Nonsense Quotes - Page 40

• Beauty should be edible, or not at all.

  Salvador Dali

  Should

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• Human beings act in a great variety of irrational ways, but all of them seem to be capable, if given a fair chance, of making a reasonable choice in the light of available evidence. Democratic institutions can be made to work only if all concerned do their best to impart knowledge and to encourage rationality. But today, in the world's most powerful democracy, the politicians and the propagandists prefer to make nonsense of democratic procedures by appealing almost exclusively to the ignorance and irrationality of the electors.

  Aldous Huxley

  Powerful, Ignorance, Knowledge

  Aldous Huxley, Robert S. Baker, James Sexton (2002). “Complete Essays: 1956-1963, and supplement, 1920-1948”, Ivan R. Dee Publisher

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• By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.

  C. S. Lewis

  Clever, Believe, Mean

  C.S. Lewis (1996). “Joyful Christian”, p.154, Simon and Schuster

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• Ring around the rosie. A pocket full of posie. Ashes ashes, we all fall down. Some people say that this poem is about the Black Death, the fourteenth-century plague that killed 100-million people... Sadly, though, most experts think this is nonsense... How can I be so sure about this rhyme when all the experts disagree? Because I ate the kid who made it up.

  Scott Westerfeld

  Fall, Kids, Thinking

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• Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies. Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may be made to utter words of wisdom; elsewhere, they say nothing, or talk nonsense, or indulge in sheer diabolism.

  Aldous Huxley

  Wise, Wisdom, Science

  1944 Time Must Have a Stop

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• Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.

  Martin Luther

  Sports, Drinking, Beer

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• "Well, I never heard it before," said the Mock Turtle; "but it sounds uncommon nonsense."

  Lewis Carroll

  Sound, Wonderland, Uncommon

  "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Book by Lewis Carroll, November 26, 1865.

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• Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Hurt, Lying, Religion

  "Time Enough for Love". Book by Robert A. Heinlein, 1973.

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• I love to talk about nothing. It's the only thing I know anything about.

  Oscar Wilde

  Ideal Husband, Knows

  Oscar Wilde (2014). “The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde”, p.191, Courier Corporation

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• Perhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our 'sense' than we would care to believe.

  David Bohm

  Believe, Care

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• I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein-- side by side with... visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said, "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and nexe year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  War, Condolences, Son

  Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer (2011). “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle Deluxe Reading Group Edition): A Novel”, p.101, Dial Press

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• I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious." "Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense." "Nobody ever does.

  Oscar Wilde

  Doe, Serious

  Oscar Wilde (1984). “The Importance of Being Earnest”, p.31, Dramatic Publishing

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• I think human beings must have faith or must look for faith, otherwise our life is empty, empty. To live and not to know why the cranes fly, why children are born, why there are stars in the sky. You must know why you are alive, or else everything is nonsense, just blowing in the wind.

  Anton Chekhov

  Stars, Children, Thinking

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• If anything she was a shade too plump, but she knew the ninety-seven ways of making love that the Hindus are supposed to set much store by―though mind you, it is all nonsense, for the seventy-fourth position turns out to be the same as the seventy-third, but with your fingers crossed.

  George MacDonald Fraser

  Making Love, Mind, Shade

  George MacDonald Fraser (2013). “Flashman: A Novel”, p.67, Penguin

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• It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now.

  Anthony Burgess

  Wine, Orange, Bird

  Stanley Kubrick, Anthony Burgess (1972). “A clockwork orange”, HarperCollins Publishers

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• Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.

  Susanna Clarke

  Girl, Names, Looks

  Susanna Clarke (2009). “The Ladies of Grace Adieu: and Other Stories”, p.111, A&C Black

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• The tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.

  Nick Harkaway

  Errors, Swings, Tree

  "The Gone-Away World". Book by Nick Harkaway, June 2008.

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• As Pa said, censorship encouraged people to believe nonsense.

  John Christopher

  Believe, People, Censorship

  John Christopher (2013). “When the Tripods Came”, p.56, Simon and Schuster

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• And did I not think then, What nonsense it is to suppose one man so different from another when all that life really boils down to is getting a decent cup of coffee and room to stretch out in?

  Alice Munro

  Coffee, Men, Thinking

  Alice Munro, Jane Urquhart (2003). “No Love Lost”, New Canadian Library

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• This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

  Albert Einstein

  Hate, Military, Civilization

  Albert Einstein (2010). “Ideas And Opinions”, p.10, Broadway Books

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• What is nonsense, and what is not, then, may be merely a matter of perspective.

  Gary Zukav

  Perspective, May, Matter

  Gary Zukav (1979). “The dancing Wu Li masters: an overview of the new physics”, Bantam

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• Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on.

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  Goes On, Life Goes On, Courses

  Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows (2009). “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, p.88, A&C Black

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• Not to waste time on nonsense. Not to be taken in by conjurors and hoodoo artists with their talk about incantations and exorcism and all the rest of it. Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting or other crazes like that.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Taken, Fighting, Artist

  Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle (2012). “The Modern Library Collection of Greek and Roman Philosophy 3-Book Bundle: Meditations; Selected Dialogues of Plato; The Basic Works of Aristotle”, p.96, Modern Library

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• What's important is that twice two is four and all the rest's nonsense.

  Ivan Turgenev

  Two, Important, Four

  Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, Richard Freeborn (1998). “Fathers and Sons”, p.230, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Another dream. Another long-distance call on my phantom party line. No wonder i had steadfastly refused to have dreams for most of my life. So stupid; such pointless, obvious symbols. Totally uncontrollable anxiety soup, hateful, blatant nonsense.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Dream, Distance, Stupid

  Jeff Lindsay (2005). “Darkly Dreaming Dexter”, p.121, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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