95 Fulfillment Quotes

I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.

The important thing, once you have enough to eat and a nice house, is what you can do for others, what you can contribute to the enterprise as a whole.

For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.

The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.

Passion, intellect, moral activity - these three have never been satisfied in a woman. In this cold and oppressive conventional atmosphere, they cannot be satisfied. To say more on this subject would be to enter into the whole history of society, of the present state of civilisation.

Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.

It didn't matter what we did or where we did it as long as we were together. We knew we'd found what most people either pursue in years of futile search or dismiss as a fantasy at the outset: the missing half of ourselves. The real thing.

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.

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.

If someone listens to our music, and it makes them creative, that makes me happier than anything.

A bachelor's life is no life for a single man.

From success you get a lot of things, but not that great inside thing that love brings you.

This is the great lesson that we are here to learn through myriads of births and heavens and hells-that there is nothing to be asked for, desired for, beyond one's spiritual Self (atman).

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.

Acting provides the fulfillment of never being fulfilled. You're never as good as you'd like to be. So there's always something to hope for.

In other searchings it might be the object of the quest that brought satisfaction, or it might be something incidental that one got on the way; but in religion, desire was fulfilment, it was the seeking itself that rewarded.

There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it's the risk, the gamble. In any event it's a thing I need.

My new question was, What do you do when your dreams come true? My answer was: Find new ones.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.

'The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.'

Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others.

I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found - in himself.

Happiness and beauty are by-products.

Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?

To live in love is to live in life, and to live in life is to live in love.

The heart's earnest and pure desire is always fulfilled.

Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served.

A great thirst is a great joy when quenched in time.

How slowly I have made my way in life! How much is still to be done! How little worth - outwardly speaking - is all that I have achieved! The bubble reputation is as much a bubble in literature as in war, and I should not be one whit the happier if mine were world-wide and time-long than I was when nobody but yourself had faith in me. The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and, lastly, the solid cash.

To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place. To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things. To do these things is to make fairy tales come true.

Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfillment.

Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to seat over lonely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. As everyone else, I love to dunk my crust in it. But alone, it is not a diet designed to keep body and soul together.

Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived lives.

Vronsky, meanwhile, in spite of the complete realization of what he had so long desired, was not perfectly happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desires gave him no more than a grain of sand out of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the mistake men make in picturing to themselves happiness as the realization of their desires. For a time after joining his life to hers, and putting on civilian dress, he had felt all the delight of freedom in general, of which he had known nothing before, and of freedom in his love--and he was content, but not for long. He was soon aware that there was springing up in his heart a desire for desires--longing. Without conscious intention he began to clutch at every passing caprice, taking it for a desire and an object.

Leisure is the exultation of the possible.

Centuries ago, when I first stood on that little boulevard stage in Paris-when I saw the happy faces, when I heard applause- I felt as if my body and soul had found their destiny; I felt as if every promise in my birth and childhood had begun its fulfillment at last.

Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.

At this point, I don't need my records to be Number One or sell as many as this person or that person. That's not fundamentally important - I don't believe that sustains you.

When you come right down to it, the secret of having it all is loving it all.

Music was his life, it was not his livelihood, And it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good. And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole.

Hitler: I'm not going to lie to you, it took a while. There were moments all along where I knew something was wrong. I remember one time... I think it was in Munich. We were having a rally. 100,000 people all chanting my name. The bonfires were going. The whole shebang. It should have been a crowning moment, but I clearly remember thinking, What am I doing here? I hate crowds.

'[...] you go to the National with your parents and think: 'I'd love to be here.' And then suddenly you are. It's a dream come true.'

I don't know why I'm crying. Am I suspended in Gaffa? Not until I'm ready for you, Not until I'm ready for you Can I have it all.

Our hopes, like towering falcons, aim At objects in an airy height; The little pleasure of the game Is from afar to view the flight.

How kind of them. I wish, and they deliver.

What had been lost was found again. And those who had been hungry without knowing the name of their hunger, were fed.

The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

Man's cry is to reach his fullest expression.

Exile desire For what is not. This is the barrenness Of the fertile thing that can attain no more.

Low ambition and the thirst of praise.

I need more than a bedtime story, I need more than a youth group God.I am looking for a savior. A guide. An existential answer to my questions about purpose and meaning. I want true fulfilment in my Christian faith. I am looking for joy.

Outside of God's perspective, even romance loses its significance. Not in riches or in romance do we find fulfillment, but in God.

A finished life - a life which has made the best of all the materials granted to it, and through which, be its web dark or bright, its pattern clear or clouded, can now be traced plainly the hand of the Great Designer; surely this is worth living for? And though at its end it may be somewhat lonely; though a servant's and not a daughter's arm may guide the failing step; though most likely it will be strangers only who come about the dying bed, close the eyes that no husband ever kissed, and draw the shroud kindly over the poor withered breast where no child's head has ever lain; still, such a life is not to be pitied, for it is a completed life. It has fulfilled its appointed course, and returns to the Giver of all breath, pure as He gave it. Nor will He forget it when He counteth up His jewels. ~ Ch 12

I want to see the king Wonderful. I'm glad for you. Why are you so glad? Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant

The efforts of most human-beings are consumed in the struggle for their daily bread, but most of those who are, either through fortune or some special gift, relieved of this struggle are largely absorbed in further improving their worldly lot. Beneath the effort directed toward the accumulation of worldly goods lies all too frequently the illusion that this is the most substantial and desirable end to be achieved; but there is, fortunately, a minority composed of those who recognize early in their lives that the most beautiful and satisfying experiences open to humankind are not derived from the outside, but are bound up with the development of the individual's own feeling, thinking and acting. The genuine artists, investigators and thinkers have always been persons of this kind. However inconspicuously the life of these individuals runs its course, none the less the fruits of their endeavors are the most valuable contributions which one generation can make to its successors.

There is no way to Happiness. Happiness is the way.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

First off, I'm actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don't really mind). I've got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? The thing is, being a good programmer actually pays pretty well; being acknowledged as being world-class pays even better. I simply didn't need to start a commercial company. And it's just about the least interesting thing I can even imagine. I absolutely hate paperwork. I couldn't take care of employees if I tried. A company that I started would never have succeeded -- it's simply not what I'm interested in! So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good. -- 8/15/07 -- http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/TechGovernment/News.asp?id=44682&PageMem=2 --

If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things that are missing. If you don't have love in your life, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.

There's no emptiness in the life of a warrior. Everything is filled to the brim.

Give of thy love, nor wait to know the worth Of what thou lovest; and ask no returning. And wheresoe'er thy pathway leads on earth, There thou shalt find the lamp of love-light burning.

Man finds it hard to get what he wants, because he does not want the best; God finds it hard to give, because He would give the best, and man will not take it.

Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around.

When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything 'great,' I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.

Success in its highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which come only to the man who has found the work that he likes best.

It is a great pity that human beings cannot find all of their satisfaction in scientific contemplativeness.

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment.

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth.

[The value and dignity of the individual] is threatened whenever it is assumed that individual desires, hopes and ideals can be fitted with frictionless harmony into the collective purposes of man. The individual is not discrete. He cannot find his fulfillment outside of the community; but he also cannot find fulfillment completely within society. In so far as he finds fulfillment within society he must abate his individual ambitions. He must 'die to self' if he would truly live. In so far as he finds fulfillment beyond every historical community he lives his life in painful tension with even the best community, sometimes achieving standards of conduct which defy the standards of the community with a resolute 'we must obey God rather than man.'

The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength, each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.