# Quotes about meaning of life - Quotes: 20 - Authors: 9 - Broader topic: [Quotes about life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md) - Topic page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life ## Quotes > Human nature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind; as the sanity of the Old Testament truly said, where there is no vision the people perisheth. But it is precisely because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of fanaticism. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/human-nature-simply.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md), [hope](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hope.md) > Ultimately a man cannot rejoice in anything except the nature of things. Ultimately a man can enjoy nothing except religion. Once in the world's history men did believe that the stars were dancing to the tune of their temples, and they danced as men have never danced since. With this old pagan eudaemonism the sage of the Rubaiyat has quite as little to do as he has with any Christian variety. He is no more a Bacchanal than he is a saint. Dionysus and his church was grounded on a serious joie-de-vivre like that of Walt Whitman. Dionysus made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad. "Drink," he says, "for you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace." So he stands offering us the cup in his hand. And at the high altar of Christianity stands another figure, in whose hand also is the cup of the vine. "Drink" he says "for the whole world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my blood of the new testament that is shed for you. Drink, for I know of whence you come and why. Drink, for I know of when you go and where." [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/ultimately-a-man.md) Topics: [religion](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/religion.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories do not matter. [G. Chesterton](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton.md) · [Heretics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/g-chesterton/heretics/at-any-innocent.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > From the winter of 1821, when I first read Bentham, and especially from the commencement of the Westminster Review, I had what might truly be called an object in life; to be a reformer of the world. My conception of my own happiness was entirely identified with this object. The personal sympathies I wished for were those of fellow labourers in this enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up as many flowers as I could by the way; but as a serious and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon, my whole reliance was placed on this... Autobiography · p. 132 Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > He thought human life a poor thing at best, after the freshness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by. This was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it may be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but when he did, it was with an air of settled and profound conviction. He would sometimes say, that if life were made what it might be, by good government and good education, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. Autobiography · p. 48 Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for. Autobiography · p. 133 Topics: [happiness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life. And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment; that is, for the great majority of mankind. Autobiography · p. 142 Topics: [happiness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > Once when Isaac and I talked about old age, illness, and death, he said it wasn’t so terrible to get sick and old and to die if you’ve been part of life completing itself as a pattern. Even if you don’t make it to old age, it’s still worthwhile, there’s still pleasure in that vision of being part of the pattern of life—especially a pattern expressed in creativity and shared in love. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md) · p. 562 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/once-when-isaac.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > Without the interplay of human against human, the chief interest in life is gone; most of the intellectual values are gone; most of the reason for living is gone. [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md) · [The Naked Sun](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun.md) · p. 398 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/the-naked-sun/without-the-interplay.md) Topics: [relationships](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/relationships.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > Yet it was the impression that the unknown master has set out to create, Phoenix-like, from the dying embers of a great legend. He had captured, and held for all future ages to see, that beauty whose service is the purpose of life, and it sole justification. [Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke.md) · [The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke.md) · p. 292 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/arthur-c-clarke/the-collected-stories-of-arthur-c-clarke/yet-it-was.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md), [beauty](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/beauty.md) > Si me preguntáis en dónde he estado > > debo decir "Sucede." > > Debo de hablar del suelo que oscurecen las piedras, > > del río que durando se destruye: > > no sé sino las cosas que los pájaros pierden, > > el mar dejado atrás, o mi hermana llorando. > > ¿Por qué tantas regiones, por qué un día > > se junta con un día? ¿Por qué una negra noche > > se acumula en la boca? ¿Por qué muertos? [Pablo Neruda](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pablo-neruda.md) · [Residencia en la Tierra / Residence on Earth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pablo-neruda/residencia-en-la-tierra-residence-on-earth.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/pablo-neruda/residencia-en-la-tierra-residence-on-earth/si-me-preguntais.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > Art, at least, teaches us that man cannot be explained by history alone and that he also finds a reason for his existence in the order of nature. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Rebel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel/art-at-least.md) Topics: [art](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end of her life she had taken a 'fiancé,' why she had played at beginning again. Even there, in that home where lives were fading out, evening was a kind of wistful respite. So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if the blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Stranger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger/for-the-first.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > I don't know why, but something inside me snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy. > > He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who'd come up emptyhanded. But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. Yes, that was all I had. But at least I had as much of a hold on it as it had on me. I had been right, I was still right, I was always right. I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn't done that. I hadn't done this thing but I had done another. And so? It was as if I had waited all this time for this moment and for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we're all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also called themselves my brothers? Couldn't he see, couldn't he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned, too. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Stranger](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-stranger/i-dont-know.md) Topics: [death](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/death.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > The absurd ... is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence of Descartes' methodical doubt. Absurdism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and in the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion ... Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition. [Albert Camus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus.md) · [The Rebel](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel.md) · p. 8 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/albert-camus/the-rebel/the-absurd-is-an-experience.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever." Walden · p. 104 Topics: [life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/life.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. Civil Disobedience Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > If there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for its own sake, clearly this must be the good. Will not knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon what we should? If so, we must try, in outline at least, to determine what it is. [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md) · [Nicomachean Ethics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/if-there-is-some.md) Topics: [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > Life seems to be common even to plants, but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. Let us exclude, therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox, and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that has a rational principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense of being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and exercising thought. And, as "life of the rational element" also has two meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what we mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term. Now if the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if we say "so-and-so" and "a good so-and-so" have a function which is the same in kind, e.g. a lyre, and a good lyre-player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a lyre-player is to play the lyre, and that of a good lyre-player is to do so well): if this is the case, and we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence: if this is the case, human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete. > > But we must add "in a complete life." For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy. [Aristotle](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle.md) · [Nicomachean Ethics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics.md) · p. 382 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/aristotle/nicomachean-ethics/life-seems-to-be-common.md) Topics: [morality](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/morality.md), [happiness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md) > This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. [George Bernard Shaw](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw.md) · [Man and Superman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/man-and-superman.md) — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/george-bernard-shaw/man-and-superman/this-is-the.md) Topics: [happiness](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/happiness.md), [meaning of life](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/meaning-of-life.md)