Every person has a longing to be significant; to make a contribution; to be a part of something noble and purposeful.

I suppose, in a way, this has become part of my soul. It is a symbol of my life. Whatever I have done that really matters, I’ve done wearing it. When the time comes, it will be in this that I journey forth. What greater honor could come to an American, and a soldier?

May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

For my part, I desire to see the time when education – and by its means, morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry – shall become much more general than at present, and should be gratified to have it in my power to contribute something to the advancement of any measure which might have a tendency to accelerate the happy period.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I’ve done for 25 years. I don’t need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!

In politics nothing is contemptible.

The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

It seems a fantastic paradox, but it is nevertheless a most important truth, that no architecture can be truly noble which is not imperfect.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.

Could I have but a line a century hence crediting a contribution to the advance of peace, I would yield every honor which has been accorded by war.

The reason why I wear gold – I wear gold for three reasons. One, when Jesus was born, three wise men came from the east: one brought frankincense, one brought myrrh, the other one brought gold. The second reason I wear gold is I can afford it. The third reason I wear it, it’s symbolic of my African heritage.

Peace can be contributed to by respect for our ability in defense.

Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.

I have so much in my life. I want to be of value to the world.

That service is the noblest which is rendered for its own sake.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

I have done one thing that I think is a contribution: I helped Buddhist science and modern science combine. No other Buddhist has done that. Other lamas, I don’t think they ever pay attention to modern science. Since my childhood, I have a keen interest.

We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

Work alone is noble.

Traditions are a common part of our lives. They can be good, and not all traditions are wrong, but sometimes they can take the joy out of life.

Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.

I dote on his very absence.

What I cry out for, like every being, with my whole life and all my earthly passion, is something very different from an equal to cherish: it is a God to adore.

A gentleman is never rude except on purpose – I can honestly be nasty sober, believe you me.

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

We’re so immaturely cynical as a culture. We’re not wise enough to look at an institution like marriage and to really things about what it means and what it signifies. It signifies a place where people can tie the ropes of their lives together so that they’re stronger. It signifies a place where people can tell the truth to one another.

Where ever I am I always find myself looking out the window wishing I was somewhere else.

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

My view of my role is that together with like-minded men and women, I could help contribute to a bipartisan view of American engagement in the world for another period; I could do my part to overcome this really, in a way, awful period in which we are turning history into personal recriminations, depriving our political system of a serious debate.

The universe is not indifferent to our existence – it depends on it.

I really miss being able to blend in with people.

Poland is not East or West. Poland is at the center of European civilization. It has contributed mightily to that civilization. It is doing so today by being magnificently unreconciled to oppression.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We, of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble.

To deal with individual human needs at the everyday level can be noble sometimes.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Lovers often invest their first meetings with retrospective significance, as if to try to conjure the elements of the numinous out of the stubborn witness of the everyday.

A worthy woman personifies the truly noble and worthwhile attributes of life.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

The challenge of work-life balance is without question one of the most significant struggles faced by modern man.

The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

The only length of life that seems to satisfy the longings of the human heart is life everlasting.

We can all be successful and make money, but when we die, that ends. But when you are significant is when you help other people be successful. That lasts many a lifetime.

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.