Futility Quotes - Page 5

• While Leonidas was preparing to make his stand, a Persian envoy arrived. The envoy explained to Leonidas the futility of trying to resist the advance of the Great King's army and demanded that the Greeks lay down their arms and submit to the might of Persia. Leonidas laconically told Xerxes, "Come and get them.

  Plutarch

  Kings, Army, Greek

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• I must hold in balance the sense of the futility of effort and the sense of the necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to 'succeed'-and, more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and the high intentions of the future. If I could do this through the common ills-domestic, professional and personal-then the ego would continue as an arrow shot from nothingness to nothingness with such force that only gravity would bring it to earth at last.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Determination, Struggle, Past

  F. Scott Fitzgerald, James L. W. West (2005). “Fitzgerald: My Lost City: Personal Essays, 1920-1940”, p.140, Cambridge University Press

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• Very few of the people who accentuate the futility of life remark the futility of themselves. Perhaps they think that in proclaiming the evil of living they somehow salvage their own worth from the ruin - but they don't, even you and I.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Thinking, Futility Of Life, Evil

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “The Beautiful and Damned: American Literature”, p.287, VM eBooks

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• If I acknowledge my dependency, I do so because for me it is a means of signifying my demand: in the realm of love, futility is not a "weakness" or an "absurdity": it is a strong sign: the more futile, the more it signifies and the more it asserts itself as strength.)

  Roland Barthes

  Strong, Mean, Weakness

  Roland Barthes (1990). “A lover's discourse: fragments”, Penguin Books

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• I don't think pandemics make us afraid of death, I think they make us afraid of oblivion. They force us to grapple with the futility of effort. Also they make us barf which isn't fun either... Wash your hands, cover your coughs, and find a way to hold in balance the futility of effort with the necessity to struggle.

  John Green

  Fun, Struggle, Thinking

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• He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.' 'All knew was that I didn't want my daughter or anybody's child to see a message that negative every time she comes into the library,' he said. 'And then I found out it was you who was responsible for it.' 'What's so negative about it?' I said. 'What could be a more negative word than "futility"?' he said. '"Ignorance,"' I said.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Daughter, Children, Ignorance

  Kurt Vonnegut (1997). “Hocus Pocus”, p.92, Penguin

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• Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood.

  Isaac Asimov

  Marriage, Dark, Futility Of Life

  "Married life had taught Toran the futility of arguing with a female in a dark-brown mood".

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• Hence the sterile, uninspiring futility of a great many theoretical discussions of ethics, and the resentment which many people feel towards such discussions: moral principles remain in their minds as floating abstractions, offering them a goal they cannot grasp and demanding that they reshape their souls in its image, thus leaving them with a burden of undefinable moral guilt.

  Ayn Rand

  Offering, People, Goal

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• The flesh had infinity in it. I must know every inch by touch yet every inch renewed its mystery the instant my hand moved on. Delightful endless futility.

  Glen Duncan

  Hands, Moved On, Flesh

  Glen Duncan (2011). “The Last Werewolf (The Last Werewolf 1)”, p.62, Canongate Books

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• Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?

  Lauren DeStefano

  Ocean, Moving, Clouds

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• I used to tweet, but it's an act of futility. You're not really making any impact, and if you find yourself in a mood when you wanna be a bit controversial and you post something, you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God!' because you've opened yourself up to a bunch of criticism from strangers.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Impact, Futility Of Life, Finding Yourself

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• In your action, you lose sight of the vision, you lose sight of your trust in the process, and you just bang around in a sense of futility. Hold the vision and trust that the Universe will acclimate to your vision. Hold the vision and trust the process.

  Esther Hicks

  Sight, Vision, Bangs

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• The concept of a general equilibrium has no relevance to the real world (in other words, classical economics is an exercise in futility).

  George Soros

  Real, Exercise, Investing

  George Soros (1994). “The Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market”, p.20, John Wiley & Sons

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• Man may be doomed to loss, sorrow, and desolation, but if he tries his strength and will, however briefly, upon the indifferent vast hostility of the elements, he rages against futility and asserts his right of being

  Jim Perrin

  Loss, Men, Climbing

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• In Paris... I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism, which I now began to understand historically and to pardon. Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to "combat" anti-Semitism.

  Theodor Herzl

  Attitude, Paris, Trying

  "The Diaries of Theodor Herzl". Book by Theodor Herzl, 1956.

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• We’ve been devastated by the severest and deadliest drought in history – that of our profound awareness of the futility of all effort and the vanity of all plans.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Vanity, Profound, Effort

  Fernando Pessoa (2005). “The Education of the Stoic: The Only Manuscript of the Baron of Teive”

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• It is to the United States that all freemen look for the light and the hope of the world. Unless we dedicate ourselves completely to this struggle, unless we combat hunger with food, fear with trust, suspicion with faith, fraud with justice - and threats with power, nations will surrender to the futility, the hopelessness, the panic on which wars feed.

  Omar N. Bradley

  Fear, War, Struggle

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• No matter what the storm clouds bring, you can face your pain with courage and hope. For two thousand years ago-six hours, one Friday-Christ firmly planted in bedrock three solid anchor points that we can all cling to. For the heart scarred with futility, that Friday holds purpose. For the life blackened with failure, that Friday holds forgiveness. And for the soul looking into the tunnel of death, that Friday holds deliverance.

  Max Lucado

  Friday, Pain, Heart

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• Life, it is true, can be grasped in all its confused futility merely by opening one's eyes and sitting passively, a spectator on the stands of history - but to understand the social processes and conflicts, the interplay between individual and group, even the physicality of human experience, we have need of small-scale models.

  Will Self

  Confused, Eye, Futility Of Life

  "You may now turn over your papers" by Geoff Dyer, Mary Midgley and Will Self, www.theguardian.com. September 24, 2010.

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• It has nothing to do with your desires and their fulfillment, with your hopes and their fulfillment; it is already the case. But to see the celebration that is already happening at the deepest core of your being you will have to drop becoming, you will have to understand the futility of becoming.

  Rajneesh

  Desire, Becoming, Celebration

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• MIND, n. A mysterious form of matter secreted by the brain. Its chief activity consists in the endeavour to ascertain its own nature, the futility of the attempt being due to the fact that it has nothing but itself to know itself with.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Nature, Science, Brain

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.164, University of Georgia Press

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• I have never belonged wholeheartedly to a country, a state, nor to a circle of friends, nor even to my own family. When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives. Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.

  Albert Einstein

  Happiness, Country, Ambition

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• Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.

  Carl Jung

  Healing, Talking, Silence

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• I felt despair. The word’s overused and banalified now, despair, but it’s a serious word, and I’m using it seriously. For me it denotes a simple admixture — a weird yearning for death combined with a crushing sense of my own smallness and futility that presents as a fear of death. It’s maybe close to what people call dread or angst. But it’s not these things, quite. It’s more like wanting to die in order to escape the unbearable feeling of becoming aware that I’m small and weak and selfish and going without any doubt at all to die. It’s wanting to jump overboard.

  David Foster Wallace

  Crush, Selfish, Simple

  "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: An Essay". Book by David Foster Wallace, 1997.

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• You can't make everybody love you. It's an exercise in futility, and it's probably not even a good idea to try.

  Robert Crumb

  Love You, Exercise, Ideas

  "R. Crumb Speaks". Interview with Robert Hughes, content.time.com. April 29, 2005.

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