The purpose of Zeta Tau Alpha is to intensify friendship, promote happiness among its members, to perform such deeds, and to mold such opinions as will conduce to the building up of a purer and nobler womanhood in the world.

The Creed of Zeta Tau Alpha
To realize that within our grasp, in Zeta Tau Alpha, lies the opportunity to learn those things which will ever enrich and ennoble our lives; to be true to ourselves, to those within and without our circle; to think in terms of all mankind and our service in the world; to be steadfast, strong, and clean of heart and mind, remembering that since the thought is father to the deed, only that which we would have manifested in our experience should be entertained in thought; to find satisfaction in being, rather than seeming, thus strengthening in us the higher qualities of the spirit; to prepare for service and learn the nobility of serving, thereby earning the right to be served; to seek understanding that we might gain true wisdom; to look for the good in everyone; to see beauty, with its enriching influence; to be humble in success, and without bitterness in defeat; to have the welfare and harmony of the Fraternity at heart, striving ever to make our lives a symphony of high ideals, devotion to the Right, the Good, and the True, without a discordant note; remembering always that the foundation precept of Zeta Tau Alpha was Love, “the greatest of all things.” -- Shirley Kreasan Strout

Traditions
Zeta Tau Alpha is known as a fraternity, not as a sorority. The founders intended that Zeta Tau Alpha be designated a "fraternity" to distinguish the organization from the sisterhoods organized in connection with men's fraternities, called "sororities."

From its founding in 1898, the innermost meanings of Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity have remained unchanged through the preservation of and respect for our rituals.