Futility Quotes - Page 4

• What do you mean by meant? Given the final futility of our struggle, is the fleeting jolt of meaning that art gives us valuable? Or is it the only value passing time as comfortably as possible?

  John Green

  Art, Struggle, Mean

  John Green (2012). “The Fault in Our Stars”, p.52, Penguin UK

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• One of the greatest evils of the day among those outside of prison is their sense of futility. Young people say, What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment.

  Dorothy Day

  Time, People, Evil

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• Playing the game I have learned the meaning of humility. It has given me an understanding of futility of the human effort.

  Abba Eban

  Humility, Golf, Futility Of Life

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• When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being.

  Albert Einstein

  Men, Thinking, Covered Up

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• This withdrawal from the day's turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions.

  Paul Brunton

  Inspiration, Meditation Practice, Luxury

  Paul Brunton (1986). “The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Practices for the Quest; Relax and Retreat”, Larson Publication

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• When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul-then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness, every minute can be an eternity of happiness.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Moving On, Heart, Past

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• Promoting health without encouraging others to seek wholeness is an exercise in futility. Not until we realize that our bodies are mirrors of our interpersonal, spiritual, professional, sexual, creative, financial, environmental, mental, and emotional health will we truly heal.

  Lissa Rankin

  Spiritual, Exercise, Emotional

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• You may look back on your life and accept it as good or evil. But it is far, far harder to admit that you have been completely unimportant; that in the great sum of things all a man's endless grapplings are no more significant than the scuttlings of a cockroach. The universe is neither friendly nor hostile. It is merely indifferent. This makes me ecstatic. I have reached a nirvana of negativity. I can look futility in the face and still see promise in the stars.

  Sebastian Horsley

  Stars, Men, Evil

  "Farewell Sebastian Horsley: a true bohemian" by Emily Hill, www.theguardian.com. June 17, 2010.

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• It is vain futility to analyze the algebra of time.

  Dejan Stojanovic

  Time, Vain, Algebra

  "The Creator". Book by Dejan Stojanovic (Sequence: "The Whisper of Eternity", Chapter: "The Day", p. 57), June 17, 2012.

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• ...we took the 10 machines we agreed were the most beguiling, and we put them on permanent exhibit in the foyer of this library underneath a sign whose words can surely be applied to this whole ruined planet nowadays: THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Ignorance, Library, Foyers

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.19, Penguin

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• A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

  Jack London

  Dog, Laughter, Sadness

  Jack London (1992). “The Call of the Wild and White Fang”, p.71, Wordsworth Editions

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• This withdrawal from the day's turmoil into creative silence is not a luxury, a fad, or a futility. It is a necessity, because it tries to provide the conditions wherein we are able to yield ourselves to intuitive leadings, promptings, warnings, teachings, and counsels and also to the inspiring peace of the soul. It dissolves mental tensions and heals negative emotions.

  Paul Brunton

  Teaching, Luxury, Yield

  Paul Brunton (1986). “The Notebooks of Paul Brunton: Practices for the Quest; Relax and Retreat”, Larson Publication

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• The painting was framed in a misty view of sky, sea, and valley. Newt's painting was small, black, and warty. It consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spider's web, and I wondered if they might not be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Night, Views, Sea

  Kurt Vonnegut (2009). “Cat's Cradle: A Novel”, p.164, Dial Press

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• ...boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life--...the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite,' time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.' As music to your ears, this, of course, may not count; yet the sense of futility, of limited significance even of your best, most ardent actions is better than the illusion of their consequence and the attendant self-satisfaction.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Voice, Self, Views

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• If. A two-letter word for futility.

  Sidney Sheldon

  Life, Two, Letters

  Sidney Sheldon (2007). “Master of the Game; If Tomorrow Comes”

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• I saw finally the futility of all these gestures, that witchcraft is but a matter of focus-that one cann apply one's fierce and immeasurable energies to an act of choice.

  Anne Rice

  Choices, Focus, Energy

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• How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle! Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed
  to any other qualities than those of brutes.

  Aleister Crowley

  Class, Quality, Looks

  "Magick Without Tears". Book by Aleister Crowley. Chapter 73, 1954.

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• It is a world completely rotten with wealth, power, senility, indifference, puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste, technological futility and aimless violence, and yet I cannot help but feel it has about it something of the dawning of the universe. Perhaps because the entire world continues to dream of New York, even as New York dominates and exploits it.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Dream, New York, Hygiene

  Jean Baudrillard (1989). “America”, p.23, Verso

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• Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

  Michel Foucault

  Futility Of Life, Bells, Vain

  Michel Foucault (2013). “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, p.16, Vintage

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• "Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?" The Imass shrugged before replying. "I think of futility, Adjunct." "Do all Imass think about futility?" "No. Few think at all." "Why is that?" The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. "Because, Adjunct, it is futile."

  Steven Erikson

  Thinking, Tools, Sides

  "Gardens of the Moon (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1)". Book by Steven Erikson, April 1, 1999.

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• Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance;...in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

  Salman Rushdie

  Cheer, Giving Up, Fate

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• So what’s on the agenda for tonight? (Danger) Migraine, futility, possible death. Same as every night, I guess. (Alexion)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Night, Agendas, Danger

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• (He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute

  Bruce Sterling

  Men, Finals, Purpose

  Bruce Sterling (2014). “Schismatrix Plus”, p.224, Open Road Media

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• What I need is perspective. The illusion of depth, created by a frame, the arrangement of shapes on a flat surface. Perspective is necessary. Otherwise there are only two dimensions. Otherwise you live with your face squashed up against a wall, everything a huge foreground, of details, close-ups, hairs, the weave of the bedsheet, the molecules of the face. Your own skin like a map, a diagram of futility, criscrossed with tiny roads that lead nowhere. Otherwise you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be.

  Margaret Atwood

  Wall, Two, Hair

  FaceBook post by Margaret Atwood from Jul 25, 2012

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• This is what it is to be human: to see the essential existential futility of all action, all striving -- and to act, to strive. This is what it is to be human: to reach forever beyond your grasp. This is what it is to be human: to live forever or die trying. This is what it is to be human: to perpetually ask the unanswerable questions, in the hope that the asking of them will somehow hasten the day when they will be answered. This is what it is to be human: to strive in the face of the certainty of failure. This is what it is to be human: to persist.

  Spider Robinson

  Forever, Trying, Essentials

  Spider Robinson (1997). “The Star Dancers”

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