Frivolous Quotes - Page 4

• One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.

  Susan Sontag

  Play, Serious

  Susan Sontag (2014). “A Susan Sontag Reader”, p.174, Macmillan

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• Dreams, puns, elisions, plays on words and similar tricks that we ordinarily think of as frivolous, all play a surprising and somewhat disconcerting role in the communication of important and serious feelings.

  Milton H. Erickson

  Dream, Communication, Thinking

  Milton H. Erickson, Ronald A. Havens (1992). “The Wisdom of Milton H. Erickson: Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy”, p.63, Ardent Media

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• Do not be frivolous with the gift of a day. Right now it's all you have. Yesterday is history.

  Robert Genn

  Time, Yesterday, Right Now

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• Nirvana is very funny. It's not sincere particularly. It's rather frivolous, actually.

  Frederick Lenz

  Enlightenment, Sincere

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• I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.

  Alan Bradley

  Children, Father, Book

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• Seeing clearly within himself and always able to dodge around the ends of any position, including his own, Shaw assumed from the start the dual role of prophet and gadfly. To his contemporaries it appeared frivolous and contradictory to perform as both superman and socialist, sceptic and believer, legalist and heretic, high-brow and mob-orator. But feeling the duty to teach as well as to mirror mankind, Shaw did not accept himself as a contradictory being.

  Jacques Barzun

  Mirrors, Feelings, Gadflies

  "Bernard Shaw in Twilight" by Jacques Barzun in "The Kenyon Review", Volume 5, No. 3 (pp. 321-345), Part II, www.jstor.org. Summer 1943.

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• Vanity is a desire of personal glory, the wish to be appreciated, honoured, and run after, not because of one's personal qualities, merits, and achievements, but because of one's individual existence. At best, therefore, it is a frivolous beauty whim it befits.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Running, Personal Qualities, Vanity

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.134, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• Those things which now seem frivolous and slight,
  Will be of serious consequence to you,
  When they have made you once ridiculous.

  Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon

  Serious, Ridiculous, Made

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• Is it not clear that to give to such women as desire it and can devote themselves to literary and scientific pursuits all the advantages enjoyed by men of the same class will lessen essentially the number of thoughtless, idle, vain and frivolous women and thus secure the [sic] society the services of those who now hang as dead weight?

  Sarah Moore Grimke

  Men, Class, Numbers

  Gerda Lerner, Sarah Moore Grimké (1998). “The Feminist Thought of Sarah Grimké”, p.89, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Persons of rank do not talk about such trifles as the common people do; but the common people do not busy themselves about such frivolous things as do persons of rank.

  Luc de Clapiers

  People, Common, Busy

  "Reflections and Maxims". Book by Luc de Clapiers, 1746.

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• Odd, isn't it, that a thief and a vagabond should repent, when so many who are rich and secure remain hard and frivolous, and without fruit for God or man?

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Men, Fruit, Thieves

  "The Queer Feet". "The Innocence of Father Brown", Book by G. K. Chesterton, 1911.

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• Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Doe, Coins, Useless

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.262, 谷月社

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• I have seen many people, who while you are speaking to them, instead, of looking at, and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling, or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Dog, Eye, Play

  "Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman". Book by Lord Chesterfield, 1774.

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• Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latterdeserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Strong, Mistake, Butterfly

  Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.160, OUP Oxford

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• If you love music hear it; go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light; brings him into a great deal of bad company; and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Music, Play, Light

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• When I reflect upon what I have seen, what I have heard, what I have done, I can hardly persuade myself that all that frivolous hurry and bustle and pleasure of the world had any reality; and I look on what has passed as one of those wild dreams which opium occasions, and I by no means wish to repeat the nauseous dose for the sake of the fugitive illusion.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Life, Dream, Mean

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• Let us resolve to talk more to believers about the Bible when we meet them. Alas, the conversation of Christians, when they do meet, is often sadly unprofitable! How many frivolous, and trifling, and uncharitable things are said! Let us bring out the Bible more, and it will help to drive the devil away, and keep our hearts in tune. Oh, that we may all strive so to walk together in this evil world; that Jesus may often draw near, and go with us, as He went with the two disciples journeying to Emmaus!

  J. C. Ryle

  Christian, Jesus, Heart

  Jay Patrick Green, Sr., John Charles Ryle (2002). “Why Read the Bible Through & How Readest Thou?”, Sovereign Grace Publishers,

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• F.R. Leavis's "eat up your broccoli" approach to fiction emphasises this junkfood/wholefood dichotomy. If reading a novel--for theeighteenth century reader, the most frivolous of diversions--did not, by the middle of the twentieth century, make you a better person in some way, then you might as well flush the offending volume down the toilet, which was by far the best place for the undigested excreta of dubious nourishment.

  Angela Carter

  Reading, Offending, Dubious

  Angela Carter (2012). “Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings”, p.22, Random House

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• I'm a comedian. I make comic films and there are certain ideas that occur to me that are comic, with heavy, serious undertones. There are some ideas that are more frivolous to me. The next idea that could occur to me could be comedy about death and famine or something.

  Woody Allen

  Ideas, Comedian, Next

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• Comedy - particularly the frothy and frivolous - is notoriously neglected by festivals and awards. But it's bloody hard to get right.

  Colin Firth

  Awards, Festivals, Comedy

  "Exclusive: Oscar Nominee Colin Firth On A Single Man". Interview with Rosamund Witcher, editorial.rottentomatoes.com. February 15, 2010.

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• That which men suppose the imagination to be, and to do, is often frivolous enough and mischievous enough; but that which God meant it to be in the mental economy is not merely noble, but supereminent. It is the distinguishing element in all refinement. It is the secret and marrow of civilization. It is the very eye of faith. The soul without imagination is what an observatory would be without a telescope.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Eye, Men, Civilization

  Henry Ward Beecher (1858). “Life Thoughts”, p.56

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• Please listen to me - you are not paying attention. I am talking to you about the Holy Scriptures, and you are looking at the lamps and the people lighting them. It is very frivolous to be more interested in what the lamplighters are doing... After all, I am lighting a lamp too - the lamp of God's Word.

  Saint John Chrysostom

  Talking, People, Lamps

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• Movies serve many purposes, and I've visited many of those genres, from the most light, frivolous comedy that is just trying to make you laugh, to movies that explore the most complicated side of the human soul. As an actor, I play all of those things, and I still like it.

  Antonio Banderas

  Light, Play, Laughing

  "Antonio Banderas Talks THE SKIN I LIVE IN and PUSS IN BOOTS". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. October 12, 2011.

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• I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe that an artist has to take some moral responsibility for what he or she is putting out there. And I think a lot of these young kids are going
  to have to learn the hard way before they realize that you can actually do some damage if you're being careless or frivolous in what you're saying.

  Tom Petty

  Believe, Responsibility, Kids

  "Tom Petty Is Pissed". Rolling Stone, October 23, 2002.

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• The Parisian is to the French what the Athenian was to the Greeks: no one sleeps better than he, no one is more openly frivolous and idle, no one appears more heedless. But this is misleading. He is given to every kind of listlessness, but when there is glory to be won he may be inspired with every kind of fury. Give him a pike and he will enact the tenth of August, a musket and you have Austerlitz. He was the springboard of Napoleon and the mainstay of Danton. At the cry of "la patrie" he enrols, and at the call of liberty he tears up the pavements. Beware of him!

  Victor Hugo

  Sleep, August, Paris

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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