Useless Quotes

• No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone else.

  Charles Dickens

  Love, Inspirational, Family

  "Our Mutual Friend". Book by harles Dickens, 1865.

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• Ideas without action are useless.

  Helen Keller

  Ideas, Action

  4 Copy quote

• Planning is valuable, tho the plan is usually useless.

  Ben Horowitz

  Planning, Valuable, Plans

  4 Copy quote

• Useless as a pulled tooth.

  Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Sarcastic, Teeth

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• Because of styles people are separated. Research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is essentially your own.

  Bruce Lee

  People, Style, Add

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• It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is good, too, but it's for the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to shine some light, it doesn't matter where on what, it's the light itself, against the darkness, it's what's left of God's purpose when you take away God.

  Tom Stoppard

  Real, Light, Shining

  Tom Stoppard (1998). “The Invention of Love”, p.71, Grove Press

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• God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say, 'God intends me to be here because I am so useful.' Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judge at all of where that is.

  Oswald Chambers

  Jesus, Judging, Saint

  Oswald Chambers (1985). “My Utmost for His Highest”

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• There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

  Peter Drucker

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

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• If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh useless.

  Moliere

  Integrity, Heart, Would Be

  44 Copy quote

• What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous.

  Thomas Merton

  Inspiring, Life Changing, Moon

  Thomas Merton (1970). “The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century”, p.11, New Directions Publishing

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• There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge, Pleasure, Learning Knowledge

  "In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 2: 'Useless' Knowledge, 1935.

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• The useless men are those who never change with the years.

  James M. Barrie

  Motivational, Change, Years

  32 Copy quote

• Only useless things are indispensable.

  Francis Picabia

  Useless Things, Indispensable, Uselessness

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• The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

  Karl Marx

  Work, Philosophical, Technology

  Erich Fromm, Karl Marx (2013). “Marx's Concept of Man: Including 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts'”, p.122, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Positive, Mean Girls, Funny Inspirational

  "Artifacts : An Archaeologist's Year in Silicon Valley". Book by Christine Finn, 2001.

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• There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Intelligent, Appreciate, Intelligence

  53 Copy quote

• The elderly are useless eaters.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Elderly

  25 Copy quote

• Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile.

  Abu Bakr

  Action, Martial Arts, Caliphs

  216 Copy quote

• The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it.

  Esther Williams

  Wisdom, Teaching, Athlete

  25 Copy quote

• Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.

  John Ruskin

  Love, Beauty, Beautiful

  Stones of Venice vol. 1, ch. 2, sec. 17 (1851)

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• So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "Lay Morals".

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• Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

  Anton Chekhov

  Philosophy, Doe, Literature

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• I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

  Bill Watterson

  Stupid, Dumb, Information

  "Calvin and Hobbes". Comic strip by Bill Watterson, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 18, 1985 – December 31, 1995.

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• Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Maxims

  "On Machiavelli" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1827.

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• We must not confuse distortion with innovation; distortion is useless change, art is beneficial change.

  Chuck Jones

  Art, Confusion, Innovation

  11 Copy quote