Giving Things Meaning Quotes

#1. The subject of pain is the business I am in - to give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering. The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses.

Louise Bourgeois

#2. I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,Sniff them and think and sniff again and tryOnce more to think what it is I am remembering,Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,With no meaning, than this bitter one.

Edward Thomas

#3. I like to think that death gives life meaning. I like that philosophy.

Kirsten Dunst

#4. It was an act of devotion. A little like writing or loving someone - it doesn't always feel worthwhile, but not giving up somehow creates unexpected meaning over time.

Miranda July

#5. We all construct worldviews that give us a sense of meaning. Mostly it is about belonging to a group and having a sense of identity and purpose.

Carmen Lawrence

#6. In general, the man who is readily disposed to sacrifice himself is one who does not know how else to give meaning to his life. The profession of enthusiasm is the most sickening of all insincerities.

Cesare Pavese

#7. The past is always with us. It echoes through every living moment, giving it depth and meaning beyond itself. Sometimes the past is so powerful, those echoes threaten to overwhelm the present.

Trish Feehan

#8. Women find ways to give sense and meaning to daily life
ways to be useful in the community, to keep mind active and soul growingeven while they change diapers and cook vegetables.

Lillian B. Rubin

#9. I've never been a snob. It [movie] is just about stories. And I've never felt just because it's a big screen and you plop down your eight bucks that gives it a special meaning. It's just "Are you good at telling a story?"

Steven Soderbergh

#10. Never be too busy for the people you love. Never allow pursuits or possessions to become bigger priorities than your relationships. Love is what gives meaning to life.

Dave Willis

#11. As the valley gives height to the mountain, so can sorrow give meaning to pleasure; as the well is the source of the fountain, deep adversity can be a treasure.

William Arthur Ward

#12. Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.

Freya Stark

#13. Love is energy: it can neither be created nor destroyed. It just is and always will be, giving meaning to life and direction to goodness ... Love will never die.

Bryce Courtenay

#14. To give life a meaning, one must have a purpose larger than self.

Will Durant

#15. I know how to give the meaning of a word but not how to give the intention of a word.

Stanley Cavell

#16. I am powerful and I am loving.
I have much to give to this world.
I am a person of worth.
I deserve love.
I am a capable person.
My life has meaning.
My life is unfolding perfectly.
There is plenty of time.

Susan Jeffers

#17. Love gives life purpose and meaning.

Joyce Meyer

#18. I think we're inevitably going to be depressed when we focus the major part of our energy and attention on something that doesn't give us meaning, only material things.

Sam Keen

#19. If sacrifice is not the theme of my life, there's no sense telling the story.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#20. It is not that things give meaning to words; it is that meaning makes things "things." It does not make things in their subsistence; but it does make things in their discreteness for the understanding.

Richard M. Weaver

#21. Your busy schedule has plenty of quantity. Think of how you could give it some true quality and meaning. Consider the people, the beliefs, the goals, the things which are really imp9ortant to you. Make time for them, not someday, but right now. Don't just fill your schedule. Fill your life.

Ralph Marston

#22. Raising your level of performance requires a proper mentality and meaning from within. This gives you the ability and drive to work on the things necessary to go to a higher level. When people ask me how to raise their level of performance, the first thing I ask is, How important is it to you?

Dan Gable

#23. Irony is the hardest addiction of all. Forget heroin. Just try giving up irony, the deep-down need to mean two things at once, to be in two places at once, not to be there for the catastrophe of a fixed meaning.

Edward St. Aubyn

#24. The first step into the realm of giving is ... not manward but Godward: an utter yielding of our best. So long as our idea of surrender is limited to the renouncing of unlawful things, we have never grasped its true meaning: that is not worthy of the name for 'no polluted thing' can be offered.

Lilias Trotter

#25. To do good things in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning to your life.

Robert Browning

#26. God has left that for the rest of time and eternity in order to give us something to do in the hereafter. We'll be able to learn more about the past and why things happened, as well as God's logic and purposes and the meaning of it all.

David Berg

#27. Those who live the most fully realized lives - giving back to their families, societies, and ultimately themselves - tend to find meaning in their obstacles.

Susan Cain

#28. Institutions do all the things that are supposed to be bad. They impede personal exploration. They enforce conformity. But they often save us from our weaknesses and give meaning to life.

David Brooks

#29. What you give meaning to is what causes your emotion. Before you react know why you are giving something so much energy or fear. When you begin to understand why you give things meaning you can begin to change how you react and why you do what you do.

Shannon L. Alder

#30. The meaning of "He will give us all things" can be put thus: one day we will see that nothing - literally nothing - which could have increased our eternal happiness has been denied us, and that nothing - literally nothing - that could have reduced that happiness has been left with us.

J.I. Packer

#31. I never liked the idea of giving interviews. One says many things, but when they are published, they become shortened, condensed. The ideas lose their meaning.

Raul Castro

#32. In the depths of the human soul ... the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things.

Pope John Paul II

#33. He reflected that what is important is not things, but the meaning we give to things. Sooner or later death comes for everyone. More important than putting off death, is giving it a meaning.

Silvana De Mari

#34. Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose.

Doris Grumbach

#35. Art and psychoanalysis give shape and meaning to life and that is why we adore them, but life as it is lived has no shape and meaning ...

Iris Murdoch

#36. My fans are who I am. You give meaning to my life. You will never know the connection I feel to you.

Lady Gaga

#37. The question is not to know what is the meaning of life, but what meaning I can give to my life.

Dalai Lama

#38. A satyagrahi lays down his life, but never gives up. That is the meaning of the 'do or die' slogan.

Mahatma Gandhi

#39. Peace is a certain resistance to the terrible satisfactions of war. It's a commitment to living with a certain kind of vulnerability to others and susceptibility to being wounded that actually gives our individual lives meaning.

Judith Butler

#40. Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering

Viktor E. Frankl

#41. Grammar is what gives sense to language ... sentences make words yield up their meaning. Sentences actively create sense in language. And the business of the study of sentences is grammar.

David Crystal

#42. Man's Chief purpose ... is the creation and preservation of values; that is what gives meaning to our civilization, and the participation in this is what gives significance, ultimately, to the individual human life.

Lewis Mumford

#43. Realize that by hurting your own characters, you are not a sadist. You are not deliberately hurting your loved ones merely to watch them suffer. You're giving a gift. You're helping them grow and develop. Your characters take on deeper meaning to become more alive on your pages. They'll become real.

James Chartrand

#44. The meaning of life is simply the meaning we give to it.

Bryant McGill

#45. If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are.

Pablo Picasso

#46. Writing isn't about the destination-writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else.

Sue Grafton

#47. Faced with the nonsense question 'What is the meaning of a word?' and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up.

J.L. Austin

#48. Narratives are the primary way in which we make sense of our lives, as opposed to, for example schema,cognition, beliefs, constructs. Definition of narrative include the important element of giving meaning to events and experiences over time by connecting them as a developing, continuing story.

Jacqui Stedmon

#49. Effort is one of those things that gives meaning to life. Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it.

Carol S. Dweck

#50. A gift isn't a gift unless it has meaning. Just giving things to people, especially children, create the expectation of more things.

Oprah Winfrey

#51. What you do every day should contribute to giving your life meaning. If it doesn't, why are you doing it?

Don Hutcheson

#52. Poetry connects us to what is deepest in ourselves. It gives us access to our own feelings, which are often shadowy, and engages us in the art of making meaning. It widens the space of our inner lives. It is a magical, mysterious, inexplicable (though not incomprehensible) event in language.

Edward Hirsch

#53. The true office of any faith is to give life a meaning which death cannot destroy.

Leo Tolstoy

#54. The story is a testament to the consolations that get me through and give meaning to every area of my life

Michael J. Fox

#55. Well, if I'm only a result of past causes, then I'm a victim of those past causes. There is no deeper meaning behind things that gives me a reason to be here.

James Hillman

#56. Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn

Orson Welles

#57. Your life has purpose and meaning. Don't devalue yourself giving someone else meaning.

Michelle Cook-Hall

#58. The world somehow is always the same. The only thing that can improve is the individual life. One can live a good life. One can give life a meaning. Either by drinking oneself to death or by painting oneself to death or by loving oneself to death.

Odd Nerdrum

#59. The heart of human excellence often begins to beat when you discover a pursuit that absorbs you, frees you, challenges you, or gives you a sense of meaning, joy, or passion.

Terry Orlick

#60. When you reach out to those in need, do not be surprised if the essential meaning of something occurs.

Stephen Richards

#61. Giving builds loyal customers and turns those customers into supporters ... You can find passion and profit and meaning all at once, right now.

Blake Mycoskie

#62. Man and man's earth are unexhausted and undiscovered. Wake and listen! Verily, the earth shall yet be a source of recovery. Remain faithful to the earth, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth.

Friedrich Nietzsche

#63. I learned that to find meaning in life, you can't separate yourself from serving people and giving your life to them.

Felix Muruchi

#64. Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be. Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our time and our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.

Thomas Head Raddall

#65. The weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well.

Edgar Lee Masters

#66. Love has a reason There's a meaning to the world We're giving love.

Gavin DeGraw

#67. Is death that which gives meaning to life? And I said, no, life is that which gives meaning to life.

Donald Barthelme

#68. Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.

Abraham Joshua Heschel