Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Mission

"Unrequited love is the meaning of life. We’re here to love but not to be loved, to give but not receive. Our mission in this world is to improve humanity and leave a better history than we found. Only selfless love has such power. Only love without interest or expectation of reward can change human beings... To give love without receiving love is the truest love and brings the greatest happiness there is in life." - Adolfo Barcella

"God gave every man individuality of constitution, and a chance for achieving individuality of character. He puts special instruments into every man’s hands by which to make himself and achieve his mission." - Josiah Gilbert Holland, also Joshua Gilbert Holland

"At first glance, life appears meaningless, futile, full of contradictions and absurdities. But a deeper, meditating look uncovers beauty, order and harmony, revealing life as a supreme accomplishment of eternal wisdom... All of creation is an act of love and providence, a drama imbued with meaning... In simple words: Life is a mission of awareness and awakening and deep enlightenment. We are here to sense this divine presence beyond all phenomena. We are here to recognize a deep urge in our hearts to act in harmony, in conformity and in love with these divinities." - Mustapha Mahmoud

"Our purpose is to consciously, deliberately evolve toward a wise, more liberated and luminous state of being. Deep down, all of us are probably aware that some kind of mystical evolution is our true task. Yet we suppress the notion with considerable force because to admit to it is to admit that most of our political gyrations, religious dogmas, social ambitions and financial ploys are not merely counterproductive but trivial. Our mission is to jettison those pointless preoccupations and take on once again the primordial cargo of inexhaustible ecstasy." - Tom Robbins, fully Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins

"Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race." -

"To achieve something great in the world you need Passion To fulfill vision, a great leader’s courage comes from Passion Whatever it may be, you must find your Passion If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins Follow your passion and success will follow you! Never underestimate the power of passion Without passion religion is spiritless Without Passion history is meaningless Without Passion art is useless Follow your passion and success will follow you! When you take up a mission with passion There are no dreams too large No innovation unimaginable No frontiers beyond reach Follow your passion and success will follow you! Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel Our reason is the pilot that steers her Without winds the vessel would not move Without a pilot she would be lost Follow your passion and success will follow you! There is no end and there is no beginning There is only the passion of life Passion is universal humanity Passion is the genesis of genius Follow your passion and success will follow you! " - Pooja Natarajan

"Your mission is proving that a love for the earth, and for the things of the earth, is possible without materialism, a love without greed" -

"Religion finds the love of happiness and the principles of duty separated in us; and its mission - its masterpiece is, to reunite them." - Alexandre Vinet, fully Alexandre Rodolphe Vinet

"He who wishes to fulfill his mission in the world must be a man of one idea, that is of one great overmastering purpose, overshadowing all his aims, and guiding and controlling his entire life." - Julius Bate

"Whenever I hear people talking about "liberal ideas," I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character goes forward. They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity." - John Hall

"There is evil enough in man, God knows; but it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible and fragrant with gentleness and charity." - John Hall

"The mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her." - William Morris Hunt

"Life is a mission. Every other definition is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim." - Guiseppe Mazzini

"Women are too much inclined to follow in the footsteps of men, to try to think as men think, to try to solve the general problems of life as men solve them.. The women is not needed to do man’s work. she is not needed to think man’s thoughts... Her mission is not to enhance the masculine spirit, but to express the feminine; hers is not to preserve a man-made world, but to create a human world by the infusion of the feminine element into all of its activities." - Margaret Sanger, fully Margaret Higgins Sanger Slee

"The picture of a flower in a botanical book is information; its mission ends with our knowledge. But in pure art it is a personal communication. And therefore until it finds its harmony in the depth of our personality it misses the mark. We can treat existence solely as a textbook furnishing us lessons, and we shall not be disappointed, but we know that there its mission does not end. For in our joy in it, which is an end in itself, we feel that it is a communication, the final response of our knowing but the response of our being." -

"Israel has a mission still; Truth-seeking in the world of thought, and right-doing in the world of action!" - Stephen Samuel Wise

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive, it isn’t." -

"Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence." - Mourning Dove or Christal Quintasket, aka Mourning Dove Salish and Christine Quintasket NULL

"To understand the mysteries of life and to appreciate the grandeur of our existence, we need to look way beyond our every day reality. If we can be expansive and think about the creation of our Souls and the nature of the universe, and consider why God made us and how we can accomplish our “mission,” then we can put this lifetime into a broader spiritual perspective." - Tom Gregory

"It’s often said that there are three requirements for a fulfilling life. The first two – a clear sense of personal identity and a strong sense of personal mission – are rooted in the third: a deep sense of life’s meaning. In our time especially, many people are spurred to search for that meaning because they’re haunted by having too much to live with and too little to live for" - Os Guiness

"People are either driven to action or complacency, mission or rust. You’re either participating in the Game of Life or you’re watching it from the grandstands. Herein lies a crucial difference. A champion plays the game: a spectator observes, criticizes and never really gets to live. A champion knows what he or she wants and goes after it with carefully calculated goals and no-holds-barred action. A spectator feels that his or her life is not their own. They let others dictate their destiny. They become victims of life instead of masters of it.”" - Bruce Jenner, fully William Bruce Jenner

"Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim." - Joseph Mazzini, aka Giuseppe Mazzini

"The mission of art is to achieve a deeper understanding of nature’s beauty. The mission, to put it another way, is to observe nature with an artistic mind, a mind bent on discovering beauty. Therefore, the kind of nature that the average person sees does not make art when it is reproduced." - Shiga Naoya

"The Church must either condemn the world and seek to change it, or tolerate it and conform to it. In the latter case it surrenders its holiness and its mission." - Walter Rauschenbusch

