Purpose

We think in generalities, but we live in detail - Alfred North Whitehead

We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars - Carl Sagan

We are obliged by the deepest drives of the human spirit to make ourselves more than animated dust. We must have a story to tell about where we came from and why we are here - E.O. Wilson

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now - Johann Wolfgang Goethe

To what purpose should I trouble myself in searching out the secrets of the stars, having death or slavery before my eyes? - Anaximenes, 6th Century B.C.E.

To be a catalyst is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they control it, wish to influence its direction - Theodore Zeldin

This is what you shall do.  Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income & labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all that you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency, not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion & joint of your body - Walt Whitman

This [the meaning of life] is quite simple actually. It is to create, experience, evolve and mature. To reach deep and wide, learn new things and gather insight as far in space and time as you can (yes, from history as well), to be with the family, to have good and loyal friends, to be close to nature, to work smarter, to innovate and then to look back with wonder and satisfaction at what you created and achieved - Avigdor Sharon, https://tweetbrain.com/answers/to/8590

Then comes the conflict of our lesser man with our greater man, of our wishes with our will, of the desire for things affecting our sense with the purpose that is within our heart. Then we begin to distinguish between what we immediately desire and what is good. For good is that which is desirable for our greater self. Thus, the sense of goodness comes out of a truer view of our life, which is connected view of the wholeness of the field of life, and which takes into account not only what is present before us but what is not, and perhaps never humanly can be - Rabindranath Tagore, in Sadhana

The work you're meant to do lies at the intersection of what you do uniquely well, what is needed in the world that no one else is precisely meeting, and what you have passion for - Dave Pollard, http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2010/05/18/the-hard-part-is-finding-people-…