This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.
The meaning and purpose of the world remain to a large extent inexplicable. But one thing is clear: the purpose of all events is spiritual. The purpose of existence is that we human beings, all nations and the whole of humanity, should constantly progress toward perfection. If we do this, our finite spirit will be in harmony with the infinite.
Events | Existence | Harmony | Humanity | Meaning | Nations | Perfection | Progress | Purpose | Purpose | Spirit | Will | World |
B. F. Skinner, fully Burrhus Frederic "B.F." Skinner
If there is any purpose or direction in the evolution of culture, it has to do with bringing people under the control of more and more of the consequences of behavior.
Behavior | Consequences | Control | Culture | Evolution | People | Purpose | Purpose |
Eckhart Tolle, born Ulrich Leonard Tolle
When you look upon what you do or where you are as the main purpose of your life, you negate time. This is enormously empowering. The negation of time in what you do also provides the link between your inner and outer purposes, between Being and doing. Whatever you do, you will be doing extraordinarily well, because the doing itself becomes the focal point of your attention. Your doing then becomes the channel through which consciousness enters this world.
Attention | Consciousness | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Time | Will | World |
Achmad Sukarno, born Kusno Sosrodihardjo
Let us remember that no blessing of God is so sweet as life and liberty. Let us remember that the stature of all mankind is diminished so long as nations or parts of nations are still unfree. Let us remember that the highest purpose of man is the liberation of man from his bonds of fear, his bonds of human degradation, his bonds of poverty – the liberation of man from the physical, spiritual, and intellectual bonds which for too long stunted the development of mankind’s majority.
Fear | God | Liberty | Life | Life | Majority | Man | Mankind | Nations | Poverty | Purpose | Purpose | God |
More people succeed with great purpose rather than with great talent.
Having criticized the idea that God gives life meaning by assigning a purpose to us collectively or to each one of us individually, this does not mean that God is irrelevant to the meaning of life. It does not exclude the idea that part of the meaning of life consists in the contemplation or worship of the divine…
Contemplation | God | Life | Life | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Worship | God | Contemplation |
The Nine Mistakes [about ways to think about the meaning of life]: (1) Only the infinite has meaning; the finite can only have meaning insofar as it participates in the infinite. (2) The meaning of life consists in some goal or purpose. (3) The meaning of life is happiness. (4) The meaning of life must be invented. (5) Life cannot have a meaning if the universe is entirely composed of matter, as science teaches us. (6) The sole or primary purpose of evaluations is to guide our choice of actions, and value judgments are reducible to reasons for action. (7) The meaning of a person’s life cannot extend to things beyond the boundaries of his or her mode of living. (8) A person’s life does not having meaning because only linguistic items can be meaningful. (9) The meaning of our lives consists in our living in accordance with a self-determined life-plan.
Action | Choice | Life | Life | Meaning | Plan | Purpose | Purpose | Science | Self | Universe | Think | Value |
Noel M. Tichy and Stratford Sherman
Control your destiny or someone else will.
This world is by definition the place where God hides Himself. It contains His light, i.e., the knowledge of Him, in a hidden way. And the purpose of life is to discover God; or as the prophet says: “to fill the world with the knowledge of God.”
God | Knowledge | Life | Life | Light | Purpose | Purpose | World | God |
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.
Important | Life | Life | Meaning | Purpose | Purpose | Religion | Thought | Thought |
[Idolatry as] the moments when we forget who we really are and instead of remembering that we are sparks of the Divine, we start giving up our power to a guru, an ideology, a romantic obsession, a stressful job that begins to define us, or an unhealthy habit we think we can’t live without. Even is we no longer build or worship physical idols like in ancient times, we have modern-day addictions and pressures that cause us to forget that our purpose here is to be a vehicle for Divine energies.
Cause | Day | Giving | Habit | Obsession | Power | Purpose | Purpose | Worship | Think |