Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What’s surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, “I have a purpose,” and the other gods as well. And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that answer will stand up to questioning. 

Marcus Aurelius

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Modern Library. 2003. P.104, Book 8, #19. Also see The Internet Classics Archive | The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (mit.edu)

the pleasure of novelty

The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns. And continued novelty costs money, so that the desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both. And again, the more rapacious this desire, the sooner it must eat up all the innocent sources of pleasure and pass on to those the Enemy forbids. 

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. 1942. p.137

not our prime purpose

While wholesome pleasure results from much we do that is good, it is not our prime purpose for being on earth. Seek to know and do the will of the Lord, not just what is convenient or what makes life easy.


Richard G. Scott, “First Things First,” Ensign, May 2001, 6