Purposes Quotes (page 33)
There was nothing ugly in the small, unprepossessing figure of this emancipated woman, but the expression on her face made a bad impression on the viewer. One felt inclined to ask: "What's the matter? Are you hungry? Bored? Afraid? Why so tense?" Just like Sitnikov, she was always anxious. She spoke and moved in a rather casual, though awkward, manner: she obviously considered herself a good-natured, simple creature; at the same time, no matter what she did, it always seemed that she didn't...
Ivan Turgenev
The snail pushes through a greennight, for the grass is heavywith water and meets overthe bright path he makes, where rain has darkened the earth's dark. Hemoves in a wood of desire, pale antlers barely stirringas he hunts. I cannot tellwhat power is at work, drenched therewith purpose, knowing nothing. What is a snail's fury? All. I think is that if later. I parted the blades abovethe tunnel and saw the thintrail of broken white acrosslitter, I would never haveimagined the slow passionto...
Thom Gunn
Each generation was a rehearsal of the one before, so that that family gradually formed the repetitive pattern of a Greek fret, interrupted only once in two centuries by a nine-year-old boy who had taken a look at his prospects, tied a string around his neck with a brick to the other end, and jumped from a footbridge into two feet of water. Courage aside, he had that family's tenacity of purpose, and drowned, a break in the pattern quickly obliterated by the calcimine of silence.
William Gaddis
And then there's another snag you keep coming across: such decent and sensible people keep appearing in life, such wise men, and such lovers of the human race who, throughout their lives, set themselves the very task of conducting themselves as properly and sensibly as possible, as it were to enlighten their neighbors for the very purpose of proving to them that it is really possible to live decently and sensibly on this earth. And so? It is well known that, sooner or later, towards the ends...
Fyodor Dostoevsky
For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children. Money is for security, and for dreams, and for hopes, and for purposes. Money is for buying the fruits of the earth, of the land where you were born.
Alan Paton
If we are not our own, but the Lord's, it is clear to what purpose all our deeds must be directed. We are not our own, therefore neither our reason nor our will should guide us in our thoughts and actions. We are not our own, therefore we should not seek what is only expedient to the flesh. We are not our own, therefore let us forget ourselves and our own interests in as far as possible.
John Calvin