Frivolous Quotes - Page 6

• Jargon is the verbal sleight of hand that makes the old hat seem newly fashionable; it gives an air of novelty and specious profundity to ideas that, if stated directly, would seem superficial, stale, frivolous, or false. The line between serious and spurious scholarship is an easy one to blur, with jargon on your side.

  David Lehman

  Hands, Your Side, Ideas

  David Lehman (1992). “Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man”, Poseidon Pr

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• It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do

  Richard Steele

  Mind, Care, Endless

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1753). “The Spectator”, p.23

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• So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.

  James Madison

  Strong, Fall, Passion

  Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay (1842). “The Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in the Year 1788”, p.44

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• Dancing of late years has been degraded to the narrow limits and low professionalism of mere mechanical proficiency, associated with the most frivolous... phases of the stage. But this day is fading...We are turning our gaze inward, learning to seek there the divine sources of the dance, to the end that it may flower into new and more glorious forms of beauty and wealth

  Ruth St. Denis

  Flower, Years, Dancing

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• Anger has become one of the trendiest emotions of all.  In moderation it can be a righteous force for constructive change.  But its hackneyed omnipresence means the vast majority of its outbreaks are trivial.  The paucity of colorful obscenities is aggravated by an abundance of frivolous fury.

  Rob Brezsny

  Mean, Majority, Emotion

  Rob Brezsny (2005). “Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings”, p.80, Frog Books

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• Casting a spell, in self-defense or in self-interest is not selfish, but positive, life-affirming. You have been given powers, the very same powers that society devalues... What if it comes back tenfold? Well, don't be a fool. Never use your magick to attack the innocent. Then you have nothing to fear... Don't be frivolous or cowardly. If your course is righteous, and your tools ready, go to it.

  Zsuzsanna Budapest

  Selfish, Positive Life, What If

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• The fact that we live in a world that moves crisis by crisis does not make a growing interest in outdoor activities frivolous, or ample provision for them unworthy of the nation's concern.

  John F. Kennedy

  Moving, Doe, World

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• Narrative and metaphysics alike become flimsy and frivolous if they venture too far from the home base of all humanism - the single, simple human life that we all more or less lead, with its crude elementals of nurture and appetite, love and competition, the sunshine of well-being and the inevitable night of death. We each live this tale. Fiction has no reason to be embarrassed about telling the same story again and again, since we all, with infinite variations, experience the same story.

  John Updike

  Home, Sunshine, Simple

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• Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of [my husband] and me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.

  Marge Piercy

  Mother, Memories, Husband

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• To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity... the more womanly we are, the more manly men will be and the more God is glorified. Be women, be only women, be real women in obedience to God.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Real, Godly, Men

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• I think the genre of comics sometimes overtakes the medium, and people assume that they are kind of frivolous. If you have a good, strong story teller, they can be as affecting as any character in literature. Period.

  Chip Kidd

  Strong, Character, Thinking

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• Do we, as humans, having an ability to reason and to communicate abstract ideas verbally and in writing, and to form ethical and moral judgments using the accumulated knowledge of the ages, have the right to take the lives of other sentient organisms, particularly when we are not forced to do so by hunger or dietary need, but rather do so for the somewhat frivolous reason that we like the taste of meat? In essence, should we know better?

  Peter Cheeke

  Writing, Essence, Ideas

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• There's something arbitrary about taking a picture. So I can stand at the edge of a highway and take one step forward and it can be a natural landscape untouched by man and I can take one step back and include a guardrail and change the meaning of the picture radically... I can take a picture of a person at one moment and make them look contemplative and photograph them two seconds later and make them look frivolous.

  Stephen Shore

  Photography, Art, Creativity

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• Our health care system is the finest in the world, but we still have too many uninsured Americans, too high prices for prescription drugs, and too many frivolous lawsuits driving our physicians out of state or out of business.

  Judy Biggert

  Drug, Physicians, World

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• So our ego has to be seen. It is to be watched in a witness state, how it works and how it tries to dissuade us from the right path of movement. One has to be only careful on that point because that is the last centre which has to be opened out. Once it is completely open, you are one with the Divine and all your problems will be solved because these problems are so frivolous and have no meaning.

  Nirmala Srivastava

  Love, Wisdom, Yoga

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• The perfection of joyful determination is defined as taking delight or feeling joy in doing something positive or virtuous. If you are very joyful about doing negative things or about being busy with meaningless activities, this is not called joyful exertion from a Buddhist point of view. This kind of attitude is actually a form of laziness, an attachment to frivolous activities. Such a person would not be considered diligent at all. But if you are JOYFUL and DETERMINED TO PERFORM POSITIVE ACTIONS, then as a result, you discover and learn many new things that you didn't know about before.

  Geshe Gyeltsen

  Determination, Buddhist, Attitude

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• It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Art, War, Mean

  Niccolo Machiavelli (2015). “The Prince”, p.80, Xist Publishing

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• A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Respect, Men, Thinking

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (18??). “The Works of J. W. Von Goethe”

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• The great danger in today's world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor.

  Pope Francis

  Heart, World, Today

  Pope Francis (2015). “The Spirit of St Francis: Inspiring Words on Faith, Love and Creation”, p.92, SPCK

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• I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.

  Hesiod

  Wise, Patience, Hope

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• She looked like something that might have occured to Ibsen in one of his less frivolous moments.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Might, Moments, Ibsen

  P.G. Wodehouse (2009). “Summer Lightning: (Blandings Castle)”, p.120, Random House

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• If humankind - from humble farmers in the fields and toiling workers in the cities to teachers, people of independent means, those who have reached the pinnacle of fame or fortune, even the most frivolous of society women - if they knew what profound inner pleasure awaits those who gaze at the heavens, then France, nay, the whole of Europe, would be covered with telescopes instead of bayonets, thereby promoting universal happiness and peace.

  Camille Flammarion

  Teacher, Mean, Independent

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• I am frivolous. Then I feel guilty.

  Catherine Deneuve

  Guilty, Feels

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• Medicine may be defined as the art or the science of keeping a patient quiet with frivolous reasons for his illness and amusing him with remedies good or bad until nature kills him or cures him.

  Gilles Menage

  Art, Medicine, May

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• The ear is profound, whereas the eye is frivolous, too easily satisfied. The ear is active, imaginative, whereas the eye is passive. When you hear a noise at night, instantly you imagine its cause. The sound of a train whistle conjures up the whole station. The eye can perceive only what is presented to it.

  Robert Bresson

  Eye, Night, Profound

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