"Man is simply here; he has to make what he can of a universe that is not even hostile but strange and uncertain. Man is never given a purpose or mission; he must devise them for himself, knowing that their fulfillment has no external justification or reward - altogether and absurd situation." - Jacques Barzun, fully Jacques Martin Barzun

"Our major impact in transforming society comes from integrating a concern for the community into as many of our day-to-day business decisions and transactions as possible. This means buying from suppliers with a social mission, using ingredients that contribute to a sustainable world, and investing funds and human resources in ways that benefit the community." - Alan Cohen

"Our major impact in transforming society comes from integrating a concern for the community into as many of our day-to-day business decisions and transactions as possible. This means buying from suppliers with a social mission, using ingredients that contribute to a sustainable world, and investing funds and human resources in ways that benefit the community." -

"Our major impact in transforming society comes from integrating a concern for the community into as many of our day-to-day business decisions and transactions as possible. This means buying from suppliers with a social mission, using ingredients that contribute to a sustainable world, and investing funds and human resources in ways that benefit the community." -

"Life is so mysterious. People are in misery, and they don’t know how to get out, get help or free themselves. Life is total freedom, but we’re trapped in our own civilization, culture, religion, teachings. We’re equipped with fear, ignorance, unhappiness. Desire is the big evil, the big temptation. Many people carry on in life without knowing this. We do so much for our bodies but not for our souls. Pay attention to yourself, monitor your thinking and capture the villains within. Know what it is in you that would make people suffer more, make people suffer less. Know this and you know how to use your thinking and abilities to bring peace. Certain people have certain duties, a talent. The meaning of life is to see this mission, fulfill it and make the maximum use of your life and your benefit and mankind’s." - Bernie S. Siegel

"Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race." - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

"Man is eminently a storyteller. His search for a purpose, a cause, an ideal, a mission and the like is largely a search for a plot and a pattern in the development of his life story — a story that is basically without meaning or pattern." - Eric Hoffer

"The blossom cannot tell what becomes of its odor, and no man can tell what becomes of his influence and example, that roll away from him, and go beyond his ken on their perilous mission." - Henry Ward Beecher

"Life means to have something definite to do - a mission to fulfill - and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty. Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something." - José Ortega y Gasset

"Judaism matters to the whole world because it is a system for making human beings decent, for turning men into menschen. The timeless mission of the Jews is to make the world better by making people better." - Joseph Jacobs

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach

"To be successful, a leader must develop a core of loyal staff members who share his sense of mission, serve as his early warning system, possess acute political instincts, and have the competence to protect him from his own mistakes." -

"It is the faith that is the privilege of man to learn to understand, and that this is his mission. If we abandon that mission under stress we shall abandon it forever, for stress will not cease. Knowledge for the sake of understanding, not merely to prevail, that is the essence of our being. None can define its limits, or set its ultimate borders." - Vannevar Bush

"Make your life a mission - not an intermission. " - Arnold Henry Glasgow

"Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate." - Edward Wadie Saïd

"During the time that Rabbi Schneur Zalman was imprisoned in Petersburg, one of the czar's ministers asked him to explain the verse (Genesis 3:9) "And G‑d called out to the man and said to him: Where are you?" Did G‑d not know where Adam was? Rabbi Schneur Zalman asked the minister: Do you believe that the Torah is eternal, that its every word applies to every individual, under all conditions, at all times? The minister replied that he did. Rabbi Schneur Zalman was very gratified to hear this, for this was a basic principle of the "subversive" teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, the propagation of which was at the heart of the accusations leveled against him. "Where are you?" said Rabbi Schneur Zalman to the minister, "is G‑d's perpetual call to every man. Where are you in the world? You have been allotted a certain number of days, hours, and minutes in which to fulfill your mission in life. You have lived so many years and so many days -- Where are you? What have you accomplished?"" - Shneur Zalman of Liadi

"From a note penned by Rabbi Schneur Zalman shortly before his passing: The truly humble soul recognizes that its mission in life lies in the pragmatic aspect of Torah, both in studying it for himself and explaining it to others; and in doing acts of material kindness by lending an empathizing mind and counsel from afar regarding household concerns, though the majority, if not all, of these concerns are things of falsehood. For the loftiest beginnings are rooted in the end." - Shneur Zalman of Liadi

"My whole mission in life is to help us find the power we lack to create the world we want." - Frances Moore Lappé

"Common mission trap for companies: trying to be all things to all people at all times" - Jack Welch, fully John Francis "Jack" Welch, Jr.

"Leadership os communicating the company's Vision and Mission and having the courage to follow it. Companies that endure have a noble purpose." - Joseph Jaworski

"Leadership is communicating the company's Vision and Mission and having the courage to follow it. Companies that endure have a noble purpose." - Joseph Jaworski

"The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span." - Karl Kraus

"In the midst of excitement, grief, joy, and solitude, I remind myself every moment that the sole mission of my life is to find the ultimate questioner - that unimaginable who has put me in this madness to answer an unanswerable question. " - Kedar Joshi

"Life, by which I mean my life, is a great, or probably the greatest, design, from its very beginning to its end, the end that, I think, is unlikely to exist. Each and every bit of life is a part of the design. Design exists as the consequence of the ultimate questioner's vanity. And my mission is to find the most fundamental truth, which probably and exclusively involves the nature of the existence of the ultimate questioner." - Kedar Joshi

"In the midst of excitement, grief, joy, and solitude, I remind myself every moment that the sole mission of my life is to find "the ultimate questioner" - that unimaginable who has put me in this madness to answer an unanswerable question." - Kedar Joshi