Frankl
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What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.
Viktor Frankl
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I have brought myself by long meditation to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will state even existence for its fulfillment.
Benjamin Disraeli
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To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.
Stephen Covey
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What people require for a good life – and many smart people have written books on this subject – are meaning and purpose. I personally have never met a self-centered person who was happy or content. The happy people I know are serving something greater than themselves – a cause, a religion or a family.
Charley Reese
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A man's true delight is to do the things he was made for.
Marcus Aurelius
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Lacking an external focus, the mind turns inward on itself and creates problems to solve, even if the problems are undefined or unimportant. If you find a focus, an ambitious goal that seems impossible and forces you to grow, these doubts disappear.
Timothy Ferriss
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Adults are always asking kids what they want to be when they grow up because they are looking for ideas.
Paula Poundstone
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Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin
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Every decision you make — every decision — is not a decision about what to do. It’s a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do.
Neale Walsch
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All the concepts about stepping out of your comfort zone mean nothing until you decide that your essential purpose, vision and goals are more important than your self-imposed limitations.
Robert White
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Get involved in something that you care so much about that you want to make it the greatest it can possibly be, not because of what you will get, but just because it can be done.
Jim Collins
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Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.
Cecil deMille
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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
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Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs
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You only get one life. You might as well spend it working on something great.
Paul Graham
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We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music.
Barbara Sher
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The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner
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Seeking your vocation is not selfish; robbing the world of what you could have done with your gifts and talents is.
Brett McKay
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You must first ask "What is the purpose of my life?" before asking "What is the purpose of my money?" Once the first question is answered, you have thus answered the second. Making your money a tool for life, and not making your life a tool for money, is a choice.
Kent Thune
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That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.
Steven Pressfield
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What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the mystery of existence? If we take everything into account—not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn't know—then I think we must frankly admit that we do not know. But, in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.
Richard Feynman
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Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.
Richard Feynman
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Most people don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it won't make them happy.
Derek Sivers
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If you think your life's purpose needs to hit you like a lightning bolt, you'll overlook the little day-to-day things that fascinate you. If you think revolution needs to feel like war, you'll overlook the importance of simply serving people better. When you're on to something great, it won't feel like revolution. It'll feel like uncommon sense.
Derek Sivers
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The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.
Pablo Picasso
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The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between men—between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant—is energy, invincible determination—a purpose once fixed, and then—death or victory! That quality will do anything that can be done in this world, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it.
Thomas Fowell Buxton
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There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is 'Where am I going?' and the second is 'Who will go with me?' If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.
Sam Keen
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All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber
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Expedience is the following of blind impulse. It's short-term gain. It's narrow, and selfish. It lies to get its way. It takes nothing into account. It's immature and irresponsible. Meaning is its mature replacement. Meaning emerges when impulses are regulated, organized and unified.
Jordan Peterson
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