meaning-of-life

Look at the stars. See their beauty. And in that beauty, see yourself.

Do not fear the conflict, and do not flee from it; where there is no struggle, there is no Virtue.

And suddenly in the middle of the day a strange feeling grips you. The feeling of missing someone. The warm embrace and the tight hug and the tenderness...

If we were all looking for something 'easy come and easy go', then all of our lives would be easy. The problem is that we look for something real, don't we? And it is this longing for what is real, that makes finding the right person to be the most difficult task in the world. You can marry someone and promise the rest of your life to the person, only to find out later that this person makes you feel lonely. If we had no innate longing for true love and for true partnership, then none of us would have any problems! Therefore, the most frightening question to ponder upon, is, 'what if true love does not exist; what if the real stuff isn't real at all?' In such a case, life would be meaningless. I suppose I would rather believe in love relentlessly, than live in this world meaninglessly.

Tell me that the purpose of life is to have fun, and without a care in the world I'll begin wreaking havoc on everything I pass. Now that's what I call pure, honest fun.

The best things in life make you sweaty.

I don't know the meaning of life. I don't know why we are here. I think life is full of anxieties and fears and tears. It has a lot of grief in it, and it can be very grim. And I do not want to be the one who tries to tell somebody else what life is all about. To me it's a complete mystery.

Human resources are like natural resources; they're often buried deep. You have to go looking for them, they're not just lying around on the surface. You have to create the circumstances where they show themselves.

No one else knows exactly what the future holds for you, no one else knows what obstacles you've overcome to be where you are, so don't expect others to feel as passionate about your dreams as you do.

Men's lives are short .The hard man and his cruelties will beCursed behind his back and mocked in death.But one whose heart and ways are kind - of himstrangers will bear report to the whole wide world,and distant men will praise him.- Penelope in Robert Fitzgerald trans. THE ODYSSEY (364)

The dream is over only when you have become complacent.

Only when you accept that one day you'll die can you let go, and make the best out of life. And that's the big secret. That's the miracle.

In mysticism, knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation; one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, can often stay abstract and theoretical. Thus most of today__ physicists do not seem to realize the philosophical, cultural and spiritual implications of their theories.

I believe that I am not responsible for the meaningfulness or meaninglessness of life, but that I am responsible for what I do with the life I've got.

Plato says that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?

Everyone deserves a second chance to be loved: fearlessly.

Sophie Bach from The Maker:You__e a human being with a personality and a will, and you make choices and think and create. Is there no meaning to you, Adrien Bach?And what about us? Is the way we feel about each other just simulated emotions from some biological process__othing more?

About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only or especially available to the faithful, and that the natural world is wonderful enough__nd even miraculous enough if you insist__ attract pitying looks and anxious questions. How, in that case, I am asked, do I find meaning and purpose in life? How does a mere and gross materialist, with no expectation of a life to come, decide what, if anything, is worth caring about?Depending on my mood, I sometimes but not always refrain from pointing out what a breathtakingly insulting and patronizing question this is. (It is on a par with the equally subtle inquiry: Since you don't believe in our god, what stops you from stealing and lying and raping and killing to your heart's content?) Just as the answer to the latter question is: self-respect and the desire for the respect of others__hile in the meantime it is precisely those who think they have divine permission who are truly capable of any atrocity__o the answer to the first question falls into two parts. A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so. Whereas if one sought to define meaninglessness and futility, the idea that a human life should be expended in the guilty, fearful, self-obsessed propitiation of supernatural nonentities_ but there, there. Enough.