Purpose



1. I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
– Edward Everett Hale


2. We can do no great things – only small things with great love.
– Mother Theresa


3. We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
– Marian Wright Edelman


4. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
– Anne Frank


5. Great minds have purposes, others have dreams.
– Washington Irving


6. The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
– Albert Einstein


7. I want to live my life in such a way that when I get out of bed in the morning, the devil says, “aw shit, he’s up.”
– Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You, Reflections on the Human Experience


8. Thou shalt not be a victim. Thou shalt not be a perpetrator. Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.
– Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C.


9. Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation…

It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she) sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
– Robert Francis Kennedy, speech at Day of Affirmation, University of Capetown, South Africa



10. Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
– William James

11. The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
– Mahatma Gandhi

12. How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
– William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

13. Never be afraid to do something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the titanic.
– Anonymous

14. Your purpose doesn’t at all have to be something BIG, either. The value of your impact on others and on the world has nothing to do with its scale.  There’s a saying I learned while living in Mexico: “Hay gente para todo.”  This means “there are people for everything”, and refers to the fact that in order for our world to function, we need people living and contributing at all kinds of different levels.  If we each could find and inhabit the sphere where we’re supposed to be, and contribute what we were made to contribute, what a beautiful world it would be!
– Susan Biali, M.D.

15. The purpose of life is to discover your gift.  The meaning of life is to give your gift away.
– David Viscott

16. Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.  Do justly now.  Love mercy now.  Walk humbly now.  You are not obligated to complete the work., but neither are you free to abandon it.
– Talmud (attributed)

17. I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.
– Helen Keller

18. I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
– Mother Teresa

19. Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

20. It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes