Raison D'etre Quotes

• Education in my family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre.

  Steven Chu

  My Family

  Steven Chu - Biographical, www.nobelprize.org. 1997.

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• There is more both of beauty and of raison d'etre in the works of nature- than in those of art.

  Aristotle

  Art, Nature

  6 Copy quote

• Life has no meaning. It doesn't need a meaning. A meaning is an arbitrary thought formulation that we affix to it because we are in the mood. Life is its own raison d'etre.

  Frederick Lenz

  Inspirational, Buddhism, Needs

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• My idea of philosophy is that if it is not relevant to human problems, if it does not tell us how we can go about eradicating some of the misery in this world, then it is not worth the name of philosophy. I think Socrates made a very profound statement when he asserted that the raison d'etre of philosophy is to teach us proper living. In this day and age 'proper living' means liberation from the urgent problems of poverty, economic necessity and indoctrination, mental oppression.

  Angela Davis

  Philosophy, Mean, Thinking

  132 Copy quote

• I try to find stories that I would think that everyone would find interesting, and just a good entertaining story, and then if I can find a story that has a raison d'etre behind it that I feel is important then that's the best for me.

  Norman Jewison

  Thinking, Interesting, Important

  "Denzel Washington and Norman Jewison - part two". The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2000.

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• Because ethics is fundamentally about questioning the ends, the goals and aims of our actions, we must come back to the rules and ask why. So we must return to the philosophy of law, the raison d'etre and the point of what we're asked to do. It's not easy, it's very demanding and it needs intellectual courage.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Philosophy, Law, Goal

  Source: dinmerican.wordpress.com

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• Education in our family was not merely emphasized, it was our raison d'etre ... In this family of accomplished scholars, I was to become the academic black sheep. I performed adequately at high school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre.

  Steven Chu

  Brother, School, Sheep

  4 Copy quote

• What was once a cottage industry dedicated to the discovery and development of new voices and works has become instead the raison d'etre for many a playwright's existence . . .. And since readings have become playwrights' main source of exposure, the nature of playwriting has changed to fit readings' needs. Investigation into what is eminently theatrical has been substituted - more and more these days - by what can simply come across and read well.

  Caridad Svich

  Reading, Discovery, Voice

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• Let us never stop being vigilant about the Oys which face us. But let us never turn them into our raison d'etre. Let us also celebrate the JOYS.

  Deborah Lipstadt

  Joy, Faces, Celebrate

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• Psychic awareness leads to a true perception not only of events, but just of life itself. It is its own raison d'etre.

  Frederick Lenz

  Psychics, Perception, Events

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• The central fact for me is, I think, that the [role of the] intellectual... cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.

  Edward Said

  Thinking, Issues, Embarrassing Questions

  "Representation of the Intellectual". Book by Edward Said, 1994.

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• It is necessary to be focused. This is the raison d'etre of career.

  Frederick Lenz

  Success, Buddhism, Careers

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