quest for significance Quotes

Not being able to find meaning can be just as powerful as finding meaning.

Those who are driven by poverty, those who're free from material worries hunger exhausting labor a joyless existence ask the same question, the question of meaning.

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.

Warriors of light frequently ask themselves what they are doing here. Very often they believe their lives have no meaning. That is why they are warriors of light. Because they make mistakes. Because they ask questions. Because they continue to look for a meaning. And, in the end, they will find it.

To the contrary: His life hummed with meaning and purpose. But the meaning he wrested from existence lay beyond the comfortable path: McCandless distrusted the value of things that came easily.

People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

I've always said that people are desperate to find meaning in their lives.

I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that is why we find ourselves emptied of meaning with our pantries still full.

In acute suffering the need for meaning is as strong or stronger than the need for happiness.

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.

The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where "ordinary" life fails to answer a median need for dignity and comfort.

"With my desire and drive, I definitely wasn't normal. Normal people can be happy with a regular life. I was different. I felt there was more to life than plodding through a normal existence. I'd always been impressed by stories of greatness and power. I wanted to do something special, to be recognized as the best. I saw bodybuilding as the vehicle that would take me to the top, and I put all my energy into it.

What, after all, are the world's deepest problems? They are what they always have been, the individual's problems—the meaning of life and death, the mastery of self, the quest for value and worth-whileness and freedom within, the transcending of loneliness, the longing for love and a sense of significance, and for peace. Society's problems are deep, but the individual's problems go deeper; Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, or Shakespeare will show us that, if we hesitate to take it from the Bible.

Most people would trade everything they know, everyone they know- they'd trade it all to know they've been seen, and acknowledged, that they might even be remembered. We all know we die. We all know the world is too big for us to be significant. So all we have is the hope of being seen, or heard, even for a moment.

When people are finding meaning in things -- beware.

The struggle for existence is a struggle 'for' something; it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.

She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.

Existence is Appetite: the gnaw of being; the one attempt of all things to assimilate to some higher attempt.

The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose.

People want to find a 'meaning' in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age...

Books had shown me, however, that all people everywhere wanted their lives to have purpose and meaning. This longing was universal.