Search For Meaning Quotes

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth

“I live to enjoy life by the littlest things, feeling the grass between my toes, breathing fresh air, watching the wind sway the trees, enjoying the company of loved ones, a deep conversation, getting lost in a good book, going for a walk in nature, watching my kids grow up. Just the feeling itself of being alive, the absolute amazing fact that we are here right now, breathing, thinking, doing.”
― Marigold Wellington

“Life, just like the stars, the planets and the galaxies, is just a temporary structure on the long road from order to disorder. But that doesn't make us insignificant, because we are the Cosmos made conscious. Life is the means by which the universe understands itself. And for me, our true significance lies in our ability to understand and explore this beautiful universe.”
― Brian Cox

“I lined a fishing net with heavy-gauge plastic. Inside I placed what I thought was the right amount of nesting material for two such enormous birds. It approximated to three days’ fuel. This was no insignificant amount and I knew that I might be colder because I had given it away. But what is a few days of feeling cold compared to a new albatross in the World?..”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi

“I’m at a crossroads. I believe I only have one chance to pick the proper direction.”
― Destin Bays, True Love

“What unites us is our despair. Do other people wish to know that someone else walked this earth with a similar batch of questions and frustration? Am I alone trussed with a long suppressed scream lodged within my breast shouting out in the vacant darkness of night, “Who am I, where am I, and where shall I go with this dreaded case of hopelessness, self-doubt, and self-loathing that is weighing me down, making me crazy, and blindsiding any chance to discover personal happiness?” On many occasions, I felt like surrendering to life, no longer willing to endure the physical aches and devastating emotional blows that human life requires. Lost, exiled, and living in alienation from the entire world I searched for a reentry port to a meaningful life. I must work; honest toil is good for the body, mind, and spiritual health of human beings. I shall go to the grave utterly spent from living an authentic life of giving the better part of oneself to the world.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“It’s not always enough to go looking for the place we belong... Sometimes we need to make that place.”
― Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

“There is a misconception of those who explore; it is not answers they seek, but the longing for another question.”
― Brian S Woods, The Codex Bellum III: The Observer Effect

“One day, a few days after the liberation, I walked through the country past flowering meadows, for miles and miles, toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose to the sky and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around; there was nothing but the wide earth and sky and the larks' jubilation and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around, and up to the sky—and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself or of the world—I had but one sentence in mind—always the same: "I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.”
― Victor E. Frankl

“Ce chien... À quoi il pense? Que cherche-t-il? Où va-t-il? J'ai l'impression de voir mon ombre!”
― Jorj Abou Mhaya, Ville avoisinant la Terre

“İçini tümüyle dolduran bu duygunun üzerinde düşündü ağır ağır yürüyüp giderken. Derin derin düşündü bunu, adeta derin bir su içinde kendini koyuverip duygunun ta dibine, nedenlerin bulunduğu yere kadar indi, çünkü düşünmek -öyle görünüyordu ona- nedenleri bilip tanımak demekti, ancak bu yoldan duygular bilgilere dönüşür ve yitip gitmeyerek bir varlık kazanır, içlerindeki özü ışıyarak çevrelerine yansıtırdı.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“The meaning of life is found in the search for meaning.”
― Mircea Eliade

“The simplest solution for the most complex puzzle is to not solve it, for it cannot be solved. Just understand it fully and appreciate the beauty of its complexity.”
― Rajesh`, Random Cosmos

“We all thirst for recreation. Even a modest person occasionally needs to take a piquant break from work to renew their salty internal drive. What I cannot understand was why a diet of simply surviving, peppered with some lowbrow form of amusement, proved inadequate to satiate my deepest angst. Why do I crave meaning in life? Why do I hunger for some essential substance in life beyond sampling a banquet of consumer pleasures? My entrenched state of ignorance precludes me from describing what garnish is missing from an unfilled life.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“My sense of loss and deprivation is debilitating. Could it be that only by understanding our unique self and the spirit that motivates us that we can gain personal insight, understand one another, and subsequently discover our place in the universe?”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“A person can cultivate a new persona from a pâté of earthy personal experiences. How do I reconcile all my faults and propagate all my innate gifts to create the type of self that I am happy to claim responsibility for authorship? How do I go about turning over the peat moss that lines the feldspar of my rocky existence? How do I plow under the seedlings of my youth and grow a protective bed of winter clover to shield my adulthood? How do I mulch the clippings from variegated personal experiences, ferment the rot, harrow new rows, and plant hardy spring wheat to take root in the enriched chocolate loam of a fertile mind? Is all this laborious plow pulling work of creating a fresh and authentic self-identify worth the backbreaking effort? How does one go about revamping their personal storyline? How do I cast myself into a robust image that does not appall other people? My continued existence entails industriously giving seed to the lush myths that I live by, amassing dwindling personal willpower, and resolving to impose upon my weathered soul the missing character traits that wait forging in the glowering inferno fed by a rising mountain of ignited personal anxiety.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“To travel far is to search for joy and well being in order to pursue the one thing we desire the most which is our happiness that lies within ourselves.”
― Jeff Morco

