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Meaning quotes

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“Words mean more than what is written on paper. They need the human voice to give them deeper meaning.” Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” - 1969

“No matter how explicit the pledge, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purposes.” Mahatma Gandhi, “The Story of my Experiments with Truth” - 1929

“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. ” A. W. Tozer, “The Pursuit of God” - 1948

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.” Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” - 1890

“What you don’t understand you can make mean anything.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Diary” - 2003

“All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.” Aldous Huxley, “Crome Yellow” - 1921

“People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order, so they'll have good voice boxes in case there's ever anything really meaningful to say.” Kurt Vonnegut, “Cat's Cradle” - 1963

“When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass” - 1871

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet” - 1597

“I don't believe there's an atom of meaning in it.” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. 'I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she could.” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“there is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honor in dying of.” John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars” - 2012

“Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!” Dr. Seuss, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” - 1957

“The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.” Winston Churchill, “A History of the English-Speaking Peoples” - 1956

“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.” C. S. Lewis, “Mere Christianity” - 1952

“It might be possible, Septimus thought, looking at England from the train window, as they left Newhaven; it might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.” Virginia Woolf, “Mrs Dalloway” - 1925

“He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets.” Joseph Conrad, “Heart of Darkness” - 1899

“Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“I never know what I mean in my telegrams—especially those I send from America. Clearness is too expensive.” Henry James, “The Portrait of a Lady” - 1881

“The only names of objects which connote nothing are proper names; and these have, strictly speaking, no signification.” John Stuart Mill, “A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive” - 1843

“Life was not so horrible if it was meaningless, and he faced it with a strange sense of power.” W. Somerset Maugham, “Of Human Bondage” - 1915

“Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings differently arranged have different effects.” Blaise Pascal, “Pensées” - 1670

“I didn't know what it meant to love another person.” Haruki Murakami, “Norwegian Wood” - 1987

“Put in its simplest form, the problem is: How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world given my waist and shirt size?” Woody Allen, “Side Effects” - 1980

“All her life, she never saw a dead person. There was no real sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with.” Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” - 1996

“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you...” Stephen King, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” - 2000

“Thus, isness is the meaning — having freedom in its primary sense, not limited by attachments, confinements, partialization, complexities.” Bruce Lee, “Tao of Jeet Kune Do” - 1975

“The music is meant to be provocative — which doesn’t mean it’s necessarily obnoxious, but it is (mostly) confrontational, and more than that, it’s dense with multiple meanings.” Jay-Z, “Decoded” - 2010

“The conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind.” John Dewey, “Democracy and Education” - 1916

“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, “Macbeth” - 1623

“Without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.” J. D. Salinger, “The Catcher in the Rye” - 1951

“What is the meaning of life? That was all—a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles,...” Virginia Woolf, “To the Lighthouse” - 1927

“The goals we pursue are always veiled. A girl who longs for marriage longs for something she knows nothing about. The boy who hankers after fame has no idea what fame is. The thing that gives our every move its meaning is always totally unknown...” Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” - 1984

“I shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a meaningless world.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Beautiful and Damned” - 1922

Related topics

life words understanding love death language futility world clarity education voice music courage self-knowledge knowledge naming beauty regret feelings purpose

Related authors

Lewis Carroll (4)
William Shakespeare (2)
Virginia Woolf (2)
Joseph Conrad (2)
Chuck Palahniuk (2)
Oscar Wilde (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
John Green (1)
Dr. Seuss (1)
Winston Churchill (1)
C. S. Lewis (1)
Maya Angelou (1)
Aldous Huxley (1)
Mahatma Gandhi (1)
Paulo Coelho (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
Henry James (1)
John Stuart Mill (1)
W. Somerset Maugham (1)
Kurt Vonnegut (1)

Related sources

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (3)
Heart of Darkness (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
Macbeth (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
The Beautiful and Damned (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1)
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1)
Mere Christianity (1)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1)
Mrs Dalloway (1)
The Story of my Experiments with Truth (1)
The Alchemist (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
The Portrait of a Lady (1)
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (1)
Of Human Bondage (1)
The Pursuit of God (1)
Pensées (1)