140 Meaningful Quotes

The goal with these 140 meaningful quotes is simple: to change your perspective on life. You’ll discover authors like Freud, da Vinci, Nietzsche, Montaigne, and lots more. Hope you’ll love them. Enjoy!

Nothing meaningful comes free. George Raveling

You can’t have a meaningful life without truth as your guide. Carlos Del Valle

How many times have you notice that it’s the little quiet moments in the midst of life that seem to give the rest extra-special meaning? Fred Rogers

What if this life is the paradise we were promised, and we’re just squandering it? Naval Ravikant

Life in itself has no meaning. Life is an opportunity to create meaning. Osho (Creativity: Unleashing the Forces Within)

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. Ralph Waldo Emerson

We search for meaning when we stop feeling alive. James Pierce

The purpose of life is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant. Jordan Peterson

Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure. Paulo Coelho

Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person. Leo Tolstoy

You can create a lot of meaning in your own life by helping someone else do something that is meaningful to them. James Clear

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love. Carl Sagan

You can seek the comfortable or the meaningful. Choose wisely. Maxime Lagacé

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible. Friedrich Nietzsche

Where your fear is, there is your task. Carl Jung

Related quotes and topics: truth, powerful, solitude, purpose

The Best Meaningful Quotes

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

A secret to life: Know that none of this matters, and yet… live as if every single moment does. Kamal Ravikant

Thinking about death, once a day, is the best way to lead a meaningful life. D. Muthukrishnan

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has – or ever will have – something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression. Fred Rogers

It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have. Fred Rogers

I feel that we’re all lighthouses, and my job is to shine my light as brightly as I can to the darkness. Jim Carrey

Get busy with life’s purpose, toss aside empty hopes, get active in your own rescue – if you care for yourself at all – and do it while you can. Marcus Aurelius

The happiness we seek cannot be found through grasping, trying to hold on to things. Pema Chödrön

My goal is this: always to put myself in the place in which I am best able to serve, wherever my gifts and qualities find the best soil to grow, the widest field of action. There is no other goal. Hermann Hesse (Narcissus and Goldmund)

Meaning and being did not lie somewhere behind things; they lay within them, within everything. Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)

The great benefit of slowing down is reclaiming the time and tranquility to make meaningful connections – with people, with culture, with work, with nature, with our own bodies and minds. Carl Honoré (In Praise of Slowness)

The journey isn’t so much about becoming someone. It’s about getting rid of everything that isn’t really you. Paulo Coelho

The problem is that you were asking the wrong question. What is the meaning of life is not the question you should ask. The proper question is: What does it mean to you? Daniel Jeffries

What most of us seek is comfort but what gives meaning is connection. Maxime Lagacé

Never work just for money or for power. They won’t save your soul or help you sleep at night. Marian Wright Edelman

The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything. Eckhart Tolle

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. Joseph Campbell (The Power of Myth)

Life’s meaning is not in following someone else, it is in the unfolding of one’s own self. It is not a process of becoming like someone else, it is to be oneself. Osho

You will find meaning in life only if you create it. It is a poetry to be composed. It is a song to be sung. It is a dance to be danced. Osho

Life is indeed terribly complicated – to a man who has lost his principles. G.K. Chesterton

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. Robert Louis Stevenson

Part 2. Meaningful Quotes That Are…

The Most Famous Meaningful Quotes (da Vinci, Nietzsche, Montaigne, etc.)

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He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how. Friedrich Nietzsche

I cannot imagine life without work as really comfortable. Sigmund Freud

Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad. Fyodor Dostoevsky

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person. Anaïs Nin

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service. Henry Ford

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light. J.K. Rowling

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer. Jim Carrey

Life becomes meaningful when you work on it. You are the only person who can make it meaningful for yourself. Yoko Ono

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt

As a well-spent day bring a happy sleep, so a well-employed life brings a happy death. Leonardo da Vinci

To be of value, we must develop basic good human qualities – warmth, kindness, compassion. Then our life will become happier and more meaningful. 14th Dalai Lama

What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful. 14th Dalai Lama

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. Henry David Thoreau (Walden)

Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth. Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. Fyodor Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov)

Helped are those who love the entire cosmos rather than their own tiny country, city, or farm, for to them will be shown the unbroken web of life and the meaning of infinity. Alice Walker

Your gifts lie in the place where your values, passions and strengths meet. Discovering that place is the first step toward sculpting your masterpiece, your life. Michelangelo

To see that your life is a story while you’re in the middle of living it may be a help to living it well. Ursula K. Le Guin (Gifts)

It is this broken road with pitfalls and sharp turns and unexpected traverses that has brought me joy and adventure. Alice Walker

God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails. Augustine of Hippo

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Leo Tolstoy

Short Meaningful Quotes

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One-liners, short meaningful quotes, sayings, thoughts and captions for your bio, social status, self-talk, motto, mantra, signs, posters, wallpapers, backgrounds.

