Quotes on Purpose

Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, in this case, is to deny that there is a God governing the world. It is a truth which I thought needed to be told; and as whatever of humilation there is in it, falls most directly on myself, I thought others might afford for me to tell it.

Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.

Education is the knowledge of how to use the whole of oneself. Many men use but one or two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty, how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical purposes.

The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows it to realize its supreme purpose through him.

The purpose of fear is to determine how badly you want your dream.

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

Knowledge is always accompanied with accessories of emotion and purpose.

The very purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others. Rather, we must criticize ourselves. How much am I doing about my anger? About my attachment, about my hatred, about my pride, my jealousy? These are the things which we must check in daily life.

A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.

There is nothing obscure about the objectives of educational exchange. Its purpose is to acquaint Americans with the world as it is and to acquaint students and scholars from many lands with America as it is-not as we wish it were or as we might wish foreigners to see it, but exactly as it is-which by my reckoning is an "image" of which no American need be ashamed.

He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious.

The General who in advancing does not seek personal fame, and in withdrawing is not concerned with avoiding punishment, but whose only purpose is to protect the people and promote the best interests of his sovereign, is the precious jewel of the state.

By altering his arrangements and changing his plans, the skillful general keeps the enemy without definite knowledge. By shifting his camp and taking circuitous routes, he prevents the enemy from anticipating his purpose. At the critical moment, the leader of an army acts like one who has climbed up a height and then kicks away the ladder behind him.

We must distinguish between those who depend on others, that is between those who to achieve their purposes can force the issue and those who must use persuasion. In the second case, they always come to grief, having achieved nothing; when, however, they depend on their own resources and can force the issue, then they are seldom endangered.

Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.

In judging others a man laboreth in vain; he often erreth, and easily falleth into sin; but in judging and examining himself he always laboreth to good purpose.

When neither high purpose nor the categorical imperatives of religion will do, the only argument against suicide is life itself. You pause and attend: the heart beats in your chest; outside, the trees are thick with new leaves, a swallow dips over them, the light moves, people are going about their business.

Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself.

What we determine we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory.

Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

If the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it.