C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Purpose
Purpose is what gives life a meaning.
Purpose directs energy, and purpose makes energy.
Childhood may do without a grand purpose, but manhood cannot.
Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
A man’s longest purposes will be his best purposes. It is true, life is short and uncertain; but it is better to live on the short arc of a large circle than to describe the whole circumference of a small circle.
There is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefore; nor is any purpose so great but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God.