"Only when we are able to attribute a real meaning to the world and to life shall we be able also to give ourselves to such action as will produce results of real value. As long as we look on our existence in the world as meaningless, there is no point whatever in desiring to effect anything in the world." Albert Schweitzer in The Philosophy of Civilization

We Have a common sky. A common firmament encompasses us. What matters it by what kind of learned theory each man looketh for the truth? There is no one way that will take us to so mighty a secret. -Symmachus A.D. 384

"I think, therefore I am." -- Descartes

"To be or not to be? That is the question." -- William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

"The question isn't finding out if the idea is crazy, but if it is crazy enough to be true." -- Bohr

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive."
-- Joseph Campbell

"It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe."
-- Thomas Carlyle

"Although a man may have no jurisdiction over the fact of his existence, he can hold supreme command over the meaning of existence for him."
-- Norman Cousins

"Walk in the ways of thine heart."
-- Ecclesiastes 11:19

"The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse." -- Whitman

"The mind is everything. What you think you become." -- Buddha Gotama

"The human being is a synthesis of infinite and finite, etern and transitory, freedom and necessity." -- Kierkegaard

"The ultimate aim of the human mind, in all its efforts, is to become acquainted with Truth."
-- Eliza Farnham

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"We spend all our time looking for some concept of Truth, but Truth is what is left when we drop all concepts."
-- David Merzel

"Everything in life is most fundamentally a gift. And you receive it best and you live it best by holding it with very open hands."
-- Leo O'Donovan

"Begin at once to live, and count each day as a separate life."
-- Seneca

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not be false to any man."
-- William Shakespeare

"For every complex problem there is a clear, simple and wrong answer." -- Henry Louis Mencken

"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." -- Helen Keller

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." -- Albert Einstein

"We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life." -- William Osler

"There's no such thing as chaos, only certain patterns of order we fail to understand." -- Kierkegaard

"I learned at least this by my experiments. That if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence."
-- Henry David Thoreau

"Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms - to choose
one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." --Viktor Frankl

"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment." --Viktor Frankl

"We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering." -- Viktor Frankl

"The only true mystery is the one we see. But it's the only one which is never talked about." -- Jostein Gaarder (Diagnosis and Other Stories)

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more." -- Willian Shakespeare (Macbeth)

"The purpose of life is a life of purpose."
-- Robert Byrne

"What is the use of running if we are not on the right way?"

"Was hilft laufen wenn man nicht auf den rechten Weg ist?"

--German Proverb

"...happiness if affected more by one's movement toward (or away from) success than by one's position near (or far from) it. Thus a famous king and conqueror, who has always had everything he wanted, but whose fortunes are slipping slightly, is less happy than a blind beggar, who never had anything he wanted, but has just found himself a tasty crust of bread. So the law of happiness says happiness waxes and wanes in direct proportion to a sense of progress toward or away from a goal, a worthy cause, a creation, a companion to be loved..."

-Guy Murchie