Superfluous Quotes

• In her (nature's) inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Inspirational, Nature, Invention

  The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (translation by Edward MacCurdy)

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• If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.

  Will Durant

  Men, Thinking, Law

  Will Durant (2011). “Our Oriental Heritage: The Story of Civilization”, p.77, Simon and Schuster

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• Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Beauty, Beautiful, Nature

  Leonardo Da Vinci (1938). “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci”

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• Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wealth, Inequality

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Walden and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, p.233, Henry David Thoreau

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• What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.

  Seneca the Younger

  Nature, Sweat, Easy

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny.

  Plutarch

  Doe, Needs, Pennies

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• It is the superfluous things for which men sweat.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Sweat, Togas

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.

  J. G. Ballard

  Writing, Reality, Doe

  "Inner Landscape". Interview with Robert Lightfoot and David Pendleton, www.jgballard.ca. October 30, 1970.

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• But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.

  Edward Gibbon

  History, Instruction, Disposition

  Edward Gibbon, Henry Hart Milman (1840). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.79

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• A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

  Ingrid Bergman

  Love, Valentines Day, Nature

  "An Uncommon Scold". Book by Abby Adams, 1989.

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• Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.

  Elias Canetti

  Fear, Pessimism, Boring

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• However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

  Hans Kung

  Rights, Essence, Ethics

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• The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous.

  Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

  War, Goal, Essentials

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• The superfluous, a very necessary thing.

  Voltaire

  Funny, Witty, Smart

  1736 Le Mondain.

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• Enormous and growing parts of the population are basically superfluous for profit-making purposes. Along with this, the jail population is increasing very rapidly; it's the highest in the industrial world by far. New and onerous crime bills are being passed to deal with this superfluous population.

  Noam Chomsky

  Jail, Population, Purpose

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• The statue lies hid in a block of marble; and the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish.

  Joseph Addison

  Art, Lying, Block

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator”, p.82

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• One day there springs up the desire for money and for all that money can provide — the superfluous, luxury in eating, luxury in dressing, trifles. Needs increase because one thing calls for another. The result is uncontrollable dissatisfaction. Let us remain as empty as possible so that God can fill us up.

  Mother Teresa

  Spring, Shopping, Luxury

  "No Greater Love, Commemorative Edition".

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• Allow not nature more than nature needs.

  William Shakespeare

  Needs, Excess, Lear

  William Shakespeare, Frank Green (2000). “King Lear”, p.111, Heinemann

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• We live in an age in which superfluous ideas abound and essential ideas are lacking.

  Joseph Joubert

  Business, Ideas, Age

  Joseph Joubert (1896). “Pensées of Joubert”

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• Not to give to those in need what is to you superfluous is akin to fraud.

  Saint Augustine

  Giving, Needs, Stewardship

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• I love him for his sake;
  And yet I know him a notorious liar,
  Think him a great way fool, solely a coward;
  Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him
  That they take place when virtue's steely bones
  Looks bleak i' th' cold wind; withal, full oft we see
  Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

  William Shakespeare

  Liars, I Love Him, Thinking

  William Shakespeare, Thomas Bowdler (1850). “The Family Shakspeare, in One Volume: In which Nothing is Added to the Original Text, But Those Words and Expressions are Omitted which Cannot with Propriety be Read in a Family”, p.217

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• Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

  Isaac Newton

  Nature, Science, Simplicity

  Sir Isaac Newton (1962). “Sir Isaac Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy and His System of the World: The system of the world”, p.398, Univ of California Press

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• But what, after all, is faith? It is a state of mind that leads people to believe something - it doesn't matter what - in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway. It is this that makes the often-parroted claim that 'evolution itself is a matter of faith' so silly. People believe in evolution not because they arbitrarily want to believe it but because of overwhelming, publicly available evidence.

  Richard Dawkins

  Believe, Silly, People

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• Eliminate the superfluous.

  Giorgio Armani

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• At the time of Caliph Omar's invasion of Egypt, the Arab officer on duty in the destruction of the library of Alexandria used two stamps with which he marked the books. One said: 'Does not agree with the Koran - heretic, must be burned'. The other said: 'Agrees with the Koran - superfluous, must be burned'.

  Nils Kjaer

  Book, Two, Egypt

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