Meaningless Life Quotes

• I would rather die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless life.

  Corazon Aquino

  Life, Death, Wise

  106 Copy quote

• Slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.

  Franz Kafka

  Life, Sleep, Novelists

  Franz Kafka (1971). “1910-1913. Tr. by Joseph Kresh”

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• Was our life nothing more than a sequence of anonymous screams in a desert of indifferent stars?

  Ernesto Sabato

  Life, Stars, Novelists

  Ernesto Sabato (2011). “The Tunnel”, p.48, Penguin UK

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• Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Life, Success

  'Macbeth' (1606) act 5, sc. 5, l. 16

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• So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things.

  Morrie Schwartz

  Inspirational Life, Life Lesson, Thinking

  "Tuesdays with Morrie". Book by Mitch Albom, 1997.

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• Life may be not only meaningless but absurd.

  Thomas Nagel

  May, Absurd, Meaningless

  Thomas Nagel (1987). “What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy”, p.82, Oxford University Press

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• We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.

  Charles Bukowski

  Love, Death, Novelists

  Charles Bukowski (2009). “The Captain is Out to Lunch”, p.10, Harper Collins

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  To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" (1891)

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• Man cannot stand a meaningless life.

  Carl Jung

  Men, Dissociation, Meaningless

  "Face to Face", TV Series (1959– ). "Professor Jung", www.imdb.com. 1959.

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• The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.

  Erich Fromm

  Anger, Future, Past

  The Sane Society (1955) ch. 9

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• God alone can deliver us from a life of meaningless activities.

  T. B. Joshua

  Activity, Meaningless

  47 Copy quote

• Whenever you do something without asking yourself, "Why am I doing this?"-that is meaningless life... . The "why" of life makes it meaningful... . Only when an answer is given is one living life as a man.

  Hu Shih

  Meaningful, Live Life, Men

  11 Copy quote

• Even a meaningless life may contain many good breakfasts.

  Ashleigh Brilliant

  Breakfast, May, Meaningless

  5 Copy quote

• I believe it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you can find something concrete to keep you busy while you are living your meaningless life.

  Ruth Ozeki

  Believe, Long, Matter

  5 Copy quote

• Sometimes I feel I'm living a meaningless life, and I get frightened.

  Shia LaBeouf

  Sometimes, Frightened, Feels

  "The Mixed-Up Life of Shia LaBeouf" by Dotson Rader, parade.com. June 14, 2009.

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• When safety is our priority, we live our lives being very, very careful, and we wind up having no lives

  Byron Katie

  Wind, Safety, Priorities

  Twitter post from Dec 18, 2012

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• The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

  Albert Einstein

  Life, Death, Men

  Albert Einstein (2011). “The World As I See It”, p.13, Open Road Media

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• It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours.

  Tim Minchin

  Exciting, Exciting Things, Meaningless

  Tim Minchin 's Commencement Address at The University of Western in Perth, Western Australia, www.timminchin.com. September 25, 2013.

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  Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  543 Copy quote

• Most people work at keeping their job, rather than doing a good job. If you're the former, you're leading a meaningless life. If you're the latter, keep up the good work.

  George Lois

  Jobs, People, Good Job

  43 Copy quote

• A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization.

  Matthew Woodring Stover

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Rights, Civilization

  Matthew Woodring Stover (2008). “Blade of Tyshalle”, p.102, Del Rey

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• Maybe it's all utterly meaningless. Maybe it's all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we're in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us. Any fiction that helps us pay attention to that is religious fiction. The unexpected sound of your name on somebody's lips. The good dream. The strange coincidence. The moment that brings tears to your eyes. The person who brings life to your life. Even the smallest events hold the greatest clues.

  Frederick Buechner

  Meaningful, Dream, Religious

  8 Copy quote

• I think there will be a reaction - a reaction will set in against this communal dissociation. You know, man doesn't stand forever, his nullification. Once, there will be a reaction, and I see it setting in, you know, when I think of my patients, they all seek their own existence and to assure their existence against that complete atomization into nothingness or into meaninglessness. Man cannot stand a meaningless life.

  Carl Jung

  Men, Thinking, Forever

  7 Copy quote

• To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as 'the system' is to speak correctly . . . They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question because the structure demands it be that way. There's no villian, no 'mean guy' who wants them to live meaningless lives, it's just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Mean, Eight, Government

  15 Copy quote