1,900 Quotes About Meaning

…one lives and analyses data within a frame, unaware that the solution is most often just outside of that frame. Never underestimate the depth of your subjectivity.

There’s surprising relief and regeneration in finding ourselves within a moment of genuine grace, however small or temporary it may be.

The greatest gift creation has given to all of you is that life is fundamentally meaningless. That means it has no built-in meaning.What that also means is, you were designed to give it the meaning you prefer to give it. And the meaning you give it will utterly determine how you experience it.

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able to change a situation... we are challenged to change ourselves.

The thing is writing is torturing me every second while I’m writing. But not writing is torturing every second when I’m not writing. If you are looking for any meaning in life it is this; being tortured for the right reason. To truly live is that loving being tortured by it.

Time to time you will fail some of your responsibilities. Sometimes they can crush you. In those difficult times, you have to remind yourself that it is better for everybody around you and the world to have a person who is truly trying but failing than doing nothing at all.

...isn’t it intriguing that thought cannot exist without language, and since language is a function of the brain, we would have to say that language---the ability to experience the world through symbols---is in some sense a physical property of human beings, which proves that the old mind-body duality is so much nonsense, doesn’t it? Adieu, Descartes. The mind and body are one.

Food is packed with meaning, as well as vitamins, carbohydrates and protein. It satisfies needs beyond those of the body and the pocketbook. Food is a medium to build families, religious communities, ethnic boundaries and a consciousness of history.

There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else (parents in the case of children, God in the case of adults) has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point. . . . The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it. And we can make it very wonderful indeed.