This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"In the depth of every living religion there is a point at which the religion itself loses its importance, and that to which it points breaks through its particularity, elevating it to spiritual freedom and with it to a vision of the spiritual presence in other expressions of the ultimate meaning of man’s existence." -
"Joy has something within itself which is beyond joy and sorrow. This something is called blessedness... It preserves in itself its opposite, sorrow. It provides the foundation for happiness and pleasure. It is present in all levels of man’s striving for fulfillment. It consecrates and directs them. It does not diminish or weaken them. It does not take away the risks and dangers of the joy of life. It makes the joy of life possible in pleasure and pain, in happiness and unhappiness, in ecstasy and sorrow. Where there is joy, there is fulfillment. And where there is fulfillment, there is joy. In fulfillment and joy the inner aim of life, the meaning of creation, and the end of salvation, are attained." -
"Faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, in consequence of which man does not destroy himself but lives. Faith is the force of life. If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not believe there was something to live for, he would not live. If he does not see and understand the unreality of the finite, he believes in the finite; if he sees that unreality, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith it is impossible to live." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"I believe that the true welfare of man lies in the fulfillment of the Will of God; and that His will consists in men loving each other, and therefore behaving toward others as they desire that others should behave with them. I believe that the meaning of life of every man, therefore, lies only in the increase of love in himself; that this increase of love leads the individual man in this life toward greater and greater welfare; that after death it gives the greater welfare the more love there be in the man; and that, at the same time, more than anything else, it contributes to the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, i.e., to an order of life where the discord, deceit, and violence which now reign will be replaced by free agreement, truth, and brotherly love between men." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." - Leo Tolstoy, aka Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Tolstoi
"A human life can have meaning without an objective purpose, value or pattern. We can construct our own values in a morally patternless world." - Keith Ward
"Religion is not necessary to give meaning to life, thought it is necessary to any claim that there is one state or being of supreme intrinsic value, and there is one overridingly important human purpose and that is an objective, morally ordered pattern." - Keith Ward
"Meaning is not a luxury for us… It is a kind of spiritual oxygen, we might say, that enables our souls to live." - Dallas Willard
"The surest way to destroy a neurosis is to induce a sense of creative purpose, of meaning." - Colin Wilson
"The brain constantly searches for meaning, for connections between objects and qualities that cross-cut the senses and provide information about external existence… In order to grasp the human condition, both the genes and culture must be understood, not separately in the traditional manner of science and the humanities, but together, in recognition of the realities of human evolution." -
"The basic sense of vocation which once gave meaning and direction to all walks of life has been the causality of collectivism, existentialism and sexualism, three of the moods induced by widespread practical atheism." - John Joseph Wright
"When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life." - Greg Anderson
"The use of creativity as an instrument for personal and social gain is by no means the whole story. In its deeper philosophical implications, creativity is a quest for meaning. It is an attempt to penetrate the mystery of the self, and perhaps the even greater mystery of Being." - Frank Barron
"I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise it is false. Whatever is achieved must be achieved with the full exercise of passion, of vision, of pain, of fear, and of sorrow. How do we know ... that our part of the meaning of the universe might not be a rhythm in sorrow?" -
"What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of common meaning." - David Bohm, fully David Joseph Bohm
"It is no longer enough to be smart — all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential." - Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman
"I remember that one time Carl [Sagan] was giving a talk, and he spelled out, in a kind of withering succession, these great theories of demotion that science has dealt us, all of the ways in which science is telling us we are not who we would like to believe we are. At the end of it, a young man came up to him and he said: "What do you give us in return? Now that you've taken everything from us? What meaning is left, if everything that I've been taught since I was a child turns out to be untrue?" Carl looked at him and said, "Do something meaningful."" -
