Nonsense Quotes - Page 10

• If you say to me: "Master, it would seem that you weren't too terribly wise to have written these bits of nonsense and pleasant mockeries," I respond that you are hardly more so in finding amusement in reading them.

  Francois Rabelais

  Wise, Reading, Amusement

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• In pursuing certain virtues - colorful local effects, personae and personality, juxtaposition, close calls with nonsense, uncertainty, critiques of ordinary language - the current crop of American poets necessarily give up on others.

  Stephen Burt

  Giving Up, Poetry, Personality

  Stephen Burt (2009). “Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry”, Graywolf Press

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• Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
  Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
  O, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--
  Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!

  Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

  Maids, Shade, Might

  Oliver Wendell Holmes (1863). “The Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes”, p.319

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• Everybody knows how awful the world is and what a terrible situation it is and each person distorts it in a certain way that enables him to get through. Some people distort it with religious things. Some people distort it with sports, with money, with love, with art, and they all have their own nonsense about what makes it meaningful, and all but nothing makes it meaningful. These things definitely serve a certain function, but in the end they all fail to give life meaning and everyone goes to his grave in a meaningless way.

  Woody Allen

  Meaningful, Sports, Religious

  "Woody Allen's World: Whatever Works". Interview with Robert E. Lauder, www.commonwealmagazine.org. April 15, 2010.

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• So, Mr. Chadband-of whom the persecutors say that it is no wonder he should go on for any length of time uttering such abominable nonsense, but that the wonder rather is that he should ever leave off, having once the audacity to begin-retires into private life until he invests a little capital of supper in the oil-trade.

  Charles Dickens

  Character, Oil, Interesting

  Charles Dickens (1870). “Novels”, p.161

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• It's nonsense that people join the army to serve the country, like the politicians do it only for the sake of the country.

  Sam Manekshaw

  Country, Army, People

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• There's all of this stuff where we have so much debate over nonsense; it could be cured if we had a better educational system, if we trained people to really try and look into things on their own. That's a tough thing to do, particularly with the educational system staggering.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  Educational, People, Trying

  "Q&A: Paul Ehrlich". Interview with Jesse Finfrock, www.motherjones.com. 2008.

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• I can't negotiate and collaborate with a character to create a distilled dramatic investigation of the raw material. I need to work with an actor. That stuff about actors who stay in character all the time is nonsense.

  Mike Leigh

  Character, Needs, Raw Materials

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

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• The meaning of the directions in kata is not well understood, and frequently mistakes are made in the interpretation of kata movements. In extreme cases, it is sometimes heard that "this kata moves in 8 directions so it is designed for fighting 8 opponents" or some such nonsense.

  Kenwa Mabuni

  Mistake, Moving, Fighting

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• The television is 'real'. It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn't time to protest, 'What nonsense!'.

  Ray Bradbury

  Real, Thinking, Mind

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• Sometimes I think the Congress feels that if you only decided tomorrow to switch to wind power that in two years we'd be getting 80 percent of our electricity from wind power. It's nonsense. Normally it takes 20 to 30 years after a new technology is demonstrated and deployed before it powers even 15 or 20 percent of the grid. There's this long lag time, and we haven't even decided which directions to go.

  Paul R. Ehrlich

  Technology, Thinking, Years

  "Q&A: Paul Ehrlich". Interview with Jesse Finfrock, www.motherjones.com. 2008.

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• ... the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it ... the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  War, Mean, Turkeys

  Theodore Roosevelt (1954). “Letters: The days of Armageddon, 1909-1914”

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• The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people from religion; that amendment was written to protect religion from government tyranny. . . But now we're told our children have no right to pray in school. Nonsense. The pendulum has swung too far toward intolerance against genuine religious freedom. It is time to redress the balance.

  Ronald Reagan

  Religious, Children, School

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• The common wisdom is that ... managers have to learn to motivate people. Nonsense. Employees bring their own motivation.

  Tom Peters

  Motivation, People, Common

  Tom Peters, Nancy Austin (1985). “A passion for excellence”

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• Often a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other parts of the world, about the motions and orbits of the stars and even their sizes and distances... and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based in Scripture. We should do all that we can to avoid such an embarrassing situation, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn.

  Saint Augustine

  Christian, Stars, Distance

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• Who cares what the state thinks about your relationship? They're giving you tax breaks and this and that - it's just nonsense. You want to live with somebody, then live with somebody. All that other stuff is just a way for the state monitoring and codifying certain activities and ostracizing others.

  Dale Peck

  Thinking, Giving, Who Cares

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I like my boy with his endless sweet soliloquies and iterations and his utter inability to conceive why I should not leave all my nonsense, business, and writing and come to tie up his toy horse, as if there was or could be any end to nature beyond his horse. And he is wiser than we when [he] threatens his whole threat "I will not love you."

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Sweet, Horse, Love You

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1959). “Emerson: A Modern Anthology”

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• Bes had indeed put on his ugly outfit. He climbed onto the roof of the limbo and stood there, legs planted, arms akimbo, like superman-exept with only the underwear. I wasn't sure what to say except: "Put some clothes on!" "These children are under my protection," Bes insisted. "I don't know you," I said, "I never met you before today." "Nonsense. You expressly asked for my attention." "I didn't ask for the Speedo Patrol!

  Rick Riordan

  Children, Clothes, Underwear

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• People are fond of using the its not what you know, its who you know adage as an excuse for inaction, as if all successful people are born with powerful friends. Nonsense.

  Tim Ferriss

  Powerful, Successful, People

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• Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

  Virginia Woolf

  Caring, Thinking, Essence

  Virginia Woolf, Andrew McNeillie (1986). “The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925-1928”, Chatto & Windus

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• To teach that a comparatively few men are responsible for the greatest forward steps of mankind is the worst sort of nonsense.

  Henry Ford

  Men, Thought Provoking, Steps

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• The important thing is not whatever nonsense the voices are saying, but what the voices are feeling.

  John Green

  Voice, Feelings, Important

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• You may be right. I think it was round about Christmas when I got my Welsh dragon tattoo.” At that, Tessa had to try very hard not to blush. “How did that happen?” Will made an airy gesture with his hand. “I was drunk…” “Nonsense. You were never really drunk.” “On the contrary—in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider—“ “You can’t mean there’s truly a Six-Fingered Nigel?

  Cassandra Clare

  Tattoo, Mean, Thinking

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• I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense.... But it's unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu.

  Georgette Heyer

  Writing, Thinking, Air

  "Georgette Heyer, queen of Regency romance, honoured with blue plaque" by Alison Flood, www.theguardian.com. June 05, 2015.

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• Patricia embraces me on the station platform. 'The past is what you leave behind in life, Ruby,' she says with the smile of a reincarnated lama. 'Nonsense, Patricia,' I tell her as I climb on board my train. 'The past's what you take with you.

  Kate Atkinson

  Past, Boards, Rubies

  Kate Atkinson (2013). “Behind the Scenes at the Museum: A Novel”, p.331, Macmillan

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