Leo Tolstoy Quotes

If I had to summarize, most broadly, my concerns as a writer, I'd say the question 'How then must we live?' is at the heart of it, for me.

I was looking for what the meaning of life was.

If you cannot render me a reason how I came hither, and what I am, I must go to those who will render me one. And if that craving be not satisfied by a rational theory of life, it will demand satisfaction from some magical theory;

Life is short, and therefore, one thing being certain, death, let us take up a great ideal, and give up the whole life to it. For what is the value of life, this vegetating little low life of man? Subordinating it to one high ideal is the only value that life has.

"What is the meaning of life?" This question has no answer except in the history of how it came to be asked. There is no answer because words have meaning, not life or persons or the universe itself. Our search for certainty rests in our attempts at understanding the history of all individual selves and all civilizations. Beyond that, there is only awe.

We all die at the end, but does that nullify everything? Would most people rather say, "I wish I hadn't been born?" Once you're born you'll have to die, now is that funny or sad?

The only basis for living is believing in life, loving it, and applying the whole force of one's intellect to know it better.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

We are not born to survive. Only to live.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.

The modern meaning of life's end-when does it end? How does it end? How should it end? What is the value of life? How do we measure it?

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead.

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

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.

The meaning of life is life.

I like films that deal with some of those questions that you can never answer: 'Why are we here? What's it about? What happens to us with the choices that we make? What are the ramifications for doing something right, or doing something wrong?' Those universal questions, I enjoy.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

No life if it is properly realized is without its cosmic importance.

I first started asking big questions when I was 12, and by big questions, I mean, 'Why are we here? What is this business? We're alive for a few short decades and then poof, we're out of here.'

Whenever you're talking about meaning, basically... I think a lot of the human experience has to do with trying to understand what things mean, and there's not really any tools to do that unless you're thinking about it in a more spiritual or philosophical realm.

The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia's existence.

Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life is impossible.

Man - a being in search of meaning.

At the heart of life lies a mystery that everybody has to wrestle with. What the heck are we doing here? How does this world work, and how do I fit?

Trying to work out where you find meaning and sense in a meaningless world is my obsession.