Superfluous Quotes - Page 7

• The superfluous is the most necessary.

  Voltaire

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• Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

  Writing, Men, Together

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• Dress not thy thoughts in too fine a raiment. And be not a man of superfluous words or superfluous deeds.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Money, Men, Dresses

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• A pure style in writing results from the rejection of everything superfluous.

  Suzanne Curchod

  Writing, Rejection, Style

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• The more we desire for that which is superfluous, the more we meet with difficulties; our strength and possessions are spent in unnecessary things, and are wanting when required for that which is necessary.

  Maimonides

  Desire, Unnecessary Things, Difficulty

  Moses Maimonides (2012). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.271, Courier Corporation

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• The civilized nations--Greece, Rome, England--have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Father, Rome

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “The Selected Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.170, Simon and Schuster

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• What God declares the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof. Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Believe, Heart, Doubt

  Aiden Wilson Tozer (1965). “The Knowledge of the Holy”, p.23, Fig

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• Discipleship means adherence to Christ and, because Christ is the object of that adherence, it must take the form of discipleship. An abstract theology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge of the subject of grace or the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact exclude any idea of discipleship whatsoever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ....Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Religious, Mean, Following Christ

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• To recover the fatherhood idea, we must fashion a new cultural story of fatherhood. The moral of today's story is that fatherhoodis superfluous. The moral of the new story must be that fatherhood is essential.

  David Blankenhorn

  Fashion, Ideas, Fatherhood

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• We spoke of ourselves as "emancipated" when we got the vote. Yet we are still slaves to the superficial and the superfluous. We are concerned with the length of our skirts, with the latest lipstick, with the newest thrill in hats. We are impressed by advertisements that insist we must be alluring; we must adopt a time-consuming coiffure, we must spend hours with the "beautician," we must attend fashion shows. As long as women are preoccupied with nonessentials we shall be afflicted with infantilism, passivity, and the eventual disillusionment that results from trivial, unproductive lives.

  Mary Barnett Gilson

  Fashion, Long, Thrill

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• Tweeting is something you can do wherever you are, on your phone, on the computer, in an airport lounge. It's easy to do, and I do find it fun to communicate with people. It's quite nice that we can have almost direct contact with anyone in the world at any time. I don't know how important it is in terms of one's career. It seems to be pretty much superfluous in terms of that, but it's nice to communicate.

  Boy George

  Fun, Nice, Careers

  "The Very Good Boy George". Interview with Gerry Visco, www.interviewmagazine.com. April 22, 2014.

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• If I existed 200 years ago, all the other farmers in my community would be like, 'That guy is worthless! He's sitting on a rock, jumping up like a frog, coming up with weird concepts and ideas, making faces, and combing his hair into a giant pastry.' It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy.

  Conan O'Brien

  Jumping, Hair, Rocks

  Interview with Nathan Rabin, www.avclub.com. August 30, 2006.

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• Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Fighting, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.59, Cosimo, Inc.

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• One does not reflect on a point of honor - that is already dishonor. To submit to insult, to forget a humiliation, to quail before an enemy - all these are signs of a life become worthless and superfluous.

  Oswald Spengler

  Honor, Enemy, Doe

  Oswald Spengler, Charles Francis Atkinson 1880 (1928). “The decline of the West”

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• As long as a population can be induced to believe in a supernatural hereafter, it can be oppressed and controlled. People will put up with all sorts of tyranny, poverty, and painful treatment if they're convinced that they'll eventually escape to some resort in the sky where lifeguards are superfluous and the pool never closes. Moreover, the faithful are usually willing to risk their skins in whatever military adventure their government may currently be promoting.

  Tom Robbins

  Military, Believe, Adventure

  Tom Robbins (2003). “Skinny Legs and All”, p.356, Bantam

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• Barbarian invasions would be superfluous: We are our own Huns.

  Bertrand de Jouvenel

  Would Be, Invasion, Barbarians

  Bertrand de Jouvenel (1949). “On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth”

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• Justification by religious performances, and meritorious deeds, is nothing better than the old Pharisaism with a Christian name stuck upon it. . . That doctrine makes the Lord Jesus Christ to be practically a nobody; for if salvation be of works, then the way of salvation through faith in a Savior is superfluous, and even mischievous

  Charles Spurgeon

  Christian, Religious, Jesus

  Charles Spurgeon (2015). “The Complete Works of C. H. Spurgeon, Volume 37”, p.433, Delmarva Publications, Inc.

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• The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary now grafts things superfluous . . . but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined.

  St. Vincent

  Church, Doe, Add

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• The "health, education, and welfare" section of government is another boondoggle. First we manufacture indigent and superfluous people by legal monopolies in land, money and idea patents, erecting tariff barriers to protect monopolies from foreign competition, and taxing laborers to subsidize rich farmers and privileged manufacturers. Then we create "social workers, " etc., to care for them and thereby establish a self-aggravating and permanent institutionalized phenomenon.

  Laurance Labadie

  Government, Self, Health Education

  Laurance Labadie (1978). “Selected Essays”

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• A kiss is a course of procedure cunningly devised, for the mutual stopage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous.

  Oliver Herford

  Kissing, Speech, Moments

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• The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.

  John Knox

  Doctrine, Add, World

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• Our physical illnesses serve us for medicines to purge us from worldly affections and retrench what is superfluous in us, and since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.

  John Calvin

  Feet, Medicine, Departure

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• The design of everyday things is in great danger of becoming the design of superfluous, overloaded, unnecessary things.

  Donald A. Norman

  Everyday Things, Design, Unnecessary Things

  Donald A. Norman (2013). “The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition”, p.183, Basic Books

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• Knowledge and liberty are so prevalent in this country, that I do not believe that the United States would ever be disposed to establish one religious sect, and lay all others under legal disabilities. But as we know not what may take place hereafter, and any such test would be exceedingly injurious to the rights of free citizens, I cannot think it altogether superfluous to have added a clause, which secures us from the possibility of such oppression.

  Oliver Wolcott

  Country, Religious, Father

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• The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length. ... Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mean, Numbers, Important

  "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". Book by Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1801.

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