Nonsense Quotes - Page 8

• Any such inklings were like a few scattered grains of truth dissolved in an ocean of nonsense, and were anyway generally inextricably bound up with patently paranoid ravings which served only to devalue the small amounts of sense and pertinence with which they were associated.

  Iain Banks

  Ocean, Devalue, Paranoid

  "Excession (The Culture, Book 5)". Book by Iain Banks (Chapter 11 "Regarding Gravious", Section VI, p. 365), 1996.

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• The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist.

  Ann Coulter

  Atheist, President, Absurd

  "Obama is Not a Muslim". townhall.com. September 1, 2010.

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• We are full of dreams [...] We long for the unattainable. We believe in the nonsense of fables. There is no pure love; there is lust and there is need.

  David Gemmell

  Dream, Believe, Long

  "Quest for Lost Heroes". Book by David Gemmell, Ch. 12, 1990.

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• Although Lewis Carroll thought of The Hunting of the Snark as a nonsense ballad for children, it is hard to imagine - in fact one shudders to imagine - a child of today reading and enjoying it.

  Martin Gardner

  Children, Reading, Hunting

  "The Annotated Snark". Book by Martin Gardner, 1962.

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• The last level of metaphor in the Alice books is this: that life, viewed rationally and without illusion, appears to be a nonsense tale told by an idiot mathematician. At the heart of things science finds only a mad, never-ending quadrille of Mock Turtle Waves and Gryphon Particles. For a moment the waves and particles dance in grotesque, inconceivably complex patterns capable of reflecting on their own absurdity.

  Martin Gardner

  Book, Heart, Turtles

  "The Annotated Alice". Book by Martin Gardner (Introduction), 1960.

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• You should be allowed to rub out and start again, it means that you are human. The purists are tedious, they tell you a mistake is like an enduring black mark. Nonsense -- better to be human than some infernal machine never going wrong.

  Peter Greenaway

  Mistake, Mean, Black

  Peter Greenaway, Sei Shōnagon (1996). “The pillow book”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• It is a shame when nonsense can substitute for fact with impunity.

  Lawrence M. Krauss

  Facts, Shame, Substitutes

  "Real Time with Bill Maher", February 08, 2013.

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• [...] to judge from the Internet postings that people have sent me, probably most of what you learned [about me] was nonsense.

  Theodore Kaczynski

  People, Judging, Internet

  "The Road to Revolution" by Theodore Kaczynski, 2008.

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• Only someone as puffed up and demented as John Maynard Keynes, every left wing fascist's sainted mentor in this connection, could manage to convince himself that taxing America's Productive Class can restore it to prosperity. In point of fact, it's like screwing for chastity, guzzling alcohol for sobriety, or gorging to fight gluttony. It's like killing indiscriminately for peace - oops, Democrats, Republicans and their moral and spiritual ilk have devoutly believed that particular bit of perverse nonsense since at least the War of 1812.

  L. Neil Smith

  Spiritual, War, Fighting

  "A Little Austrian Flea". The Libertarian Enterprise, www.ncc-1776.org. March 01, 2009.

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• Some critics of racing witlessly claim that spectators only attend to see someone die. This is utter and complete nonsense. I have been at numerous races where death is present. When a driver dies, the crowd symbolically dies, too. They come to see action at the brink: ultimate risk taking and the display of skill and bravery embodied in the sport's immortals like Nuvolari, Foyt, and thousands of others who operate at the ragged edge.

  Brock Yates

  Sports, Race, Skills

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• True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise.

  Piet Pieterszoon Hein

  Wise, Fool, Compromise

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• If I'm teaching deep things, then I view it as important to make people feel like they're learning deep things, because otherwise, they will still have a hole in their mind for "deep truths" that needs filling, and they will go off and fill their heads with complete nonsense that has been written in a more satisfying style.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Teaching, Views, People

  "Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Mind Control and Me - Less Wrong". lesswrong.com. March 21, 2009.

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• He was not only the most brilliant strategist of all our generals, but he had a good political sense. A man of that quality was too difficult for Hitler to swallow for long. At conferences Manstein often differed from Hitler, in front of others, and would go so far as to declare that some of the ideas which Hitler put forward were nonsense.

  Erich von Manstein

  Men, Ideas, Long

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• While all men are born as equals, to say that Brahmins alone are the highest and all others are low as Pariah (the Untouchables) or Panchama is sheer nonsense. It is roguish to say so. It is a big hoax played on us.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Men, Hoaxes, Untouchables

  Collected works of Periyar E.V.R., p. 482, 2005.

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• I know for a fact that this idea of the Jews causing the war and the Jews being so all important is nonsense. But that was Hitler's idea, and...was pure fantasy. As I say, Hitler is a riddle to me and will always remain so.

  Joachim von Ribbentrop

  War, Ideas, Important

  "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately, (p. 190), 2004.

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• It's all nonsense to say that the Fifteenth Century can't possibly speak to the Twentieth, because it is the Fifteenth and not the Twentieth, and because those two Centuries haven't got a Common Denominator. They have. It's Human Nature.

  Frederick Rolfe

  Two, Common, Human Nature

  "Don Tarquinio" by Frederick Rolfe, London: Chatto and Windus, (p. x), 1941.

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• Theodore Dalrymple is a brilliant observer of both medicine and society, and his book wittily engages with two versions of the current nonsense: orthodox medicine on drug addiction, and romantic poets on the wisdom you supposedly enjoy from getting high.

  Kenneth Minogue

  Book, Two, Medicine

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• The idea that comics stores, distributors and publishers simply 'give the customers what they want' is nonsense. What the customers wanted they didn't get - and they left.

  Scott McCloud

  Book, Ideas, Giving

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• If little fish get eaten by bigger fish, and bigger fish get eaten by bigger fish... what happens when there are no little fish? The world's populations of little fish are being harvested to make catfood!? This nonsense has to stop. Feed a fish a cat a day!

  Tony Bishop

  Cat, Lakes, Sea

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• In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius.

  Walter Bagehot

  Book, Writing, Stupidity

  Walter Bagehot (1986). “The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot: Miscellany”

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• The idea that full employment without property ownership will solve the world's problems is utter nonsense. The Keynesian concept that the function of capital is merely to amplify labor, not independently produce wealth is simply blindness.

  Louis O. Kelso

  Wisdom, Ideas, Amplify

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• Do not be selfish and feel new people will take more of the teacher's attention and you won't get it. That's nonsense. With that attitude, you won't get it. The teacher sees that attitude and will have very little to do with you.

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Buddhist, Attitude

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• Don't judge others. Always be open to them. Avoid the cult mentality, you know, the super-slick, "I'm superior because I meditate, because I'm on the pathway to enlightenment," the subtle ego nonsense, terrible trap.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhist, Buddhism, Judging

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• But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, & more than enough of it - Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a religioso turn of mind has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalise the heart?

  Robert Burns

  Religious, Heart, Bye

  Robert Burns, Alan Bold (1993). “Rhymer Rab: an anthology of poems and prose”

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• I don't put much stock in powers that people have to hurt others, in sorcery and all this nonsense. There are murders and there are dictators. That is just a part of life. The intelligent use of power in yoga can assist you avoiding that side of humanity.

  Frederick Lenz

  Hurt, Yoga, Buddhism

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