Nonsense Quotes - Page 17

• Only in this town, where we make an industry out of creating euphemisms, can we have enough sugar to sugarcoat this nonsense.

  Byron Dorgan

  Creating, Sugar, Towns

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• People say you cant teach writing, but I think thats nonsense.

  Tracy Kidder

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• But some of the nonsense was evil, since it concealed great crimes. For example, teachers of children in the United States of America wrote this date on blackboards again and again, and asked the children to memorize it with pride and joy: 1492. The teachers told the children that this was when their continent was discovered by human beings. Actually, millions of human beings were already living full and imaginative lives on the continent in 1492. That was simply the year in which sea pirates began to cheat and rob and kill them.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Teacher, Children, Pride

  Kurt Vonnegut (1973). “Breakfast of champions: or, Goodbye blue Monday!”, Dell

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• The Official Bulletin declared that the Poles should be as proud of me as the Germans are of Mozart; obvious nonsense.

  Frederic Chopin

  People, Proud, Concerts

  Frederic Chopin (2013). “Chopin's Letters”, p.80, Courier Corporation

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• It is all nonsense, to be sure; and so much the greater nonsense inasmuch as the true interpretation of many dreams - not by any means of all dreams - moves, it may be said, in the opposite direction to the method of psycho-analysis.

  Arthur Machen

  Dream, Moving, Mean

  Arthur Machen (2013). “Delphi Collected Works of Arthur Machen (Illustrated)”, p.1199, Delphi Classics

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• I have not yet begun to defile myself.

  Doc Holliday

  Tombstone

  "Fictional character: Doc Holliday". "Tombstone", 1993.

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• If you can't describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven't got a plan. 'But,' people may say, 'I've got a complex strategy. It can't be reduced to a page.' That's nonsense. That's not a complex strategy. It's a complex thought about the strategy.

  Lawrence Bossidy

  Plain Language, People, Simplicity

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• The prejudice many photographers have against colour photography comes from not thinking of colour as form. You can say things with colour that can't be said in black and white... Those who say that colour will eventually replace black and white are talking nonsense. The two do not compete with each other. They are different means to different ends.

  Edward Weston

  Photography, Art, Creativity

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• Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Talking, Heaven, Attention

  "Culture and Value" by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, (p. 56e), 1980.

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• Many have referred to [Lewis] Carroll's rhymes as nonsense, but in my childhood world — Los Angeles in the '50s — they made perfect sense.

  Wanda Coleman

  Perfect, Childhood, World

  Wanda Coleman (2005). “The Riot Inside Me: More Trials & Tremors”, p.7, David R. Godine Publisher

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• In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

  Catharine MacKinnon

  Equality, Facts, Assault

  Catharine A. MacKinnon (1996). “Only Words”, p.109, Harvard University Press

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• As time passed I became an avid reader of popular scientific books, wanting to know as much as I could about the world in which I lived. Gradually I began to see a pattern of nonsense in much scientific writing. Scientific explanations given regarding the origins or functioning of various phenomena simply didn't make sense.

  Vine Deloria Jr.

  Book, Writing, Avid

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• Stop your nonsense and drink your whiskey!

  Zachary Taylor

  Whiskey, Drink

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• The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician.

  Martin Gardner

  Book, Levels, Lasts

  Introduction to "The Annotated Alice. The Definitive Edition" by Lewis Carroll, 1999.

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• To me [Christianity] was all nonsense based on that profane compilation of fables called the Bible.

  Bill Haywood

  Fables, Christianity, Compilation

  Big Bill Haywood (1929). “Bill Haywood's book”

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• The time must come inevitably when mankind shall surmount the imbecility of religion, as it has surmounted the imbecility of religion's ally, magic. It is impossible to imagine this world being really civilized so long as so much nonsense survives. In even its highest forms religion embraces concepts that run counter to all common sense. It can be defended only by making assumptions and adopting rules of logic that are never heard of in any other field of human thinking.

  H. L. Mencken

  Running, Thinking, Long

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• The notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

  Fred Hoyle

  Cells, Order, Earth

  The Big Bang in Astronomy, New Scientist, Vol. 92, No. 1280, (p. 527), November 19, 1981.

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• Imagine 1050 blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik's cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have a chance of arriving by random shuffling, of just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

  Fred Hoyle

  Cells, Order, Trying

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• There are many of us thinking of one version of parallel universe theory or another. If it's all a lot of nonsense, then it's a lot of wasted effort going into this far-out idea. But if this idea is correct, it is a fantastic upheaval in our understanding.

  Brian Greene

  Thinking, Ideas, Effort

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• Nonsense is nonsense even when spoken by world-famous scientists.

  John Lennox

  World, Scientist, Said

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• It is nonsense for the Government to allow any loopholes for religious homophobia. Bigotry is bigotry whether it's dressed up in the language of faith or not.

  Giles Fraser

  Religious, Government, Language

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• Spread the glad tidings that it will not disappoint Miss Heyer's many admirers. Judging from the letters I've received from obviously feeble-minded persons who do so wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes. I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu. Its period detail is good; my husband says it's witty---and without going to these lengths, I will say that it is very good fun.

  Georgette Heyer

  Witty, Fun, Husband

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• The venerable dead are waiting in my library to entertain me and relieve me from the nonsense of surviving mortals.

  Samuel Davies

  Waiting, Library, Mortals

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• Johnny Ramone's autobiography is a no holds barred, straight-forward book written in a no-nonsense style that is Johnny personified. His story is written in his own actual words, so the reader gets an insight into what made him the unique, charismatic and exciting individual that he was. It also gives a great view of The Ramones from Johnny's perspective.

  Tommy Ramone

  Book, Unique, Views

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• People talk about innovations and evolutions and that kind of thing; I don't understand about that nonsense. It's like, all instruments are there to use all the time

  Gerry Mulligan

  People, Innovation, Use

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