Existential Fulfillment Quotes

In the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present - I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?

The thing that's worth doing is trying to improve our understanding of the world and gain a better appreciation of the universe and not to worry too much about there being no meaning. And, you know, try and enjoy yourself. Because, actually, life's pretty good. It really is.

You weren't born just to live a life and to die; you were born to accomplish something specifically. Matter of fact, success is making it to the end of your purpose; that is success... Success is not just existing. Success is making it to the end of why you were born.

Life without an ideal is spiritual death.

In a world in which there is so much to interest, so much to enjoy, and so much also to correct and improve, everyone who has this moderate amount of moral and intellectual requisites is capable of an existence which may be called enviable; and unless such a person, through bad laws, or subjection to the will of others, is denied the liberty to use the sources of happiness within his reach, he will not fail to find the enviable existence

He's satisfied with himself. If you have a soul you can't be satisfied.

He was justifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.

No matter what is happening in life or in the world - war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones - if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy.

People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward are wasting their time-even when hard at work.

A complete life may be one ending in so full an identification with the oneself that there is no self left to die.

Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition. But when we abandon life our hands are open; there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it.

That’s what existence means: draining one’s own self dry without the sense of thirst.

Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy-that he live in accordance with his own nature.

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

How shall we live so as to have the consciousness of not having lived in vain?

..a man may live long, yet live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the number of your years, but on your will.

We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody

It is, I think, an error to believe that there is any need of religion to make life seem worth living.

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.

Some people appear to be happy, but they simply don't give the matter much thought. Others make plans: I'm going to have a husband, a home, two children, a house in the country. As long as they're busy doing that, they're like bulls looking for the bullfighter: they react instinctively, they blunder on, with no idea where the target is. They get their car, sometimes they even get a Ferrari, and they think that's the meaning of life, and they never question it. Yet their eyes betray the sadness that even they don't know they carry in their soul. Are you happy?

The right to happiness is fundamental; men live so little time and die alone.

The pursuit of meaning, not happiness, is what makes life worthwhile.

Merely to breathe freely does not mean to live.

Introspection is a devouring monster. You have to feed it with much material, much experience, many people, many places, many loves, many creations, and then it ceases feeding on you.

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