Purpose Quotes
(60+ quotes)
Purpose quotes are about doing what you were born to do. If your current work feels far removed from your purpose, think about what you’d be doing if income or responsibility were not issues.
The Buddha says: “Your work is to discover your work and then, with all your heart, to give yourself to it.” Some know and pursue their purpose with passion. However, in mid-life, many of us come face-to-face with the idea we are unsure of our ‘true’ purpose and feel unfulfilled as a result. Paying attention to what brings us joy can reveal our purpose faster than any other path. It might help to re-name ‘purpose’ your ‘path of joy.’ This ‘path of joy’ is filled with clues of what you came to earth to do. Think about what you think of as your ‘happiest dream’. In fact, close your eyes right now and imagine three happy dreams you’d love to accomplish in this lifetime.
Make them wildly exciting-to-you dreams. What would you dream of doing if you knew you could not fail? Imagine being honored for your accomplishments. You are being awarded a huge prize in front of an audience of thousands of enthusiastic fans. What award are you receiving? What great thing did you do? Grab a notebook and record the ideas that come to mind. They are all puzzle pieces that fit into your purpose/joy path. Have no concerns about how to put the pieces together. The way will be shown to you when the time is right. Take baby action steps daily to explore your joys and watch your true purpose unfold. Remember that authentic joy is harmless to yourself and others, and involves sharing your talents and being of service in your own special way. You are hard-wired to make a positive difference in the world. The fun is doing it all with joy.
The best book on the subject of purpose I’ve discovered is “The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything” by Ken Robinson. He describes the ‘element’ as, “the meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion.” In my mind – that is a wonderfully descriptive definition of passion! Your personal joy, inspiration and creativity coach,
Try Passion, Destiny, or Possibility Quotes
Harold J. Leavitt
Do what’s convenient. Do what you want to do. Do what’s true to your nature.
Swami Muktananda Tweet this Quote!
I never thought of achievement. I just did what came along for me to do – the thing that gave me the most pleasure.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally--you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.
Osho
When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.
Patanjali
Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you. This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.
Rumi
What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Jane Goodall Tweet this Quote!
You don't create your mission in life - you detect it.
Viktor Frankl Tweet this Quote!
Love and do what you like.
Saint Augustine Tweet this Quote!
Inspiration Deficit Disorder is about losing your vitality and purpose, and forgetting your original source of love and potential. It's about the cost of being disconnected and unaware of your own unique talents, needs, and destiny.
Jonathan H. Ellerby
Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.
Jane Goodall
It's pretty hard to get what you want when you're busy doing and being what you don't want.
Cheryl Janecky Tweet this Quote!
Every single thing you've been through in your life has had a purpose.
Beth Moore Tweet this Quote!
Nothing will kill what you've been called to do more than comparing yourself to someone else.
Beth Moore Tweet this Quote!
It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
Henry David Thoreau Tweet this Quote!
To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.
Cynthia Ozick Tweet this Quote!
The true American dream not only provides the freedom to use your gifts and talents to achieve your highest goal but also gives you the freedom to fulfill your purpose in life. You are meant to work in ways that suit you, drawing on your natural talents and gifts. This work, when you find it and commit to it -- even if only as a hobby -- is the key to happiness.
Dennis Kimbro
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
Mary Shelly
When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible.
Nancy Coey
The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live to purpose.
Michel de Montaigne Tweet this Quote!
Purpose is the most powerful motivator in the world. The secret of passion truly is purpose.
Robin Sharma Tweet this Quote!
When you die and go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, Why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is, Why didn’t you become you?
Elie Wiesel
You have to do what you love to do, not get stuck in that comfort zone of a regular job. Life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it.
Lucinda Basset
We only do well the things we like doing.
Colette Tweet this Quote!
What makes your heart flutter? Do only that. There is not enough time for anything else.
Richard P. Feynman Tweet this Quote!
There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you do not do them.
Charles D. Gill Tweet this Quote!
I am not afraid…I was born to do this.
Joan of Ark Tweet this Quote!
Happiness is living by inner purpose, not by outer pressures.
David Augsberger Tweet this Quote!
We were not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts.
John Ruskin Tweet this Quote!
I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all the time—namely that if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you.
Joseph Campbell
Everyone has a covenant and a purpose which is special, and if you do not fulfill it, -- there is no one else who will.
Glenda Green
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.
Mark Twain
The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its supreme purpose through him.
Carl Jung
Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas.
Paula Poundstone
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Jesus - Gospel of Thomas
The purpose of life is a life of purpose.
Robert Byrne Tweet this Quote!
The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is within us.
Marianne Williamson Tweet this Quote!
God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner Tweet this Quote!
The secret to happiness is something to do.
John Burroughs Tweet this Quote!
What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.
Julia Cameron
Follow your bliss, and doors will open for you that you never knew existed.
Joseph Campbell Tweet this Quote!
Blessed is he who has found his work.
Thomas Carlyle Tweet this Quote!
Life does not require you to sacrifice or compromise your joy to get what you want. Joy is what you want, so when you choose in harmony with it, you are fulfilling your purpose in living.
Alan Cohen
I shall not remain insignificant. I shall work in the world for mankind…I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living, even after my death.
Anne Frank
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
Viktor Frankl
You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.
Jerry Gillies
To love what you do and feel that it matters—how could anything else be more fun?
Katharine Graham Tweet this Quote!
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.
Martha Graham
Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one belongs…of being foursquare with the life we have chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do.
David Grayson
Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.
Wilfred T. Grenfell
You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.
Herbie Hancock Tweet this Quote!
The ‘still, small voice' of God never calls on me to be like another man. It appeals to me to rise to my full stature and fulfill the promise that sleeps within my being.
Sam Keen
True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller
Living with passion and purpose is about doing what ‘lights you up' and makes your heart sing. It's NOT about money. It's about something much more rare and precious. It's about shining your light in a way only YOU can do it in this world!
Marta Davidovich Ockuly
Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.
Rumi Tweet this Quote!
Man's ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy – that he live in accordance with his own nature.
Seneca
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
George Bernard Shaw
When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it.
W. Clement Stone
The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is giving your gift away.
David Viscott Tweet this Quote!
What we do flows from who we are.
Paul Vitale Tweet this Quote!
The deepest secret is that life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation. You are not discovering yourself, but creating yourself anew. Seek therefore, not to find out Who You Are, but seek to determine Who You Want To Be.
Neale Donald Walsch
Try Passion, Destiny, or Possibility Quotes
