Purposelessness Quotes

• People haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

  Eric Hoffer

  Nursing, Opportunity, People

  Eric Hoffer (1980). “The True Believer”

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• Purposelessness is the fruitful mother of crime.

  Charles Henry Parkhurst

  Mother, Prison, Crime

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• A theme that appears repeatedly in the writings of the social critics of the second half of the 20th century is the sense of purposelessness that afflicts many people in modern society.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  Writing, People, Half

  The Unabomber, Theodore Kaczynski (2005). “The Unabomber Manifesto: Industrial Society and Its Future”, p.28, Filiquarian Publishing, LLC.

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• Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

  Eric Hoffer

  Life, Hate, Giving

  Eric Hoffer (1951). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, New York : Harper

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• The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but a life without a purpose.

  Myles Munroe

  Relationship, Life And Death, Tragedy

  Myles Munroe (2010). “Kingdom Principles Trade Paper: Preparing for Kingdom Experience and Expansion”, p.3, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• A universe without purpose should neither depress us nor suggest that our lives are purposeless. Through an awe-inspiring cosmic history we find ourselves on this remote planet in a remote corner of the universe, endowed with intelligence and self-awareness. We should not despair, but should humbly rejoice in making the most of these gifts, and celebrate our brief moment in the sun.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Depressing, Humble, Self

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• If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Walden ch. 18 (1854)

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• The man without a purpose is a man who drifts at the mercy of random feelings or unidentified urges and is capable of any evil, because he is totally out of control of his own life. In order to be in control of your life, you have to have a purpose-a productive purpose.

  Ayn Rand

  Life, Men, Order

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.404, Penguin

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• That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

  Elizabeth Wurtzel

  Depression, Pain, Being Sad

  Elizabeth Wurtzel (2014). “Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America”, p.55, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Loneliness is not lack of company, loneliness is lack of purpose.

  Guillermo Maldonado

  Life, Happy, Loneliness

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• I think Kafka was right when he said that for a modern, secular, nonreligious man, state bureaucracy is the only remaining contact with the dimension of the divine; the impenetrable omnipotence of bureaucracy harbors is divine enjoyment. It is the performance of its very purposelessness that generates an intense enjoyment, ready to reproduce itself forever.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Men, Thinking, Omnipotence

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• A great purposelessness has descended upon modern civilizations. People at large have lost any sense of the meaning and purpose of life; and without an understanding of our own purpose, there can be no true commitment. Whether that commitment is to marriage, family, study, work, God, relationships, or the simple resolutions of our lives, it will be almost impossible to fulfill without a clear and practical understanding of our purpose. Commitment and purpose go hand in hand.

  Matthew Kelly

  Commitment, Simple, Hands

  Matthew Kelly (2015). “The Rhythm of Life: Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose”, p.27, BookBaby

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• If we have nothing to do but service our own pleasure - because society has taught us that's all we're worth and we're exiled from positions of authority from which we could actually shape society - then we just become hedonists. Eventually, despite how great it may look on Saturday night, come Monday morning there's just purposelessness.

  Clive Barker

  Monday, Morning, Night

  "Lord of ILLUSION". Interview with Charles lsherwood, www.clivebarker.com. February 21, 1995.

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• This siren, this goat-footed bard, this half human visitor to our age the hag-ridden and enchanted woods of Celtic antiquity. One catches in his company that flavour of final purposelessness, inner responsibility, existence outside or away from our Saxon good and evil, mixed with cunning, remorselessness, love of power.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Responsibility, Evil, Age

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• I have my own way to walk and for some reason or other Zen is right in the middle of it wherever I go. So there it is, with all its beautiful purposelessness, and it has become very familiar to me though I do not know "what it is." Or even if it is an "it." Not to be foolish and multiply words, I'll say simply that it seems to me that Zen is the very atmosphere of the Gospels, and the Gospels are bursting with it. It is the proper climate for any monk, no matter what kind of monk he may be. If I could not breathe Zen I would probably die of spiritual asphyxiation.

  Thomas Merton

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Atmosphere

  Thomas Merton (1988). “Encounter: Thomas Merton & D.T. Suzuki”

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• This desert town was man's own miracle of pure purposelessness.

  Jane Rule

  Men, Las Vegas, Miracle

  Jane Rule (2013). “Desert of the Heart: A Novel”, p.223, Open Road Media

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• Real serious waiting is done in waiting rooms, and what they all have in common is their purpose, or purposelessness, if you will; they are places for doing nothing and they have no life of their own. ... their one constant is what might be called a decorative rigor mortis.

  Ada Louise Huxtable

  Real, Rigor Mortis, Waiting Rooms

  Ada Louise Huxtable (1986). “ARCHITECTURE, ANYONE?”, Random House

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