Nonsense Quotes - Page 33

• If you ask "Should we be in space?" you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.

  Frank Herbert

  Space, Should, Asks

  "The Maker of Dune: Insights of a Master of Science Fiction". Book edited by Tim O'Reilly, essay "Man's Future in Space", (1981), 1987.

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• How do you know that nonsense isn't a good thing? If human nonsense had been nurtured and developed for centuries, just as intelligence has, then perhaps something extraordinarily precious could have come from it.

  Yevgeny Zamyatin

  Good Things, Century, Humans

  Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007). “We”, p.115, Modern Library

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• Though we speak nonsense, God will pick out the meaning of it.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Speak, Gods Will, Picks

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.225, e-artnow

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• This old notion that work is drudgery is nonsense. Most days, even back when Xerox was under siege, I could not wait to get to the office.

  Ursula Burns

  Office, Waiting, Siege

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• If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Ifs

  Michel de Montaigne (2003). “The Complete Works: Essays, Travel Journal, Letters”, Everyman's Library

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• While the easiest way in metaphysics is to condemn all metaphysics as nonsense, the easiest way in morals is to elevate the common practice of the community into a moral absolute.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Practice, Community, Way

  Daniel J. Boorstin (1993). “The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson”, p.111, University of Chicago Press

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• There's nothing like being in fashion. A man that has once got his character up for a wit is always sure of a laugh, say what he may. He may utter as much nonsense as he pleases, and all will pass current. No one stops to question the coin of a rich man; but a poor devil cannot pass off either a joke or a guinea without its being examined on both sides. Wit and coin are always doubted with a threadbare coat.

  Washington Irving

  Fashion, Character, Men

  Washington Irving, Charles Neider (1998). “The Complete Tales of Washington Irving”, p.274, Da Capo Press

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• Every language is so full of its own proprieties that what is beautiful in one is often barbarous, nay, sometimes nonsense, in another.

  John Dryden

  Beautiful, Language, Sometimes

  John Dryden, Keith Walker (2003). “The Major Works”, p.163, Oxford University Press, USA

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• To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the devil.

  John Dryden

  Evil, Common, Factions

  John Dryden (1808). “The Works of John Dryden: Now First Collected in Eighteen Volumes. Illustrated with Notes, Historical, Critical, and Explanatory, and a Life of the Author”, p.334

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• Nonsense is socially OK, but not stupidity.

  Mason Cooley

  Stupidity, Not Stupid

  "City Aphorisms, Fourteenth Selection". Book by Mason Cooley, 1994.

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• The avant-garde is to the left what jingoism is to the right. Both are a refuge in nonsense.

  David Mamet

  Jingoism, Avant Garde, Refuge

  David Mamet (2013). “Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama”, p.61, Vintage

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• Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.

  Lewis Carroll

  Inspirational, Tattoo, Time

  'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' (1865) ch. 9.

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• I don't think feminism, as I understand the definition, implies the rejection of maternal values, nurturing children, caring about the men in your life. That is just nonsense to me.

  Hillary Clinton

  Children, Caring, Men

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• But I've got ideas. I keep my little notebook, I've always got that with me. Hopefully there's more stuff than nonsense in there.

  Jarvis Cocker

  Notebook, Ideas, Littles

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• Usually the nonsense liberals spout is kind of cute, but in wartime their instinctive idiocy is life-threatening.

  Ann Coulter

  Cute, Kind, Threatening

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• Sometimes I think it's possible to mistake desire for clarity and talking in a no-nonsense way for aggression.

  Richard Dawkins

  Mistake, Thinking, Talking

  "Darwin's child". Interview with Simon Hattenstone, www.theguardian.com. February 10, 2003.

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• Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole.

  Adam Duritz

  Yelling, Echoes, World

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• The idea that global warming is the most important problem facing the world is total nonsense and is doing a lot of harm.

  Freeman Dyson

  Ideas, Important, World

  Salon Interview, September 29, 2007.

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• The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive.

  W. C. Fields

  Men, Lucky, Alive

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• Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

  Pope Francis

  Needs, World, Solemn

  "The Pope: how the Church will change". Interview with Eugenio Scalfari, www.repubblica.it. October 1, 2013.

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• Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.

  Hugh Grant

  Thinking, Often Is, Interesting

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• A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

  Alexander the Great

  Death, Acceptance, Political

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• I'm not somebody who no matter where I go there are paparazzi or any of that nonsense. But I have a little window into that world and I can enter it and dance around. I want to be the audience's ticket into the party.

  Kathy Griffin

  Party, Tickets, World

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• I come from a line of self-motivated, determined folk - not grand, not high society, but no-nonsense, family-minded go-getters.

  Bear Grylls

  Self, Lines, Determined

  Bear Grylls (2011). “Mud, Sweat and Tears”, p.7, Random House

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• I barely watch TV apart from the news. Most of it is rubbish. There's all this reality nonsense and dross. I think there's a market for a well-produced, well-written melodrama like 'Dallas.' It's pure entertainment.

  Larry Hagman

  Reality, Thinking, Dallas

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