100 Quotes About Vocation

There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God. The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our owns lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in so doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocably to their true purpose. The man who loses this sense of his own personal destiny, and who renounces all hope of having any kind of vocation in life has either lost all hope of happiness or else has entered upon some mysterious vocation that God alone can understand. . Thomas Merton

There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself. Flannery OConnor

In the eyes of others a man is a poet if he has written one good poem. In his own he is only a poet at the moment when he is making his last revision to a new poem. The moment before, he was still only a potential poet; the moment after, he is a man who has ceased to write poetry, perhaps forever. W.h. Auden

Who is willing to be satisfied with a job that expresses all his limitations? He will accept such work only as a 'means of livelihood' while he waits to discover his 'true vocation'. The world is full of unsuccessful businessmen who still secretly believe they were meant to be artists or writers or actors in the movies. Thomas Merton

You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you're not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn't a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now. . Unknown

I never heard that it had been anybody’s business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him. He had been adapted to the verses and had learnt the art of making them to such perfection. I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much. Charles Dickens

Here is a truth that most teachers will not tell you, even if they know it: Good training is a continual friend and a solace; it helps you now, and assures you of help in the future. Good education is a continual pain in the neck, and assures you always of more of the same. Richard Mitchell

..young people know very little about themselves and their abilities. When the day comes on which they discover their real strong points and their weaknesses, it is often to late. They have usually been drawn into the current of a particular vocation, and have given too much energy to the preparation for a specific achievement to change the whole life-plan once more. The entire scheme of education gives to the individual little chance to find himself. . Hugo Munsterberg

At his funeral the priest's words applied signally to him: 'The Christian Brothers are a body of men who live without luxury, labour without emolument, and die without notice, that they might stamp God's image on the soul of youth. That surely is a splendid vocation. Edmund Campion

Education at a deep level means to ‘lead out’ what is trying to be born from within. The job of a true teacher is to help awaken the inner pupil that has its own way of being and unique way of perceiving the world. Michael Meade

The real education is when you awaken and nourish and guide the inner spirit, this inner genius. The community grows from the giving of the gifts of the people in it, which is really giving from the genius. Michael Meade

A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice. "I will take the Ring, " he said, "though I do not know the way. . J.r.r. Tolkien

Suffice to say, the dream writer had a way of phrasing things. She could depict the curve of a cucumber, the shape of a sunbeam, the endearing, velvety tilt of a peach, in just such a way that she earned her living selling dreams. One simply made a selection, read it in solitude, and let it percolate till sleep. People swore they fell directly into her renderings, and one even asked if the dream writer could write a dream of dreaming forever. The dream writer could not do this, but she hired dream apprentices to expand the reach of her dreams and she wrote dreams for herself in which she would sit at a desk, pen in hand, and write even more dreams. This nearly doubled her output. Meia Geddes

As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity. Immanuel Kant

For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps their ardour in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardour of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly. Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman's glance. George Eliot

I've got to tell you that my vocation, my true calling, is serving others. Medicine is my avocation; it's part of how I answer my calling, but it's not all of it. I minister to bodies, but I also minister to hearts and souls. Doc

Just because you can't act EVERYWHERE doesn't mean you don't act ANYWHERE. — Madeleine Albright Walter Isaacson

Duty was not untinged by ambition. Barbara W. Tuchman

If you want to impress someone, simply make up a vocation and preface it with the words “molecular” or “theoretical” (as in “molecular biologist” or “theoretical physicist”). After you do this no one will question the veracity of anything you say–whether it is related to your putative vocation or not. Clifford Cohen

The two ideas, justice and vocation, are inseparable.... It is by way of the principle and practice of vocation that sanctity and reverence enter into the human economy. It was thus possible for traditional cultures to conceive that "to work is to pray." (pg. 258, The Idea of a Local Economy) Wendell Berry

Every industrious man, in every lawful calling, is a useful man. And one principal reason why men are so often useless is that they neglect their own profession or calling, and divide and shift their attention among a multiplicity of objects and pursuits. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Making money isn't hard in itself, ' he complained. 'What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to. Unknown

If you can't give it all you've got, don't bother. Joyce Rachelle

Vocation” comes from the Latin vocare (to call) and means the work a man is called to by God.There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest. The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you find your work rewarding, you have presumably met requirement (a), but if your work does not benefit others, the chances are you have missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work does benefit others, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you are unhappy with it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a) but probably aren’t helping your customers much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet. Frederick Buechner

What do we advertise about You by how we serve? Do we reflect the belief shown in Jesus’ parable that You are a hard master taking what isn’t Yours? Forgive us for even brief lapses into such churlishness. Or, do we reflect a joy in serving that radiates from an intimate and time-tested knowledge of the goodness of the One we serve? Paul and Daniel were confident of this sovereign goodness even when they were prisoners rather than courtiers, and we can likewise tap into a joy that defies circumstances. When this happens, the oft-disappointed world will notice and investigate.11/02/2010 blog . Brian Eshleman

