Nonsense Quotes - Page 28

• The papers are full of murders -- strange murders. It is all nonsense that there are as many brains as there are men; mankind has only one intellect, and it is beginning to get muddled.

  Leonid Andreyev

  Men, Brain, Paper

  Leonid Andreyev (2007). “The Seven That Were Hanged”, p.150, Wildside Press LLC

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• No more harmful nonsense exists than [the] common supposition that deepest insight into great questions about the meaning of life or the structure of reality emerges most readily when a free, undisciplined, and uncluttered (read, rather, ignorant and uneducated) mind soars above mere earthly knowledge and concern.

  Stephen Jay Gould

  Reality, Ignorant, Mind

  "I Have Landed". Book by Stephen Jay Gould, "No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts", p. 48, May 14, 2002.

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• Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Excellent, Dictionary, Objections

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.85, Courier Corporation

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• Probably the best nonsense poetry is produced gradually and accidentally, by communities rather than by individuals.

  George Orwell

  Community, Individual, Poetry Is

  George Orwell (1986). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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• The aim of the book is to set a limit to thought, or rather - not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to set a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be set, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Lying, Book, Thinking

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1998). “Wittgenstein's Tractatus”, McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages

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• My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Patents, Pieces, Teach

  Ludwig Wittgenstein (1958). “Philosophical investigations”

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• Protestations of impartiality I shall make none. Theyare always useless and are besides perfect nonsense, when used bya news-monger.

  William Cobbett

  Perfect, News, Useless

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• I am interested in most mythology. Celtic or Christian no more than anything else. I will admit to a pleasure and sense of hope in what I see as the basic teachings of Christ, stripped of the nonsense that has sometimes been accumulated about them and the embarrassing misunderstanding.

  Tanith Lee

  Christian, Teaching, Sometimes

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• One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.

  Jane Austen

  Funny, Success, Sex

  Emma ch. 9 (1816)

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• Prescribing hard work for the soft, or easy work for the hardy, is generally nonsense. What is always needed in any aim is right effort, right time, right people, right materials.

  Idries Shah

  Hard Work, People, Effort

  Idries Shah (1983). “Reflections”, p.74, Octagon Press Ltd

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• I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, and, of course, if it ceased to beat, I would cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.

  Charles Dickens

  Heart, Mean, Doubt

  Charles Dickens (1881). “Great Expectations”, p.267

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• People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense-words do. Beliefs, declarations, constitutions-words. Stories. Myths. Lies. Promises. History

  Libba Bray

  Lying, Thinking, People

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• There is something powerfully beguiling about the excited eyes of a young woman. They can pull all manner of nonsense out of a foolish young man, and I was no exception to this rule.

  Patrick Rothfuss

  Eye, Men, Excited

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• I'll be firm," I promised Patch, adopting a no-nonsense expression. "No backing down." By now Patch was full-on grinning. He kissed me again, and I felt my mouth soften its resolve. "You look cute when you're trying to be tough," he said.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Cute, Expression, Trying

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2012). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence; Finale”, p.1245, Simon and Schuster

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• Nonsense, do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him?

  Emily Bronte

  Imagine

  Emily Bronte “Wuthering Heights”, Lulu.com

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• The politicized sponsors of this pseudoscientific nonsense should be ashamed to live, let alone die. If you want to take part in the “war” against cancer, and other terrible maladies, too, then join the battle against their lethal stupidity.

  Christopher Hitchens

  War, Cancer, Stupidity

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Mortality”, p.26, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• ...there's nothing wrong with occasionally staring out the window and thinking nonsense, as long as the nonsense is yours.

  Daniel Handler

  Thinking, Long, Window

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• Nonsense, seems to sum up everything.

  Albert Einstein

  Seems

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• As a final crash of self-indulgent nonsense, when the incontrovertible truth of your panoramic and murderous deceit has even begun to cost your political party seemingly perpetual congressional seats....When somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation; when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: Shut the hell up! Good night and good luck.

  Keith Olbermann

  Good Night, War, Party

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• Everyone says you have to be a specialist, and if you conduct Wagner you cannot conduct Mozart - this is nonsense.

  Georg Solti

  Wagner, Specialists, Ifs

  "Conductors on Record". Book by John L. Holmes, pp. 256-261, 1988.

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• I am convinced that any photographic attempt to show the complete man is nonsense. We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals. The inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even the man himself.

  Arnold Newman

  Men, Sometimes, He Man

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• I love exaggerated, and I love eccentric, but you must be comfortable. Otherwise it is nonsense. There is nothing charming about a woman who cannot walk in her shoes.

  Manolo Blahnik

  Shoes, Eccentric, Charming

  "Manolo Blahnik: 'There is nothing charming about a woman who cannot walk in her shoes'". Interview with Jess Cartner-Morley, www.theguardian.com. November 20, 2012.

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• If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Mean, Animal

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• This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

  Tavis Smiley

  Ideas, America, Firsts

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• You don't have to be the best guitar player, or have the best voice, or even be the best looking person - writing a song that moves people is worth more than all the other nonsense. (Just look at Bob Dylan - he's got almost no vocal range at all, but his songs are deeply moving and iconic.) If I had to offer one piece of advice: Write a song that moves people, and write it from within yourself. Your personal narrative is more engaging and moving than anything else you can imagine in your mind.

  Ryan Ross

  Song, Moving, Writing

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