Quotes about Meaning

Sometimes I wonder if God put you where you are just to laugh at the jokes he created.

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure that you can be fairly sure that there is absolutely nothing you can be sure of.  If you take the time to think about it all, you start to realize that absolutely everything we experience might not even be real.  For instance, it is actually possible that our thoughts might not be entirely our own.  Our words have no absolute meaning.  In example, when someone mentions the color green it can be assumed that everyone would think of a green color but it can also be assumed that they are not all thinking of the same shade of green.  Any time you come to a conclusion about something you are probably wrong or at least not entirely correct.  Why else would there be so many varying philosophies, religions and social concepts and always more to come.  It can be assumed that we can't know everything about everything for sure.

The meaning and significance you choose ARE your reality -- choose a better meaning and significance and you choose a better reality -- and not just for yourself, also for people around you -- especially for children in your care.

"The Meaning You Give" is both a choice and All-Powerful and "The Meaning You Give" is the true reality of your life.  Therefore, the true reality of your life is what YOU decide it to be by "The Meaning You Give" each situation.

The magic of words is that they have power to do more than convey meaning; not only do they have the power to make things clear, they make things happen.

"The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways, but without material from the external world it is powerless, and unlike the sausage machine it must seize its material for itself, since events only become experiences through the interest we take in them; if they do not interest us, we are making nothing of them. The man, therefore, whose attention is turned within finds nothing worthy of his notice, whereas the man whose attention is turned outward can find within, in those rare moments when he examines his soul, the most varied and interesting assortment of ingredients being dissected and recombined into beautiful and instructive patterns."

Of course it is exhausting, having to reason all the time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.

"Are there any questions?"  An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings.  Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow.  At times like that you sure do have questions.  Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What the hell was this meeting for?" and "Where can I get a drink?"
The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks.  And some fool - some earnest idiot - always asks.  And the speaker always answers.  By repeating most of what he has already said.
But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence left in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the Meaning of Life?"
You never know, somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask.  But when I ask, it is usually taken as a kind of absurdist move - people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous note.
Once, and only once, I asked that question and got a serious answer…

Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out…He turned.  And made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"
Quiet quilted the room.  These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence.
"No questions?"  Papaderos swept the room with his eyes.
So.  I asked.
"Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?"
The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go.
Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious and seeing from my eyes that I was.
"I will answer your question."
Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into a leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter.
And what he said went like this:
"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village.  One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror.  A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place.
"I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece.  This one.  And by scratching it on a stone I made it round.  I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets.  It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find.
"I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game.  As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game but a metaphor for what I might do with my life.  I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of light.  But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it.
"I am a fragment of a mirror whose design and shape I do not know.  Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people.  Perhaps others may see and do likewise.  This is what I am about.  This is the meaning of my life."
And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.

Great Groups are vivid Utopias. They are a picture of the way organizations ought to look -- sort of like a set of aspirations and a graphic illustration of what's possible. So how do we, in our mundane, quotidian organizations, create these things? I think there are a number of factors that we can look at.

Perhaps the key factor, and it's almost a banal thing to say, is finding a meaning in what you do. That is, how do you make people feel that what they're doing is somewhat equivalent to a search for the Holy Grail?

This is more than just having a vision. You can see the difference in the often-cited way in which Steve Jobs brought in John Sculley to take over Apple. At the time, Sculley was destined to be the head of Pepsico. The clincher came when Jobs asked him, "How many more years of your life do you want to spend making colored water when you can have an opportunity to come here and change the world?"

What something is, is a small thing -- What something means is the most powerful energy in the Universe.
Do you want new, instant hope, peace and joy?  Change what something means.

I thought about it, a few years actually, and I decided that meaning and language are two different things. And that what the alien voice in the psychedelic experience wants to reveal is the syntactical nature of reality. That the real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.

Life is not about always being happy -- the art is in being able to feel connected to the Beauty of Life, even when you are sad.  And, if you can express that Beauty, other people can feel connected in a deep and meaningful way.

We will have meaning beyond meaning & happiness beyond happiness because we will keep looking & doing what is needed...

"The master and the student on the journey to mastery, knows that the illusions are the illusions, decides why they are there, and then consciously creates what will be experienced next within the self through the illusions. When facing any life experience, there is a formula, a process, through which you may choose to move through mastery. Simply make the following statements: One, nothing in my world is real. Two, The meaning of everything is the meaning I give it. Three, I am who I say I am, and my experience is what I say it is. This is how to work with the illusions of life."

A lack of relation to the archetypal dimension results in spiritual impoverishment and a sense of meaninglessness in life. But insufficient anchoring of the archetypal in the personal realm results in mere "head trips" and narcissistic preoccupation. There we merely speculate about archetypal meaning rather than try to discover this meaning through living concretely the prosaic and "trivial" problems and difficulties of everyday feelings and relationships-including those that arise in the transferential interaction with one's therapist.

Decisions that apply meanings to your feelings are the cause of great suffering.

It is up to you to give life a meaning.

No story is devoid of meaning ... If you know how to look for it.

Knowing that conscious decisions
and personal memory
are much too small a place to live,
every human being streams at night
into the loving nowhere, or during the day,
in some absorbing work.

The only question in life is whether or not you are going to answer a hearty 'YES!' to your adventure.

- Joseph Campbell

When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So, it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life.

Don't ask yourself the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.  And then go and do that.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

"I'm a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit Power. The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line the decision has been made. I am a disciple of His. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tame visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, platitudes or popularity. I don't have to be right, first recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith lean on His presence, walk by patience, am lifted up by prayer and labor by power. My face is set, my gate is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I won't give up, shut up, let up until I've stayed up. I am disciple of Jesus. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till all know, work till He stops me, and when He comes for His own, He'll have no problem recognizing me at all!"

Author Unknown

Life has no meaning but that which we give it ourselves.

"Satan may have won this battle but God is the Victor of the War. I may be a lost casualty but I will not be a silent one. Today I lay down to lick my wounds for tomorrow I return to battle!"  Steven K. Beckett

“My hunger to become equipped so that I may go forth and spread the word with precision and boldness is not matched even by my desire to breath!”  Steven K. Beckett

"Life is all about change. If it were static, think about how boring it would be. You can't be afraid of it, and you can't worry that you'll mess things up. You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them."

The first question when you are doing anything in life is, “What’s the point?” That is a very spiritual question. What are you doing with your one and precious life? You’ve been given a gift of consciousness and wisdom and now you have this resource for a fairly limited time. What are you going to do with it?

In business you start from the same place. We ask, “What are you doing? What is the point of what you are doing? What are you trying to accomplish? Why is that important to you?” At the same time, to accomplish something in business, unless you want to be a criminal, you have to also value what would further the purpose of other people’s lives. That’s how you are going to get them to buy your product or service: by giving them something that they find valuable. The source of value is that it is congruent with their life’s purpose.

Becoming aware of what is meaningful to you and what is meaningful to those around you is the beginning of every successful enterprise. The moment you lose touch with that you are going to go down in flames. Maybe the words are too spiritual, but this is like basic Business 101. What’s your value proposition? Why would anybody want to buy your product or service?

"We ache to touch intimately what is real, to find the marriage of meaning and matter in our lives and in the world.  We ache to feel and express the fire of being fully alive.  When we cultivate and refuse to separate those essential expressions of a human soul-our spirituality, sexuality, and creativity-we feed the fire of our being, we find that place whee the soul and the sensuous meet, we unfold."