Murray Kempton Quotes

Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.

I have a calling in my soul, if you like, to try to make my life in some way worthwhile. What is the value of my existence?

The meaning of life is life.

There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.

As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one's life or one's work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.

The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make a life meaningful either.

Do you know the only value life has is what life puts on itself?

I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.

What is the value of your existence?

I don't believe that life is supposed to make you feel good, or make you feel miserable either. Life is just supposed to make you feel.

One life is worth the universe. Poe was able to go right into the very depth of life and to demonstrate this.

I learned the significance of my own insignificant life.

Men's lives have meaning, not their deaths.

If you're not doing something with your life, then it doesn’t matter how long you live. If you're doing something with your life, then it doesn't matter how short your life may be. A life is not measured by years lived, but by its usefulness. If you are giving, loving, serving, helping, encouraging, and adding value to others, then you're living a life that counts!

Why live? Life was its own answer. Life was the propagation of more life and the living of as good a life as possible.

Does life have any meaningful purpose?

When you understand that life is a test, you realize that nothing is insignificant in your life.

A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant.

You cannot judge the value of a life by its length.

What was a life anyway? An accumulation of small shelves of incident.

God asks no man whether he will accept life. That is not the choice. You must take it. The only choice is how.

I think essentially the meaning of life is probably the journey and not really any one thing or an outcome or a result.

The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what's it all about.