To hear, one must be silent. Ursula K. Le Guin (The Earthsea Trilogy)

Money doesn’t buy meaning. Kyle Kowalski

Art is the proper task of life. Friedrich Nietzsche

Service is what life is all about. Marian Wright Edelman

Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient. Jordan Peterson

You don’t need confidence, just contribution. Derek Sivers

It can have meaning if it changes you for the better. Viktor Frankl

Meaning springs from belonging. David Steindl-Rast (Deeper Than Words)

Life has no goal as such. Life itself is its own goal. Osho

Life should not only be lived, it should be celebrated. Osho

If things are too easy, life is a whole lot less interesting. Marian Wright Edelman

When things aren’t adding up in your life, start subtracting. James Altucher

You either think you’re the hero or the victim in your own story. Ed Latimore

The meaningful life is not easy but it’s the only one worthwhile. Maxime Lagacé

If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s. Joseph Campbell

The first step to get what you want is to get rid of what you don’t. Paulo Coelho

Don’t let what you’re afraid of keep you from what you were made for. Bob Goff

In the end, it’s about what you want to be, not what you want to have. Derek Sivers

Stop seeking comfort. Start creating meaning. Maxime Lagacé

Inspirational And Meaningful Quotes

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You have to do hard things to create your own meaning in life. Naval Ravikant

Anything meaningful requires you to show up and do the work. Every. Single. Day. Joe De Sana

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that he is who is being asked. Viktor Frankl

All you have to do is to pay attention; lessons always arrive when you are ready, and if you can read the signs, you will learn everything you need to know in order to take the next step. Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)

If you find yourself drawn to an event against all logic, go. The universe is telling you something. Gloria Steinem (My Life on the Road)

The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile. Fred Rogers

Deep down, we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. Fred Rogers

The greatest feeling is helping others feel good too. Maxime Lagacé

Let your sense of rebellion fill you with energy and purpose. Robert Greene

It’s all there. Everything you need to know. Why you are here, and what you are here to do. It’s all right there in your heart. Iyanla Vanzant

We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. Joseph Campbell

If we want to make meaning, we need to make art. Cook, write, draw, doodle, paint, scrapbook, take pictures, collage, knit, rebuild an engine, sculpt, dance, decorate, act, sing – it doesn’t matter. As long as we’re creating, we’re cultivating meaning. Brené Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection)

Keep in mind that you are an actor in a play that is just the way the producer wants it to be…Your job is to put on a splendid performance of the role you have been given. Epictetus

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty. Alain de Botton (The Architecture of Happiness)

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)

Don’t just do what you’re able to do; figure out what you were made to do, then do lots of that. Bob Goff

Deep Meaningful Quotes

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A comfortable, convenient life is not a real life – the more comfortable, the less alive. Osho

If you aim at comfort and happiness, you screwed. If you aim at meaning and peace, you have a chance. Maxime Lagacé

So much unhappiness comes from wanting others to think we’re happy or important. We chase visible at the expense of meaningful. Shane Parrish

The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. Viktor Frankl

Life being what it is – rather shallow, empty, a tortuous affair without much meaning – one tries to invent a significance, a meaning. Jiddu Krishnamurti

“Finding meaning” is a fun game until it becomes a fatal addiction. Kunal (@CrazyPolymath)

We’re not meant to consume infinite news, infinite porn, infinite food. We live in an era of too much abundance. This is the modern struggle. There is so much of an abundance of cheap, fake, instant dopamine and meaning. Naval Ravikant

You want meaning, not happiness. You want joy, not pleasure. You want fulfillment, not things. You seek what the material world will never provide. Carlos Del Valle

God’s more interested in our hearts than our plans. Bob Goff

There is no meaning to life, because if there was you would not be free. Naval Ravikant

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy. Kahlil Gibran

It’s a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you’ve been to all the places you don’t need to be. Ursula K. Le Guin (Tales from Earthsea)

Often in life we forget the things we should remember and remember the things we should forget. Paulo Coelho

If there was a big bang in the beginning, you’re not something that’s a result of the big bang. You are still the process. You’re not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe. Alan Watts

All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness. Erica Jong

Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man’s life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells. Marcus Aurelius

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer. Joseph Campbell

Wise Meaningful Quotes

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To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity. Friedrich Nietzsche

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts. William Hazlitt

A life full of goals or endpoints is like trying to abate one’s hunger by eating merely the two precise ends of a banana. Alan Watts

It’s not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life which ultimately nourish our souls. It’s the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is good stuff. Fred Rogers

Find significance within yourself. Within your own sphere of power – that is where you have the greatest consequence. Epictetus

Meaning is man-created. And because you constantly look for meaning, you start to feel meaninglessness. Osho

There is no meaning existing in life – one has to create it. Only if you create it will you discover it. Osho

The wiser you get the more you love what is slow, real and meaningful. Maxime Lagacé

The majority of men have not yet acquired the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which gives meaning to life except man himself. Erich Fromm

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature. Joseph Campbell

More wisdom quotes

Part 3. Conclusion

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The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure. Joseph Campbell

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. Joseph Campbell

We are travelers on a cosmic journey. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment, a little parenthesis in eternity. Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)

The goal of life is a deep relaxation from all effort, being in a dance with the dancing trees, with the dancing stars, rejoicing in existence without any worry, without any mind, just being part of the cosmos. Osho

Call to action: Read Life Lessons: My Best Ideas on Living a Meaningful Life (jamesclear.com)

or watch Why You Should Strive for a Meaningful Life, Not a Happy One (10-minute YouTube video)