Dr. Mardy's Quotes of the Week ("Purpose")

April 7—13, 2024 | THIS WEEK: “Purpose”

Opening Line of the Week

It sometimes happens that a memorable metaphor can elevate a so-so opening paragraph into a great one—and that is what we see here with the words pregnant with purpose.

For nearly 2,000 memorable opening lines from every genre of world literature, go to www.GreatOpeningLines.com.

This Week’s Puzzler

On April 11, 1908, this man was born in Lodz, Poland (then in the Russian Empire). Only three years old when he emigrated with his family to the United States, he grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Chicago. He spoke Yiddish as well as English from childhood, and remained proficient in both languages for the rest of his life.

An avid early reader and an exceptional student, he graduated with a political science degree from the University of Chicago in 1930. After graduation, he taught English part-time to immigrants while continuing his graduate studies at the school (he eventually received his Ph.D. in 1937). It was during his night school classes that he met a student who would inspire him to write one of the era’s most endearing works of fiction, The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1937).

The novel was an engaging tale about a Jewish immigrant struggling to learn English in night school (the title of the work came from the idiosyncratic manner in which the central character signed his name). The Kaplan novel alone was a significant literary work, but it was The Joys of Yiddish (1968) that made a highly influential contribution to American culture. It was because of this book that words like chutzpah, kibitz, nosh, schlep, kvetch, and zaftig have become a part of the American English lexicon.

In his long and distinguished career, this week’s Mystery Man offered memorable observations on countless topics, including this one:

Who is this person?

Have You Had a Sense of Purpose in Your Life?

When I first came across the quotation in this week’s Puzzler more than a half-century ago, I was so impressed that I hand-copied it on a 3-by-5-inch index card and tacked it on a bulletin board above my desk.  I looked at it every day for several months, and it ultimately morphed into a kind of creed for my own life. 

In crafting his observation, this week’s Mystery Man might have been influenced by an 1851 notebook entry from Nathaniel Hawthorne:

“Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us [on] a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.”

The Puzzler quotation applies to all people, of course, but especially to Americans because ours is the only nation that includes “the pursuit of happiness” in our founding documents. That immortal phrase has been interpreted by many to believe that a major purpose of life is to pursue happiness, but that is not what Thomas Jefferson meant. And, even if he did, he would have been wrong.

Pursuing happiness and achieving happiness are two very different things—and it is now pretty well accepted that it’s a mistake to pursue happiness for its own sake. If you do, the pursuit will generally devolve into a superficial and vapid form of hedonism. However, if you focus your energy and your efforts on something else—like a higher or deeper or more meaningful life purpose—you will almost certainly increase your chances of experiencing happiness.

The American Heritage Dictionary (AHD) defines purpose as “The object toward which one strives or for which something exists; an aim or a goal.” The dictionary lists a variety of synonyms—intention, goal, end, aim, objective—and says about them: “These nouns refer to what one intends to do or achieve.”

I’ve been inspired by many “Purpose of Life” quotations over the years, but my favorite is one George Bernard Shaw wrote in the introduction to a 1903 play.

Thoughtful observers of the human condition have been singing the praises of a purposeful life since ancient times, as when Aristotle wrote in Nicomachean Ethics (4th c. B.C.):

“It concerns us to know the purposes we seek in life, for then, like archers aiming at a definite mark, we shall be more likely to attain what we want.”

Some of history’s most famous quotes on the subject don’t actually mention the word purpose, but it is clear from the words that purpose is exactly what they’re about:

It is no exaggeration to say that most of the great steps forward in human history—whether in art, science, politics, religion, medicine, sport, or whatever—were the result of human beings whose imaginations were captured by big ideas and whose efforts were devoted to turning those ideas into a reality.

In many respects, when we know what a person’s guiding purposes are, we know a great deal about who they are and the manner in which they’ll be leading their lives. James Allen expressed it well in The Master of Destiny (1909):

“They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan, and will not let it go; they cherish it, brood upon it, tend and develop it; and when assailed by difficulties, they refuse to be beguiled into surrender; indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered.”

In addition to the great role purpose has played in human history, it has played a similarly influential role in almost all of our individual histories. Think back on you own life, for example. Some of the good things that happened might have been the result of good fortune—like an unexpected bequest in a will or a winning lottery ticket—but, if you’re like most people, the really great things you’ve accomplished came from your being “pregnant with purpose,” as Edna Ferber wrote so memorably in this week’s Great Opening Line feature,

As you think about the role that purpose has played in your life, though, please don’t restrict your attention to career accomplishments, for that would not be doing justice to the critical role purpose plays in leading a full and rewarding life. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962), for example, Carl Jung wrote:

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”

Purpose can also be reflected in the ideals we choose to embrace, as when the character Enoch Band said in Cynthia Ozick’s 1966 novel Trust:

“To want to be what one can be is purpose in life.”

If I were to end my remarks here, it would be natural for you to regard purpose as an unqualified good thing. Sadly, it is not. Purpose is not inherently virtuous or moral. Indeed, it can be applied to wrong-headed, misguided, and even malevolent pursuits. In his 1950 classic The True Believer, Eric Hoffer offered two sobering thoughts on the subject:

“To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life.”

“Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.”

Grievances—actual and supposed—have always played a significant role in human affairs, and hatred as well. And when hatred morphs into an ugly belief system—as it does in racism, xenophobia, and misogyny—it tends to attract the alienated, the vulnerable, and the psychologically disturbed. I apologize for ending on this somewhat sour note, but I thought it was important to acknowledge one of life’s grim realities—every good thing has a dark side as well. 

This week, please take a few moments to reflect on the role that purpose—or the lack of purpose—has played in your life. As you do, let your thinking be stimulated by this week’s compilation of quotations:

• Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment. — James Allen

• The purpose of life is a life of purpose. — Robert Byrne

• To give life a meaning one must have a purpose larger than one’s self, and more enduring than one’s life. — Will Durant

• The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best. — George Eliot

• The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into luster. — D. H. Lawrence

• More than anything else, what keeps a person going in the midst of adversity is having a sense of purpose. — John C. Maxwell

• The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost. — Michel de Montaigne

• Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

• There is nothing quite as potent as a focused life, one lived on purpose. — Rick Warren

• Integrity and firmness of purpose are all I can promise. These, be the voyage long or short, shall never forsake me. — George Washington

For source information on these quotations, and many others on the topic of PURPOSE, go here.

Cartoon of the Week:

Answer to This Week’s Puzzler:

Leo Rosten (1908-1997))

Dr. Mardy’s Observation of the Week:

Thanks for joining me again this week. See you next Sunday morning, when the theme will be “First Love.”

Mardy Grothe

Websites: www.drmardy.com and www.GreatOpeningLines.com

Regarding My Lifelong Love of Quotations: A Personal Note