"Man can find meaning in life, short and perilous as it is, only through devoting himself to society. The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil." - Albert Einstein
"Words may show a man's wit, but actions, his meaning." - Benjamin Franklin
"Dreams show us how to find meaning in our lives, how to fulfill our own destiny, how to realize greater potential of life within us." - Marie-Louise von Franz
"The realm of love, reason, and justice exists only because, and inasmuch as, man has been able to develop these powers in himself throughout the process of his evolution. In this view there is no meaning to life except the meaning man himself gives to it; man is utterly alone except inasmuch as he helps another." -
"Find meaning not in possessions or positions, but in personal commitments to ideals bigger than our own needs. And the ideals that seem to consistently provide this kind of meaning are ideals of service-of acting for the common good and overcoming whatever risks and obstacles may lie in the way." - John Graham
"The seduction of war is insidious because so much of what we are told about it is true; It does create a sense of comradeship, which obliterates our alienation and makes us, for perhaps the only time of our life, feel we belong. War allows us to rise above our small stations in life. We find nobility in a cause and feelings of selflessness and even bliss. And at a time of soaring deficits and financial scandals and the very deterioration of our domestic fabric, war is a fine diversion. War, for those who enter into combat, has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it the "lust of the eye" and warns believers against it. War gives us a distorted sense of self; it gives us meaning." - Chris Hedges
"Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it." - Harold Kushner, fully Harold Samuel Kushner
"If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth." - Mitsugi Saotome
"A life of mere self-preservation, for which we may well have instincts, would be for most of us a life without meaning. We want something beyond the routine of a boring and aimless existence. We want to satisfy standards of value to which we consciously adhere." - Irving Singer
"Human beings seek a prior meaning in everything as a defense against doubts about the importance of anything, including man's existence ... To affirm that there is a supreme meaning of life is to give the intellect an opportunity to escape the disquieting conclusion that nothing people do can possibly have more than slight importance." - Irving Singer
"If humanity, or life in general, was created to serve a particular purpose beyond itself, our being would be analogous to a manufactured artifact. There seems to be little in this state of affairs to justify the exultation that religious people sometimes feel in thinking that God's plan reveals the purpose and the meaning of all reality." - Irving Singer
"Meaning in life is the creating of values in accordance with the needs and inclinations that belong to one's natural condition." - Irving Singer
"Our contemporary concern about meaning is peculiar to the modern world. It arises from our relative wealth and freedom in the context of malaise, even despair, about man's ability to achieve lasting and genuine happiness." - Irving Singer
"Our species is unique in its great creativity with respect to meaningfulness. Our systems of meaning vary tremendously from moment to moment, from one individual to another, and from society to society." - Irving Singer
"Rather than asking for the meaning of life as though it were a single or comprehensive pattern that permeates all existence a priori, we do better to investigate how it is that life acquires or may be given a meaning." - Irving Singer
"We often use the word "meaning" in relation to personal feelings and emotional significance. It then reveals and sometimes declares our highest values. It manifests ideals that we cherish and pursue." - Irving Singer
"What higher grades of significance, what profound meanings and messages, does the world give us that we are overlooking? It is said that to a sage, the leaves on the trees are like the pages of a sacred text, filled with transcendent meaning. We do not see things only as they are, but also as we are." - Richard Tarnas, fully Richard Theodore Tarnas
"The art of peace does not rely on weapons or brute force to succeed; instead we put ourselves in tune with the universe, maintain peace in our own realms, nurture life, and prevent death and destruction. The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves and adheres to the power of love." - Morihei Ueshiba
"To be fully aware of one's existential situation means that one becomes aware of self-creation. To be aware of the fact that one constitutes oneself, that there are no absolute external referents, that one assigns an arbitrary meaning to the world, means to become aware of one's fundamental groundlessness." - Irvin David Yalom
"I see myself as a man who is searching for the meaning in life. This is rather different from being a staunch believer in something. A believer is someone who senses a consciousness or a direction and believes in it. The one who searches for meaning has not yet found the direction yet." - Aharon Appelfeld