“As humans, we innately search for meaning in life, constantly seeking answers from outside ourselves. But true meaning comes from inside us - specifically, in the form of dreams.”
― Lawren Leo, Horse Magick: Spells and Rituals for Self-Empowerment, Protection, and Prosperity

“A person can either set goals or simply live one day at a time without any directive intention. What is an ideal person? I cannot continue living as before without evaluating my former actions and the dire consequences of an egotistical existence lacking passion and compassion. I cannot survive without seeking truth and beauty. My former self cannot hold me hostage if I intend to become all that I can be.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster

“Ni toi ni moi ne sommes sûrs qu'il y a un fin mot de l'histoire, mais ça vaut la peine de le chercher.”
― Michel Jeury, Les gens heureux ont une histoire

“It’s in fretting about how to keep abreast of constantly fluctuating fashions - such as whether feathers or beads are the best way to put one’s own spin on a new trend - that the hungers of the Capitol citizens for belonging, for meaning, and for self-expression are expressed.”
― Christina Van Dyke

“सभी कुछ है मगर इक फांस सी
चुभती है क्यों फिर भी
वो क्या है जो नहीं भरता
वो क्या है जो अधूरा है.
ये कैसी ख़ोज है जो ख़त्म
होकर भी नहीं होती
ये कैसी प्यास है जो
दिन-ब-दिन बढ़ती ही जाती है... !!”
― Sandeep Atre, Baat Jazbaat Ki

“Be patient. Be wise. Search within yourself always. As Socrates told us, an unexamined life is not worth living.”
― Ruta Sepetys, I Must Betray You

“etc."
I have been searching for my self everywhere,
but I can’t find it!
I can’t even remember when exactly I lost it…
I search for it in everything I love and hate
in foreign and familiar cities
in all the kind, exhausted, and mean faces…
I search for my self near water springs and along river shores
On mountaintops and in the scent of wildflowers…
Between the branches of olive and fig trees,
but without any trace or hope…
I search in teacups, in the corners of old cafés
In songs and interludes…
In books
In the memories of everyone who ever knew me
Everyone I betrayed or was betrayed by…
I search in lines and sentences,
But all in vain…
I even search unsuccessfully in the sentences that list options,
including the examples and each “etc.” after each list of options…
I keep wondering how did I so quietly lose it?
And each time I ask the loved ones about my strong desire
to reunite with my lost self,
I realize they have no leads other than long and wide lists
of places, things, activities, individuals, and hobbies
where I may possibly “find” my self…
In each list they suggest, I find countless options
and countless lines ending with “etc.”
They don’t understand
that I have turned every rock and searched behind every “etc.”
And today I finally realized
That my self wasn’t from here,
and thus, it was never here…
That, all along, I have been searching for an illusion
that never existed…

[Original poem published in Arabic on March 11, 2024 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“A pilgrim needs a nominal destination, but it is the road that makes the journey. Pilgrims travel out of the sheer yearning to discover something missing, a previously unexcavated layer that, once revealed under the grime, shines like gold. The pilgrim desires knowledge through experience. She desires the fullness of the big picture.”
― Kapka Kassabova, Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time

“Stardog awoke to a world, beautiful and plentiful... and wondered, 'there are so many creatures here, could there are another like me?”
― E. K. Mosley, The Last Stardog

“Superficiality is a mentality. Those who love for superficial reasons will also hate for superficial reasons; those who vote for one candidate for superficial reasons will also dislike the other for superficial reasons; those who live for superficial reasons are more susceptible to burying themselves deeply in an existential debt, and then it comes: regret when on the bed of death.”
― Criss Jami

“A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, he flew over the forest and the mountains, was a heron, gobbled fish, hungered as a heron hungers, spoke heron croak, died the death of a heron. A dead jackal lay on the sandy shore, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside its corpse, became a dead jackal, lay on the strand, swelled up, stank, putrefied, was dismembered by hyenas, skinned by vultures, became bones, dust, blew in open country. And Siddhartha's soul returned, died, decayed, turned to dust, tasted the muddy rush of the cycle, waiting in new thirst like a hunter for the gap where the cycle could be escaped, where the end of causes, where eternity free of suffering would begin. He mortified his senses, he slew his memory, he slid out of his I into a thousand alien shapes, became beast, carrion, stone, wood, water, and found himself every time awakening again, in the light of the sun or the moon, again he was I, whirling around in the round, he felt thirst, conquered thirst, felt thirst anew.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“Haunting her was the idea that we each summon our own death. Some in moments of greatest suffering. Some summon death in their moments of greatest joy and love, out of the awareness that such a moment is a pinnacle never again to be reached.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, The Invention of Sound