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

Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

In politics nothing is contemptible.

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!

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

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

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.

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.

Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.

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

Where does discontent start? You are warm enough, but you shiver. You are fed, yet hunger gnaws you. You have been loved, but your yearning wanders in new fields. And to prod all these there’s time, the Bastard Time.

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.

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.

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

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.

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.

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.

I dote on his very absence.

Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

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.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

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

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

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

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

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?

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 used to live with my grandmother. I used to wonder why the other kids in school went home with their mothers and fathers. I wanted to be the guy that got married. I wanted to be the guy with the children and the white picket fence. I never had that.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

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

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.

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.

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

She would have thrived as a grandmother. I know how much she would have contributed to their lives, and I am sad they will miss out on that.

Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way, and never again.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

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.

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

An honest man’s the noblest work of God.

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

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.