Purpose Quotes

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Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.

Friedrich Nietzsche

All the categories which we employ to describe conscious mental acts, such as ideas, purposes, resolutions, and so on, can be applied tothese latent states.

I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity. If the tabus, restrictions, distorted values appear "natural" to him, this is a clear indication that he cannot have a real knowledge of human nature.
I believe that society, while having a function both stimulating and inhibiting at the same time, has always been in conflict with humanity. Only when the purpose of society is identified with that of humanity will society cease to paralyze man and encourage his dominance.

So long as the spectator has to figure out the meaning of this or that person, or the presuppositions of this or that conflict of inclinations and purposes, he cannot become completely absorbed in the activities and sufferings of the chief characters or feel breathless pity and fear.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Life is surely given us for higher purposes than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away, and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten.

I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its circuitous ways.

But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

William Shakespeare

It is extremely important that adequate provision be made for reasonable levels of income to them, for the care of the children which they must leave at home or in school, and for protection of the family unit. One of the prime objectives of the Commission on the Status of Women, which I appointed 18 months ago, is to develop a program to accomplish these purposes.

John F. Kennedy

Could by any chance culture be the meaning and purpose of the second half of life?

God foreknows nothing by contingency, but that He foresees, purposes, and does all things according to His immutable, eternal, and infallible will. By this thunderbolt, "Free-will" is thrown prostrate, and utterly dashed to pieces.

Oh, no doubt the cod is a splendid swimmer - admirable for swimming purposes but not for eating.

These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.

Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the intimated purpose, express character.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

For a revolution is not just a question of pulling a trigger; its purpose is to create a fair just society

Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.

Bertrand Russell

In business, I've discovered that my purpose is to do my best to my utmost ability every day. That's my standard. I learned early in my life that I had high standards.

But for what purpose was the earth formed?" asked Candide. "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

Many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously; As many arrows, loosed several ways, Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; As many lines close in the dial's center; So may a thousand actions, once afoot, End in one purpose, and be all well borne Without defeat.

William Shakespeare

There's a reason why so many who marched that day, and in the days to come, were young — for the young are unconstrained by habits of fear, unconstrained by the conventions of what is. They dared to dream differently, to imagine something better. And I am convinced that same imagination, the same hunger of purpose stirs in this generation. We might not face the same dangers of 1963, but the fierce urgency of now remains. We may never duplicate the swelling crowds and dazzling procession of that day so long ago — no one can match King's brilliance — but the same flame that lit the heart of all who are willing to take a first step for justice, I know that flame remains.

The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said and to answer to the purpose.

Benjamin Franklin

Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us to restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.

Theodore Roosevelt

A curious sport whose object is to put a very small ball into a very small hole with implements ill-designed for the purpose.

Winston Churchill

Surely such a union of indomitable resolution in the achievement of a given purpose, with patience and moderation in the policy pursued, and with kindly charity and consideration and friendliness to those of opposite belief, marks the very spirit in which we of today should approach the pressing problems of the present. These problems have to do. with securing a more just and generally wide spread welfare, so that there may be a more substantial measure of equality in moral and physical well-being among the people [...].

Theodore Roosevelt

I have found no better expression than "religious" for confidence in the rational nature of reality as it is accessible to human reason. Wherever this feeling is absent, science degenerates into uninspired empiricism. … I cannot accept your opinion concerning science and ethics or the determination of aims. What we call science has the sole purpose of determining what is. The determining of what ought to be is unrelated to it and cannot be accomplished methodically. Science can only arrange ethical propositions logically and furnish the means for the realization of ethical aims, but the determination of aims is beyond its scope. At least that is the way I see it.

Albert Einstein

When I was a boy, I had a clock with a pendulum that could be lifted off. I found that the clock went very much faster without the pendulum. If the main purpose of a clock is to go, the clock was the better for losing its pendulum. True, it could no longer tell the time, but that did not matter if one could teach oneself to be indifferent to the passage of time. The linguistic philosophy which cares only about language and not about the world, is like the boy who preferred the clock without the pendulum because, although it no longer told the time, it went more easily than before and at a more exhilarating pace.

Bertrand Russell