Work was intended not to give a man a reason to live, but rather to give him a means to live. Criss Jami

My dear Mr FitzGeorge! ' cried Lady Slane. 'You really mustn't talk as though my life had been a tragedy. I had everything that most women would covet: position, comfort, children, and a husband I loved. I had nothing to complain of - nothing.'' Except that you were defrauded of the one thing that mattered. Nothing matters to an artist except the fulfilment of his gift. You know that as well as I do. Frustrated, he grows crooked like a tree twisted into an unnatural shape. All meaning goes out of life, and life becomes existence - a makeshift. Face it, Lady Slane. Your children, your husband, your splendour, were nothing but obstacles that kept you from yourself. They were what you chose to substitute for your real vocation. You were too young, I suppose, to know any better, but when you chose that life you sinned against the light. Vita Sackvillewest

A live-in domestic worker: "You are never sure that your soul is your own except when you are out of the house. H.W. Brands

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Annie Dillard

Pay attention to what you wish you were doing when you're doing something else. Joyce Rachelle

Even his own speeches bored him. Barbara W. Tuchman

Lincoln told a family friend that his father taught him to work, but never learned him to love it. Richard Brookhiser

You just became the most interesting person at this party. I don't think anyone here has worked an honest day in their lives. Unknown

Find a vocation and passionately commit your life to it. Lailah Gifty Akita

One of the great wonders of Christianity is that you were born into your times, to set your times aright. John Eldredge

It is one thing doing what you love for a living. It is another thing doing what you love with love Rasheed Ogunlaru

Each of you has a personal vocation which He has given you for your own joy and sanctity. When a person is conquered by the fire of His gaze, no sacrifice seems too great to follow Him and give Him the best of ourselves. This is what the saints have always done, spreading the light of the Lord ... and transforming the world into a welcoming home for everyone. Pope Benedict XVI

Fast rather than slow, more rather than less--this flashy "development" is linked directly to society's impending collapse. It has only served to separate man from nature. Humanity must stop indulging the desire for material possessions and personal gain and move instead toward spiritual awareness. Agriculture must change from large mechanical operations to small farms attached only to life itself. Material life and diet should be given a simple place. If this is done, work becomes pleasant, and spiritual breathing space becomes plentiful. Masanobu Fukuoka

Nothing is more tragic than failure to discover one’s true business in life, or to find that one has drifted or been forced by circumstance into an uncongenial calling. John Dewey

Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts... Madeleine LEngle

For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be. Thomas Merton

A young mark twain on the make: "I can't turn in inkstand into Aladdin's lamp. H.W. Brands

You have to pay for this view (onto which he looks while writing), so our expenses keep us pretty motivated to write. It's a vicious cycle. Pat Conroy

For one thing is needful: that a human being should attain satisfaction with himself, whether it be by means of this or that poetry or art; only then is a human being at all tolerable to behold. Whoever is dissatisfied with himself is constantly ready for revenge, and we others will be his victims, if only by having to endure his ugly sight. Friedrich Nietzsche

The creative impulse can be killed, but it cannot be taught... What a teacher can do...in working with children, is to give the flame enough oxygen so that it can burn. As far as I'm concerned, this providing of oxygen is one of the noblest of all vocations. Madeleine LEngle

He was like a man thinking on an abstract subject all the time. H.W. Brands

I thought buying at the local market would be an excellent way to build positive relationships with the local villagers. Eric Greitens

He prayed for the recovery of that inward privacy which the purpose of his vigil demanded that he seek: a clean parchment of the spirit whereon the words of a summons might be written in his solitude––if that other Immensurable Loneliness which was God stretched forth Its hand to touch his own tiny human loneliness and to mark his vocation there. Unknown

And speaking of options , these kids [the ones who attend elite universities] have all been told that theirs are limitless. Once you commit to something, though, that ceases to be true. A former student sent me an essay he wrote, a few years after college, called "The Paradox of Potential." Yale students, he said, are like stem cells. They can be anything in the world, so they try to delay for as long as possible the moment when they have to become just one thing in particular. Possibility, paradoxically, becomes limitation. William Deresiewicz

We listen for guidance everywhere except from within. Parker J. Palmer

Every day is important for us because it is a day ordained by God. If we are bored with life there is something wrong with our concept of God and His involvement in our daily lives. Even the most dull and tedious days of our lives are ordained by God and ought to be used by us to glorify Him. Jerry Bridges

If you find what you do each day seems to have no link to any higher purpose, you probably want to rethink what you're doing. Ronald A. Heifetz

