Purpose of life

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For our discussion is about no ordinary matter, but on the right way to conduct our lives.

Socrates

Quoted in Republic, by Plato

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Socrates. Quoted in Πολιτεία [Republic], written by Plato. c. 375 BCE.

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Socrates. Quoted in Republic, written by Plato, translated by Desmond Lee. Penguin Classics, 2007.

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For what should a man live, if not for the pleasures of discourse?

Plato

Phaedrus

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Original Citation

Socrates. Quoted in Φαῖδρος [Phaedrus], written by Plato. c. 370 BC, section 258e.

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Socrates. Quoted in "Phaedrus." Plato: Lysis; Symposium; Phaedrus, written by Plato, translated by Christopher Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy. Harvard University Press, 2022, sect. 258e.

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Consider your origin;
you were not born to live like brutes,
but to follow virtue and knowledge.

Dante Alighieri

Inferno

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Alighieri, Dante. "Inferno [Hell]." La Comedia di Dante Alleghieri [The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri]. Foligno: Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi, 1472.

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Alighieri, Dante. "Inferno." The Divine Comedy, edited by David H. Higgins, translated by C. H. Sisson. Oxford University Press, 2008.

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Only two things does he anxiously wish for-bread and circuses.

Juvenal

Satires

On the modern (at that time) Roman citizen.

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Juvenal. Satirae [Satires]. c. 127, satire 10.

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Juvenal. The Satires, translated by Niall Rudd. Oxford University Press, 2008, satire 10.

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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

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Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.

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Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden and Civil Disobedience. Signet, 2012.

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What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

W.H. Davies

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Davies, W. H. "Leisure." Songs of Joy and Others. A. C. Fifield, 1911.

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And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:28

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The Holy Bible: The King James Version. 1611. (Genesis 1:28).

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There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

Albert Camus

The Myth of Sisyphus

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Camus, Albert. Le Mythe de Sisyphe [The Myth of Sisyphus]. Éditions Gallimard, 1942.

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The prudent man aspires not to pleasure, but to the absence of pain.

Aristotle

The Nicomachean Ethics

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Original Citation

Aristotle. Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, Ēthika Nikomacheia [Nicomachean Ethics]. c. 322 BC.

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Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Irwin. Hackett Publishing, 2019, bk. 7.

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For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice

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Original Citation

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Vol. 3, London: Thomas Egerton, 1813, ch. 15.

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Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Penguin Books, 2002, ch. 15.

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I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floatin’ around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it’s both. Maybe both get happening at the same time.

Forrest Gump

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Forrest Gump. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, The Tisch Company, 1994.

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The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.

Aristotle

The Nicomachean Ethics

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Original Citation

Aristotle. Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια, Ēthika Nikomacheia [Nicomachean Ethics]. c. 322 BC.

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Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Irwin. Hackett Publishing, 2019, bk. 1.

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I just don't know what I'm supposed to be. You know?

Lost in Translation

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Lost in Translation. Directed by Sofia Coppola, American Zoetrope/Elemental Films, 2003.

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And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

William Blake

Songs of Innocence

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Blake, William. "The Little Black Boy." Songs of Innocence. London, 1789.

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Blake, William. "The Little Black Boy." William Blake: Selected Poems, edited by Nicholas Shrimpton. Oxford University Press, 2019.

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Don't be in a hurry. You'll miss the best parts in life.

Around the World in 80 Days

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Around the World in 80 Days. Directed by Michael Anderson, Michael Todd Company, 1956.

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This isn't life! This is just stuff! And it's become more important to you than living! Well, honey, that's just nuts.

American Beauty

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American Beauty. Directed by Sam Mendes, Jinks/Cohen Company, 1999.

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Did you ever think that maybe there's more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good looking?

Derek Zoolander

Zoolander

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Zoolander. Directed by Ben Stiller, Village Roadshow Productions/VH1 Films/NPV Entertinment/Red Hour Productions/Scott Rudin Productions, 2001.

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When a man sees his end, he wants to know there was some purpose to his life.

Gladiator

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Gladiator. Directed by Ridley Scott. DreamWorks Pictures/ Scott Free Productions/Universal Pictures/Red Wagon Entertainment, 2000.

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All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler (Novelist)

The Way of All Flesh

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Butler, Samuel. The Way of All Flesh. Grant Richards, 1903, ch. 19.

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Butler, Samuel. The Way of All Flesh. Everyman's Library, 1993, ch. 19.

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To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Stevenson, Robert Louis. Familiar Studies of Men and Books. London: Chatto & Windus, 1882.

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