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c. 800–700 BCE · IndianYājñavalkya
To know the Self, which is deathless — “what should I do with that which will not make me immortal?”
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c. 563–483 BCE · IndianGautama Buddha
To end suffering by ending craving, through the Eightfold Path — and to be compassionate toward all beings.
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551–479 BCE · ChineseConfucius
To become fully human through learning, ritual and humane relationships — the life of the jūnzǐ.
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c. 571–471 BCE · ChineseLaozi
To live in harmony with the Dao — simple, yielding, without forcing.
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470–399 BCE · Ancient GreekSocrates
To examine oneself and care for the soul — “the unexamined life is not worth living”.
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384–322 BCE · Ancient GreekAristotle
Eudaimonia — flourishing through virtuous activity, friendship, and above all contemplation.
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341–270 BCE · Ancient GreekEpicurus
Tranquillity — freedom from pain and fear, with friends and simple pleasures.
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121 – 180 · Roman & LatinMarcus Aurelius
To do your work as a human being, act justly, accept what you cannot change, and remember you are mortal.
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354 – 430 · Patristic & MedievalAugustine of Hippo
To rest in God — the heart is restless until it does.
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1564 – 1616 · British & IrishWilliam Shakespeare
Macbeth says it is “a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing”; Lear learns, too late, that it is love.
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1828 – 1910 · RussianLeo Tolstoy
At fifty, rich and famous, he could not answer “why live?” — and found the answer in the faith of simple people.
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1788 – 1860 · German-languageArthur Schopenhauer
There is no meaning; life swings between pain and boredom. The only escape is art, compassion and denial of the will.
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1813 – 1855 · ScandinavianSøren Kierkegaard
To become a self before God — not by thinking, but by choosing and believing.
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1844 – 1900 · German-languageFriedrich Nietzsche
There is no given meaning — so create it. Say yes to life so fully you would will it to recur eternally.
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1913 – 1960 · FrenchAlbert Camus
The universe is silent — but revolt, freedom and passion are enough. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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1905 – 1980 · FrenchJean-Paul Sartre
Existence precedes essence; life has no meaning until you give it one by your choices.
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Three great families: meaning is given (by God, by the Self’s identity with Brahman, by nature’s order); meaning is achieved (by virtue, cultivation, tranquillity); meaning is made (by choice, will and revolt). See the lens Death & Meaning and the theme Nihilism.
Explore Next
related by shared connectionsHow Should We Face Death?
Naciketas at Death’s door, Socrates’ hemlock, Epicurus’s argument, the Stoics’ rehearsal, Hamlet’s skull, Ivan Ilyich’s scream, Heidegger’s being-toward-death.
What Is Beauty — and What Is Art For?
From Plato’s ladder of love and Aristotle’s catharsis to Kant’s disinterested pleasure, Schopenhauer’s music and Nietzsche’s Apollo and Dionysus.
What Is the Self?
From ātman to anattā, from the cogito to the bundle, from Kierkegaard’s task of becoming oneself to Sartre’s nothingness.
Does God Exist?
The proofs, the refutations, the wagers and the leaps — the great argument about God from the Upanishads to Nietzsche.
Martin Heidegger
The philosopher of Being, who argued that the West had forgotten the question of what it means to be, and analysed human existence (Dasein) as thrown, anxious, being-toward-death.
What Is Time?
Flux and permanence, the moving image of eternity, Augustine’s puzzle, Kant’s form of intuition, eternal recurrence, Heidegger’s temporality.