meaning

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life.  It is not something discovered: it is something moulded.

How could drops of water know themselves to be a river?  Yet the river flows on.

The meaning of things lies not in the things themselves, but in our attitude towards them.

There is no liberty except the liberty of some one making his way towards something.  Such a man can be set free if you will teach him the meaning of thirst, and how to trace a path to a well.  Only then will he embark upon a course of action that will not be without significance.  You could not liberate a stone if there were no law of gravity - for where will the stone go, once it is quarried?

I chanced on a wonderful book by Marius von Senden, called Space and Sight. . . . For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning: "The girl went through the experience that we all go through and forget, the moment we are born. She saw, but it did not mean anything but a lot of different kinds of brightness." . . . In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn quickly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult. . . . The mental effort involved . . . proves overwhelming for many patients. It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. . . . A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair. . . . On the other hand, many newly sighted people speak well of the world, and teach us how dull is our own vision.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. . . . To seek a total unity is wrong.  To give as much meaning to one's life as possible is right to me.

ZIGZAG, v.t. To move forward uncertainly, from side to side, as one carrying the white man's burden. (From "zed", "z", and "jag", an Icelandic word of unknown meaning.)

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning.