Pointless Quotes - Page 14

• I can see a version of my life where it all becomes meaningless. On a good day, writing seems noble. Other times, it's narcissistic and pointless.

  Hari Kunzru

  Writing, Good Day, Noble

  "'I'm the bloke who got the big advance'". Interview with Rachel Cooke, www.theguardian.com. May 15, 2004.

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• Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative, and pointless. But if one insists in a photograph that is both complex and vigorous it is almost impossible

  John Szarkowski

  Photography, World, Impossible

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• In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Sacrifice, Men, Compassion

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1990). “Democracy in America”

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• To talk about paintings is not only difficult but perhaps pointless too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing-- what language can communicate. Painting has nothing to do with that.

  Gerhard Richter

  Painting, Language, Difficult

  "Gerhard Richter - Painting". Documentary, 2011.

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• You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.

  Jean-Pierre de Caussade

  Children, Would Be, Upheaval

  Jean-Pierre De Caussade (2012). “Abandonment to Divine Providence”, p.47, Image

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• I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There's no gallery show or book or film. It's pointless. Which hopefully means something.

  Banksy

  Art, Book, Mean

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• The mindless junk of your past crowds out opportunities and sets pointless limitations. Move out the junk, and you create room for the rest of your life. Ultimately, it's not just a question of tidying your house; it's a question of liberating your heart.

  Merlin Mann

  Success, Moving, Heart

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• The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless

  Bram Cohen

  Realizing, Mature, Mark

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• To make mistakes is natural, but to go to one's grave without having understood them is to make life a pointless exercise.

  Susanna Tamaro

  Mistake, Exercise, Natural

  Susanna Tamaro (2010). “Follow Your Heart”, p.141, Random House

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• I like lime-flavoured yoghurt. The end. There is no religion. It’s a man-made fabrication. Once you understand that, you’ll be a happier individual. Atheism is as pointless as satanism.

  John Lydon

  Men, Atheism, Individual

  "John Lydon webchat - as it happened". Live chat, www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2014.

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• Instead of creating expectations of what should or should not be happening, cooperate with the form that this moment takes.Bring a 'yes' to the isness, because it's pointless to argue if it already is.A greater intelligence is available to you when you no longer reject, deny, or 'don't want' what is.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Creating, Expectations, Want

  FaceBook post by Eckhart Tolle from Aug 26, 2010

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• It is pointless for someone to say that he has faith in God if he does not have the works which go with faith. What benefit were their lamps to the foolish virgins who had no oil (Mt. 25:1-13), namely, deeds of love and compassion?

  Gregory Palamas

  Christian, Compassion, Oil

  Saint Gregory Palamas, Christopher Veniamin, Monastery of St. John the Baptist (Essex, England) (2009). “The homilies”, Mount Thabor Pub

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• I had always been aware that the Universe is sad; everything in it, animate or inanimate, the wild creatures, the stones, the stars, was enveloped in the great sadness, pervaded by it. Existence had no use. It was without end or reason. The most beautfiul things in it, a flower or a song, as well as the most compelling, a desire or a thought, were pointless. So great a sorrow. And I knew that the only rest from my anxiety—for I had been trembling even in infancy—lay in acknowledging and absorbing this sadness.

  Hayden Carruth

  Song, Stars, Flower

  Hayden Carruth (1998). “Reluctantly: Autobiographical Essays”, p.4, Copper Canyon Press

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• I see the origin of the irresistible attraction of metaphor and analogy, the explanation of our strange and permanent need to find similarities in things. I can scarcely refrain from suspecting some ancient, diffused magnetism; a call from the center of things; a dim, almost lost memory, or perhaps a presentiment, pointless in so puny a being, of a universal syntax.

  Roger Caillois

  Memories, Needs, Syntax

  Roger Caillois (1985). “The writing of stones”, Univ of Virginia Pr

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• Perhaps the meaning of all human activity lies in the artistic consciousness, in the pointless and selfless creative act? Perhaps our capacity to create is evidence that we ourselves were created in the image and likeness of God?

  Andrei Tarkovsky

  Lying, Creative, Selfless

  "Sculpting in Time" by Andrei Tarkovsky, (p. 241), 1986.

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• There will always be people for and against you, and its pointless wasting time trying to win over some of the people who are against you. Spend time with people who are for you. Those realtionships are worth it.

  Cathy Hopkins

  Winning, People, Trying

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• I find freedom to be the most important issue facing any human being today, because without freedom, then life is pointless. The more dependent you become on centralized power, the more easily you are lead around.

  Russell Means

  Freedom, Issues, Important

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• If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default-setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying.

  David Foster Wallace

  Reality, Important, Want

  "One Speech by This 90s Literary Giant Holds the Key to Ending Polarization in America" by Philip Perry, bigthink.com.

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• Don't hold grudges; it's pointless. Jealousy too is a non-cathartic, negative emotion.
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  John Milton

  Jealousy, Negative, Emotion

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• Asking the head I have now to explain its own thinking is as pointless as dialing your own telephone number on your own telephone: Either way, you get an engaged signal. Or your own answer message, if you have that kind of phone system.

  Nick Hornby

  Thinking, Phones, Numbers

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• Art is the concrete artifact of faith and expectation, the realization of a world that would otherwise be little more than a veil of pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of mystery.

  Stephen King

  Art, Expectations, Realization

  Stephen King (2008). “Duma Key: A Novel”, p.298, Simon and Schuster

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• You couldn't pretend you had lost nothing... you had to begin there, not let your blood freeze over. If your heart turned away at this, it would turn away at something greater, then more and more until your heart stayed averted, immobile, your imagination redistributed away from the world and back only toward the bad maps of yourself, the sour pools of your own pulse, your own tiny, mean, and pointless wants.

  Lorrie Moore

  Heart, Mean, Blood

  Lorrie Moore (2012). “Birds of America: Stories”, p.136, Vintage

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• We start off with high hopes, then we bottle it. We realise that we’re all going to die, without really finding out the big answers. We develop all those long-winded ideas which just interpret the reality of our lives in different ways, without really extending our body of worthwhile knowledge, about the big things, the real things. Basically, we live a short disappointing life; and then we die. We fill up our lives with shite, things like careers and relationships to delude ourselves that it isn’t all totally pointless.

  Irvine Welsh

  Real, Careers, Ideas

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• A true friend is someone who never gets tired listening to your pointless drama over and over again.

  Lauren Conrad

  Friendship, True Friend, Drama

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• What it felt to me was like the dissolution of my idea of myself. I felt like separateness evaporated. I felt this tremendous sense of oneness. I'm quite an erratic thinker, quite an adrenalized person, but through meditation, I found this beautiful serenity and selfless connection. My tendency towards selfishness, I felt that kind of exposed as a superficial and pointless perspective to have. I felt very relaxed, a sense of oneness. I felt love.

  Russell Brand

  Beautiful, Ideas, Oneness

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