Purpose quotes
3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside purpose — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"A miracle is an event which creates faith. That is the purpose and nature of miracles. Frauds deceive. An event which creates faith does not deceive: therefore it is not a fraud, but a miracle."
"The Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider it purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? it is neither."
"The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but the fly comes close."
"We are no longer in a state of growth; we are in a state of excess. We are living in a society of excrescence. The boil is growing out of control, recklessly at cross purposes with itself, its impacts multiplying as the causes disintegrate."
"Success is a product of unremitting attention to purpose."
"Love without action is meaningless and action without love is irrelevant."
"It is better not to proceed at all than to proceed without purpose."
"Those are weaklings who know the truth and uphold it as long as it suits their purpose, and then abandon it."
"No compromise with the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong."
"No better love than love with no objective, no more satisfying work than work with no purpose. If you could give up tricks and cleverness, that would be the cleverest trick!"
"Our purpose here on earth: to manifest the very nature of our spirit, which is touched by the spirit of God."
"... regard this body as a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better ordered than any machine that can be devised by man, and contains in itself movements more wonderful than those in any machine. ... it is for all practical purposes impossible for a machine to have enough organs to make it act in all the contingencies of life in the way in which our reason makes us act."
"If you do not believe in a personal God, the question: 'What is the purpose of life?' is unaskable and unanswerable."
"Constancy of purpose is the first principle of success."
"The purpose of law is to prevent the strong always having their way."
"Billy was fascinated by the television. At its most basic level, it occupied his time and shut out the demons of isolation. This was another irony because, for so long, he had shunned the tube for a similar purpose-to prevent it from bombarding his brain with demons of banality. However, each time he turned the machine on, he began to discover a world of assorted delights, as well as gain insight into the insidious manner in which this medium was shaping the mass psyche. If nothing else, he learned there was nothing innocuous about it."
"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."
"Education is the sum total of one's experience, and the purpose of higher education is to widen our experiences beyond the circumscribed existence or our own daily lives."
"The purposes of the Almighty are perfect, and must prevail, though we erring mortals may fail to accurately perceive them in advance."
"In almost every computation a great variety of arrangements for the succession of the processes is possible, and various considerations must influence the selections amongst them for the purposes of a calculating engine. One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation."
