Useless Quotes - Page 22

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a congress.

Peter Stone

Humor, Men, Law

Sherman Edwards, Peter Stone (1976). “1776: A Musical Play”, Penguin Group USA

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To be sure, if you watch CNBC all day long you'll pick up some interesting news about particular companies and the economy as a whole. Unfortunately, to get to the useful information, you have to wade through reams of useless stuff, with little guidance on how to distinguish between the two.

James Surowiecki

Useless Stuff, Two, Long

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On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.

Lin Yutang

Inspirational, Life, Learning

"The Importance of Living" by Lin Yutang, (p. 153), 1937.

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Hello, I'm Shellie's new boyfriend and I'm out of my mind. If you so much as talk to her or even think her name, I'll cut you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman.

Frank Miller

Cutting, Thinking, Sin City

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You have to give up! you have to give up! You have to realize that someday you will die, Until you know that, you are useless!

Chuck Palahniuk

Giving Up, Realizing, Someday

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My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless... I'm not going to have a happy ending.

Marya Hornbacher

Heart, Erratic, Ulcers

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When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Inspirational, Single, Peace

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God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it. Existence never was originally meant to be that useless, blank, pale, slow-trailing thing it often becomes to many, and is becoming to me, among the rest.

Charlotte Bronte

Believe, Optimistic, Heart

Charlotte Bronte (2006). “Shirley: Easyread Edition”, p.35, ReadHowYouWant.com

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Do not give way to useless alarm; though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain.

Jane Austen

Giving, Alarms, Looks

Jane Austen (2005). “Jane Austen: 8 Books in 1”, p.169, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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As Unto the bow the the cord is , So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him, Though she draws him , yet she follows: Useless each without the other.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Marriage, Men, Bows

The Song of Hiawatha pt. 10 (1855)

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We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again, and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race.

H. G. Wells

Real, Silly, Race

H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.725, Delphi Classics

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One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory. You must remember this.

Neil Gaiman

Dream, Would Be, Stories

Neil Gaiman (2009). “Selections from Fragile Things, Volume One: 4 Short Fictions and Wonders”, p.11, Harper Collins

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When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

Benjamin Disraeli

Funny, Truth, Communication

Benjamin Disraeli, Edmund Gosse, Robert Arnot (1904). “The Works of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Embracing Novels, Romances, Plays, Poems, Biography, Short Stories and Great Speeches: Contarini Fleming, v. 2. Count Alarcos. Popanilla”

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Ms. Wormwood: Calvin, can you tell us what Lewis and Clark did? Calvin: No, but I can recite the secret superhero origin of each member of Captain Napalm's Thermonuclear League of Liberty. Ms. Wormwood: See me after class, Calvin. Calvin: [retrospectively] I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

Bill Watterson

Class, League, Superhero

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It is useless for me to describe to you how terrible Violet, Klaus, and even Sunny felt in the time that followed. If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven't, you cannot possibly imagine it.

Daniel Handler

Death, Grief, Loss

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Whether God exists or does not exist, He has come to rank among the most sublime and useless truths.

Denis Diderot

Sublime, Doe, Whether God Exists

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If a night-moth were to concentrate its will on flying to a star or some equally unattainable object, it wouldn't succeed. Only, it wouldn't even try in the first place. A moth confines its search to what has sense and value for it, what it needs, what is indispensable to its life... if I imagined that I wanted under all circumstances to get to the North Pole, then to achieve it I would have to desire it strongly enough that my whole being was ruled by it. But if I were to decide to will that the pastor should stop wearing his glasses, it would be useless. That would be making a game of it.

Hermann Hesse

Stars, Night, Glasses

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I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back.

Philip Levine

Tears, Lasts

Philip Levine, “Father”

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But why do only unimportant things?" asked Milo, who suddenly remembered how much time he spent each day doing them. "Think of all the trouble it saves," the man explained, and his face looked as if he'd be grinning an evil grin--if he could grin at all. "If you only do the easy and useless jobs, you'll never have to worry about the important ones which are so difficult. You just won't have the time. For there's always something to do to keep you from what you really should be doing, and if it weren't for that dreadful magic staff, you'd never know how much time you were wasting.

Norton Juster

Jobs, Men, Thinking

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Dr. Armonson stitched up her wrist wounds. Withen 5 minutes of the transfusion he declared her out of danger. Chucking her under the chin, he said, "What are you doing here, honey? Your not even old enough to know how bad life gets." And it was then Cecelia gave orally what was to be her only form of suicide note, and a useless one at that, because she was going to live: "Obviously, Doctor," she said, "you've never been a 13 year old girl.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Girl, Suicide, Doctors

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. . .There are certain people who come into your life, and leave a mark. . . Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to define those hundred ways, describe them even to yourself, words are useless.

Sara Zarr

Life, Heart, Unfinished Business

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What amazes me is that most days feel useless. I don't seem to accomplish anything-just a few pages, most of which don't seem very good. Yet, when I put all those wasted days together, I somehow end up with a book of which I'm very proud.

Louis Sachar

Book, Together, Proud

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My language limitations here are real. My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life. If I really knew this language, there would surely be in my head, as there is in Webster's or the Dictionary of American Slang, that unreducible verb designed to tell a person like me what to do next.

Grace Paley

Real, Writing, Vocabulary

Grace Paley (2014). “Enormous Changes at the Last Minute: Stories”, p.85, Macmillan

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Any powerful idea is absolutely fascinating and absolutely useless until we choose to use it.

Richard Bach

Powerful, Commitment, Opportunity

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Idleness, pleasure, what abysses! To do nothing is a dreary course to take, be sure of it. To live idle upon the substance of society! To be useless, that is to say, noxious! This leads straight to the lowest depth of misery.

Victor Hugo

Depth, Substance, Misery

Victor Hugo (2000). “Les Mis??rables”, p.798, Modern Library

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