Quotations Database
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Quotations Database
16 years in the making, this 36,000 motivational quote search engine can identify quotations by the name of the author, keyword, gender, general ethnicity, and by phrase. It’s yours to use for free. I think it is the most diverse, deep, and far-reaching quotation search engine on values, ethics, and wisdom anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy. Enjoy! – Jason
On some level, punk [music] and Buddhism are underpinned by a similar premise: Both acknowledge that the planet is brimming with unhappiness. The question is how you confront that misery. The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale. Once I loved. Somewhere the healing process must begin. We have our differences, but we have so much to celebrate together — our strength, our beauty, our aspirations for our children. Their children are ours, ours are theirs. We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. The goal is not to have but to be; not to own but to give; not to control but to share; not to subdue but to be in accord… not to amass, but to face sacred moments. With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. I pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. In the highest love between man and woman, or parent and child, as the person reaches the ultimates of strength, self-esteem, or individuality, so also does he simultaneously merge with the other, lose self-consciousness, and more or less transcend selfishness. The same can happen in the creative moment, in the profound aesthetic experience, in the insight experience…and others which I have generalized as peak experiences. We live. We die. The best we can do is leave a worthwhile example for those who come after us. When I talk about fulfillment, I’m really talking about something I want to believe in and fight for. It should be a powerful antidote to fundamentalism, be as powerful as fundamentalism is to people. It should be unchallengeable in the way liberalism was in the post-Depression era. People are looking for something to believe in. They’re looking for meaning in life. They’re looking to be part of a broader project. Wisdom comes alone through suffering. The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: overcome fear, behold wonder. No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Treat the days well and they will treat you well. How wonderful it is to think that we have all been created for a purpose! We have not come into the world to be a number; we have been created for a purpose, for great things: to love and be loved. During the brief time we spend here on earth, each one of us will confront the same unanswerable question. What is the meaning of life? Some may find a facile and semi-satisfying answer in religion…for others solace will come from the handy oblivion offered by a bottle of bourbon, a hypodermic needle, or meaningless sex with an endless number of faceless partners. The climate crisis also offers us the chance to experience what very few generations in history have had the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise. It was because of my son’s accident and the way it abruptly interrupted the flow of my days and hours that I began to rethink everything, especially what my priorities had been. Thankfully, my son has long since recovered completely. But it was during that traumatic period that I made at least two enduring changes: I vowed always to put my family first, and I also vowed to make the climate crisis the top priority of my professional life. Happiness is a goal such that it is gained by virtuous actions in the same way as knowledge is attained by learning and study, and as the arts are attained through learning them and persisting in their activities. Newton made the world seem ordered and lucid. He made the human mind seem capable of understanding the very architecture and design of God in nature; a law is the wisdom of God made manifest through the natural world. ‘Language,’ broadly seen, equates with ‘meaning.’ Language is our means of meaning. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning. Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future – and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people. If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one. I have seen many people die because life for them was not worth living. From this I conclude that the question of life’s meaning is the most urgent question of all. It is death which gives gambling and heroism their true meaning. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. This world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called “the spirit of heaviness.” Let us not contribute to it. A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of his life are devoted to earning money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end. All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career. … is it not an art to lead a good life? The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable pre-condition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities. I have no particular talent, just inquisitiveness. It is also a natural thing for a serious young man that he should form for himself as precise an idea as possible of the goal of his desires. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. If A is success in life, then A = x + y + z. Work is x, play is y, and z is keeping your mouth shut. Try not to become a man of success, but rather, try to become a man of value. The life of the individual has meaning only insofar as it aids in making
the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful. Life is sacred, that is to say, it is the supreme value to which all other values are subordinate. Let me give you the definition of ethics: it is good to maintain life and to further life. It is bad to damage and destroy life. And this ethic, profound and universal, has the significance of a religion. It is religion. Humanism, in all its simplicity, is the only genuine spirituality. The view of Reverence for Life is ethical mysticism. It allows union with the Infinite to be realized [though] ethical action. I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be truly happy will be those who have sought and found how to serve.
And I gave so much love to this love — you were the world to me.
Once I cried,
at the thought I was foolish and proud and let you say goodbye.
Note that copyright for motivational quotes, stanzas, lyrics, etc. in many cases is held by those who wrote the words, and permission to copy or reprint those words is not being granted by me. I urge you to look up “fair use of copyrighted material” and make your own decision about how, when, and where to use the words of others. If you feel I have infringed on your copyright by placing one of your inspirational quotes in the database, please contact me and I will quickly give it due consideration.
Today's Quote
Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.
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