We may be closest to hearing the call when we feel most alone or in trouble, for genius hides behind the wound and one of the greatest wounds in life is to not know who we are intended to be or what we are supposed to serve in life. Michael Meade

...we find our vocations not by focusing on ourselves, but by focusing on others. Jeff Goins

We must wake up. If we are going to find our callings, we must live intentionally and audaciously. And we must be generous. This choice is not an easy one, and it doesn't come naturally, but it's how we were meant to live. It's the only way - I'm quite convinced of this - that we can find the satisfaction we've been searching for, the lives we've been dreaming of. And although there are legitimate health, business, and psychological benefits to generous living, the most important one is this: generosity gives your life meaning. Jeff Goins

If you are going to find work worth doing - a vocation to fulfill and challenge you - you will have to encounter a reality bigger than yourself. It may not be what others say it should be or what you think, but it will come if you are looking for it.. At times, the work you're called to do will be hard and confusing, but if you press in, you will see the purpose behind the pain. You will see how the whole experience is causing you to grow. And you will thank God for the whole journey. Jeff Goins

Passion does not translate easily into good income. Philip Zaleski

If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture. Barbara W. Tuchman

Don't sweat the small stuff" doesn't work with parenting small children. They only work in small stuff. They aren't making company decisions. They are deciding whether to use a crayon on the wall. — Bill Klein The Little Couple

Dante subsumed everything, and so, in a sense, secularized nothing. Harold Bloom

No matter what office LBJ assumed he lifted greater than when he found it. David Pietrusza

Only God can make the common sacred. Beth Moore

It is the general rule of the moral universe that those men prosper who do their work with all their hearts, while those are almost certain to fail who go to their labour leaving half their hearts behind them. Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Robert Kennedy was inspired to take on organized crime by watching the landmark movie On the Waterfront. David Talbot

He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else at hand. Charles Dickens

When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but, at the same time, he loses the general faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. His every day becomes more of adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that, in proportion as the workman improves, the man is degraded. Alexis de Tocqueville . George F. Will

As is the case with many adolescents, Lewis's increased command over over the things of the world brought with it a corresponding atrophy of the moral sense. Philip Zaleski

The president notices that when he takes off his coat to dig, people take more notice of the visual than they did his preceding remarks. Paul C. Nagel

One good deed is more worth than a thousand brilliant theories. Let us not wait for large opportunities, or for a different kind of work, but do just the things we "find to do" day by day. Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Lincoln bore down or anything he handled, mastering both the details and the principles. Richard Brookhiser

Public servants in this Europe often do their best when they stop caring about whether they'll be fired. Ron Suskind

He must become an apprentice to ordinary life. Paul C. Nagel

I carry too much of the week into the Sabbath , and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams Paul C. Nagel

The horizons of man are incomparably narrower than that of the land on which he toils. Editor of the Nebraska journal H.W. Brands

The tailor put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he thought his workshop was too small for his valor. Jacob Grimm

Old fighters keep making comebacks. We are more alive when boxing than at almost any other time. Davis Miller

He was one of the fortunate few for whom there simply was no discernible line between work and play, between creation and recreation. George F. Will

What if followers of Christ stopped looking for work in places where the MOST number of Christians Christians lived and started looking for work places where the LEAST Christians lived? David Platt

I believe the road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master IN THAT LINE. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources. Andrew Carnegie H.W. Brands

How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII Barbara W. Tuchman

He wasn't an especially charismatic or commanding individual, but what he lacked in personality he emphatically made up for in diligence. Dan Jones

People need self-respect, that self respect must be earned — it cannot be self-respect if it's not earned — and the only way to earn anything is to achieve it in the face of the possibility of failing. Charles Murray

The percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3% in 2010. Charles Murray

Toughened or coarsened by their worldly lives, the other dissenters could shrug and move on, but Souter couldn't. His whole life was being a judge. Jeffrey Toobin

When he studied, it was not so much for a promotion as to EXCEL at his job. David Halberstam

A husband's work as provider will be so difficult that it can only be fulfilled in the power of the Spirit and a transformed life. Unknown

He saw the pleasure you took from your job every day of his life, and THAT was what he wanted. David Halberstam

I choose me bristles with pride Yes, I do A broom for the shaft And a broom for the flume Though I'm covered with soot From me 'ead to me toes A sweep knows 'e's welcome Wherever 'e goes Richard M. Sherman

Calling is connection: Uncovering our calling is a deliberate choice to serve others and to make a difference in the world. Our calling is made manifest in service to others...it is paradoxical but true; we are more likely to receive the meaning and fulfillment we seek when we enable others to achieve the meaning and fulfillment they seek, as well. David Shapiro

The voice of Jacob will do a little good if the hands be the hands of Essau. Charles Haddon Spurgeon

The author says that theologian operates with windows open to the interest of the world, but also with a skylight that allows full awareness of prayer. Karl Barth