Useless Quotes - Page 30

• Unless you do your best, the day will come when, tired and hungry, you will halt just short of the goal you were ordered to reach, and by halting you will make useless the efforts and deaths of thousands.

  George S. Patton

  Tired, Warrior, Goal

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• All good government must begin at home. It is useless to make good laws for bad people; what is wanted is this, to subdue the tyranny of the human heart.

  Hugh Reginald Haweis

  Home, Heart, Government

  Hugh Reginald Haweis (1875). “Speech in Season”, p.191

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• I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.

  Victor Hugo

  Mistake, Eye, Direct Action

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• Print neatly. That's the kind of advice that the IRS considers a "dynamite" tax tip. If you ask them a real tax question, such as how you can cheat, they're useless.

  Dave Barry

  Real, Advice, Irs

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• The danger of tautological propositions is considerable in discussions of the concept of normal profits. Because supernormal profits seem to invite newcomers to an industry and sub-normal profits seem to drive away those who are in an industry, some writers are inclined to define normal profits as the earnings of the fixed resources in an industry which neither grows nor declines in size or number of firms. It should be clear that such a definition is useless: it muddles together attractiveness and actual afflux, desirbility of entry and ease of entry, zero profits and monopoly rents.

  Fritz Machlup

  Zero, Numbers, Together

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• Technological society leads to increasing numbers of people who cannot adapt to the inhuman rhythm of modern life with its emphasis on specialization. A class of people is growing up who are unexploitable because they are not worth employing even for the minimum wage. Technological progress makes whole categories of people useless without making it possible to support them with the wealth produced by the progress.

  Jacques Ellul

  Growing Up, Class, Numbers

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• According to the International Institute for Environment and Development, the annual amount spent globally on advertising aimed at increasing consumption topped $430 billion in 1998.Consumer capitalism is dedicated to the proposition that production is good in itself, no matter what is produced. The net effect is the massive production of absurd, empty and useless items which are nevertheless utterly serious since we earn our living from them, and dedicate our leisure time to them.

  Jacques Ellul

  Development, Matter, Leisure

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• There's something that happens in that delivery room, when a woman becomes ten times more a woman, and a guy becomes six times less a man. You feel really dopey and useless and like a spectator. I did, anyway.

  Paul Reiser

  Dope, Men, Guy

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• Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, & they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals & is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.

  William Blake

  Happiness, Tree, Sorrow

  William Blake (1966). “Complete Writings: With Variant Readings”, p.830, Oxford University Press, USA

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• There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Sorrow, Hopeless

  Samuel Johnson (1816). “A Diary of a Journey Into North Wales, in the Year 1774”, p.152

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• We celebrate the cherry tree not for its efficiency but for its effectiveness - and for its beauty. Its materials are in constant flow, and all those thousands of useless cherry blossoms look gorgeous. Then they fall to the ground and become soil again, so there's no problem

  William McDonough

  Nature, Fall, Effectiveness

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• It would be absolutely useless for any of us to work to save wildlife without working to educate the next generation of conservationists.

  Jane Goodall

  Would Be, Generations, Next

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• A horse is freedom so indominable that it becomes useless to imprison it to serve man: it lets itself be domesticated, but with a simple, rebellious toss of the head-shaking its mane like an abundance of free-flowing hair-it shows that its inner nature is always wild, translucent and free.

  Clarice Lispector

  Horse, Simple, Men

  Clarice Lispector (1989). “Soulstorm: Stories”, p.106, New Directions Publishing

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• A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Government, Honest, Economy

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution : Annotated Correspondence”, p.297, Algora Publishing

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• The truth is that the general genius of a government is all that can be substantially relied upon for permanent effects. Particular provisions, though not altogether useless, have far less virtue and efficacy than are commonly ascribed to them; and the want of them will never be with men of sound discernment a decisive objection to any plan which exhibits the leading characters of a good government.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Character, Men, Sound

  Alexander Hamilton (1810). “The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Comprising His Most Important Official Reports: An Improved Edition of the Federalist, on the New Constitution, Written in 1788; and Pacificus, on the Proclamation of Neutrality, Written in 1793 ...”, p.287, New York : Williams and Whitings

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• It is useless to read Greek in translation; translators can but offer us a vague equivalent.

  Virginia Woolf

  Greek, Language, Offers

  Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee (2000). “A room of one's own and other essays”

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• If everything is perfect, language is useless. This is true for animals. If animals don't speak, it's because everything's perfect for them. If one day they start to speak, it will be because the world has lost a certain sort of perfection.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Animal, Perfect, One Day

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.84, Verso

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• As an example of just how useless these philosophers are for any practice in life there is Socrates himself, the one and only wise man, according to the Delphic Oracle. Whenever he tried to do anything in public he had to break off amid general laughter. While he was philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring a flea's foot and marveling at a midge's humming, he learned nothing about the affairs of ordinary life.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Life, Wise, Laughter

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• There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.

  Samuel Johnson

  Love, Sorrow, Hopeless

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana: Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.107

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• Some people are under the impression that all that is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing; but this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless; the veriest tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability, the general air of scrupulous - almost of pedantic - veracity, that the experienced angler is seen.

  Jerome K. Jerome

  Mistake, Lying, Air

  Jerome K. Jerome (2006). “Jerome K. Jerome: 14 Books in 1”, p.55, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Finance that only talks to itself & deals with each other becomes socially useless

  Mark Carney

  Business, Management, Finance

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• My father's nature turned out no waste product; he had none of that useless stuff in him that lies in heaps near factories. He took his own happiness with him.

  Margot Asquith

  Attitude, Father, Lying

  Margot Asquith (1963). “The Autobiography of Margot Asquith: Vol. two”

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• The relative importance of the white and gray matter is often misunderstood. Were it not for the manifold connection of the nerve cells in the cortex by the tens of millions of fibres which make up the under-estimated white matter, such a brain would be useless as a telephone or telegraph station with all the interconnecting wires destroyed.

  Edward Anthony Spitzka

  Science, Cells, Gray Matter

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• Convenient though it would be if it were true, Mozilla [Netscape 1.0] is not big because it's full of useless crap. Mozilla is big because your needs are big. Your needs are big because the Internet is big. There are lots of small, lean web browsers out there that, incidentally, do almost nothing useful. But being a shining jewel of perfection was not a goal when we wrote Mozilla.

  Jamie Zawinski

  Jewels, Goal, Perfection

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• You need an infinite stretch of time ahead of you to start to think, infinite energy to make the smallest decision. The world is getting denser. The immense number of useless projects is bewildering. Too many things have to be put in to balance up an uncertain scale. You can't disappear anymore. You die in a state of total indecision.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Thinking, Numbers, Decision

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool Memories”, p.110, Verso

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