CURATED COLLECTION

Finding Meaning in Life

Meaning is not found — it is made, painstakingly, out of what you choose to love and do.

50 quotes found

“
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others.

—Simone de BeauvoirExistentialist Philosopher & Feminist

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

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Life has no other end than itself.

—Alexander HerzenThinker, Writer & Revolutionary

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

—Bertrand RussellPhilosopher, Mathematician & Intellectual

Early Modern ERA • Western Europe

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The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

—Fyodor DostoevskyNovelist

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.

—Leo TolstoyNovelist & Philosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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Without utopia, without belief in an ideal, life would be insufferable.

—Mario Vargas LlosaNovelist

Late Modern ERA • Latin America

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Stories are how we make sense of chaos, how we find meaning in a world gone mad.

—Manjula PadmanabhanAuthor & Playwright

Contemporary ERA • South Asia

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We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

—William ShakespearePlaywright & Poet

Renaissance ERA • Western Europe

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Any life, however long and complicated it may be, is made up of a single moment.

—Jorge Luis BorgesWriter & Essayist

Early Modern ERA • Latin America

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Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.

—Arthur SchopenhauerPhilosopher

Industrial Age ERA • Western Europe

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I spent my life in libraries, but my true teacher was the trash.

—Bohumil HrabalWriter & King

Post-War ERA • Eastern Europe

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Life's great lesson: things rarely turn out as expected, embrace the unexpected.

—Juan VilloroNovelist, Journalist & Essayist

Contemporary ERA • Latin America

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Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

—Sholem AleichemAuthor

Industrial Age ERA • Eastern Europe

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We believe the things we need to believe to keep going.

—Yaa GyasiNovelist

Digital Age ERA • West Africa

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It's not enough to be alive, you must live.

—Alex La GumaNovelist & Activist

Post-War ERA • Southern Africa

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To live means to be constantly separated from those we love.

—Han KangNovelist

Contemporary ERA • East Asia

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The ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is free, is the choice between love and hate.

—Erich FrommPhilosopher

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

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The life you seek you will not find. When gods created man, they allotted death.

—Sin-leqi-unninniScholar

Ancient World ERA • MENA

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We are all dogeaters, consuming and consumed, in the grand, absurd carnival of life.

—Jessica HagedornNovelist, Poet & Artist

Late Modern ERA • Southeast Asia

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Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.

—Erich FrommPhilosopher

Post-War ERA • Western Europe

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