Edwin Hubbel Chapin Quotes

There must be some part of Man that is more than his daily round. Some part of him that will use his profit on a matter of no profit.

The answer to human life is not to be found within the limits of human life.

The higher nature in man always seeks for something which transcends itself and yet is its deepest truth; which claims all its sacrifice, yet makes this sacrifice its own recompense. This is man's dharma, man's religion, and man's self is the vessel.

The delights of this life are not its own, but our fear of the ascent into a higher life; the torments of this life are not its own, but our self-torment because of that fear.

After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

The desire for transcendence is intimately connected with the desire for creativity. It is just as essential to who and what we are.

I think that the trivialness of life is, and personally to each one, ought to be seen to be, done away with by the Incarnation.

A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves

Without transcendence, life has no beauty.

What is important is not the length of life, but the depth of life. What is important is not to make life longer, but to take your soul out of time, as every sublime act does.

Man today being concerned with production and consumption as ends in themselves, has very little engergy time to devote himself to the true religious experience.

Those who have a why to live for can bear almost any how. The necessary premise is that a person is somehow more than his or her "characteristics," all the emotions, strivings, tastes, and constructions which it pleases us to call "My Life." We have grounds to hope that a Life is something more than a cloud of particles, mere facticity. Go through what is comprehensible and you conclude that only the incomprehensible gives any light.

To God, our journey is JUST as important as our destination!

If you make the goal of your life just to stay alive, you'll fail. If you make the goal of your life the kingdom, you cannot lose.

I will say with Lorenzo de Medici that those who do not hope for another life are always dead to this one.

So when I think of, what is the meaning of life, to me, that's not an eternal unanswerable question. To me it is in arms reach of me every day.

You need to believe in something that's bigger than yourself. I think that's what everybody wants to believe in that.

We may experience moments of profound inner peace, a sense of oneness with nature, or a sense of something that is more important that we're not reaching by the usual goals of human society. Perhaps we could say there's a common heart to all the religions.

The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, to drink, and sleep; to be exposed to darkness and the light; to pace around in the mill of habit, and turn thought into an instrument of trade-this is not life. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give vitality to the mechanism of existence.

I have discovered the meaning of life. It resides in what I can wrest from each day that I live.

To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.

The people who keep asking if they can't lead a decent life without Christ, don't know what life is about; if they did they would know that 'a decent life' is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for.

Whenever a human being ceases to live for themselves and begins to care about that which is greater than themselves, the personality begins to experience ecstasy, joy and spontaneous liberation. And that's found through doing, through action, through giving, through deeply embracing the human experience.