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Top Frivolous Quotes

Browse top 104 famous quotes and sayings about Frivolous by most favorite authors.

Favorite Frivolous Quotes

1. "Let me tell you, though: being the smartest boy in the world wasn't easy. I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this. On the contrary, it was a huge burden. First, there was the task of keeping my brain perfectly protected. My cerebral cortex was a national treasure, a masterpiece of the Sistine Chapel of brains. This was not something that could be treated frivolously. If I could have locked it in a safe, I would have. Instead, I became obsessed with brain damage."
Author: A.J. Jacobs
2. "Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an employee had spent three months devising a supermarket promotion based on an offer of free stickers of cartoon characters called the Fimbles. Why had the grown-ups so churlishly abdicated their responsibilities? Were there not more important ambitions to be met before Death showed himself on the horizon in his hooded black cloak, his scythe slung over his shoulder?"
Author: Alain De Botton
3. "I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands."
Author: Alan Bradley
4. "Nobility is expensive, nonproductive, and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society's energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings."
Author: Alan Weisman
5. "What to one person is common courtesy is to another tender words of life - and by the same token, what one person intends to show as great affection may be to his beloved an irrelevant show of frivolousness compared to the kindness of simply doing the laundry sometimes."
Author: Anna Broadway
6. "He went into the kitchen. It was eight in the evening. He tried to shut the bright spring evening out with the curtains, but it forced its way past them in places, dust-filled sunbeams that lit up the gloom in his flat. Spring and summer were not Erlendur's seasons. Too bright. Too frivolous. He wanted heavy, dark winters. Finding nothing edible in the kitchen, he sat down at the table with his chin resting in his hand."
Author: Arnaldur Indriðason
7. "If [a man] spent his money, say, in giving parties for his friends, they (we may hope) would get pleasure, and so would all those upon whom he spent money, such as the butcher, the baker, and the bootlegger. But if he spends it (let us say) upon laying down rails for surface cars in some place where surface cars turn out not to be wanted, he has diverted a mass of labor into channels where it gives pleasure to no one. Nevertheless, when he becomes poor through failure of his investment he will be regarded as a victim of undeserved misfortune, whereas the gay spendthrift, who has spent his money philanthropically, will be despised as a fool and a frivolous person."
Author: Bertrand Russell
8. "Do I strike you as a frivolous man, Kelly?"I look at him, sitting there in another thousand dollar suit. Pompous? Yes. Self-centered? Yes. Careless? "No."
Author: Bill Blais
9. "Dancing Towards BethlehemIf there is only enough time in the finalminutes of the 20th century for one last danceI would like to be dancing it slowly with you,say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel.My palm would press into the small of your backas the past hundred years collapsed into a pileof mirrors or buttons or frivolous shoes,just as the floor of the 19th century gave wayand disappeared in a red cloud of brick dust.There will be no time to order another drinkor worry about what was never said,not with the orchestra sliding into the seaand all our attention devoted to hummingwhatever it was they were playing."
Author: Billy Collins
10. "Alban's eyes widened, palpable shock rolling off him. "Daisani's assistant? That Vanessa Gray?" "That one." Alban whistled, a long high sound of wind howling through stone, and Margrit looked at him in surprise. "You can whistle?" His eyebrows wrinkled. "Can't you?" "Of course, but it's so frivolous. You're sort of stolid. I wouldn't have thought whistling was in a gargoyle's nature." Alban chuckled. "I don't do it often."
Author: C.E. Murphy
11. "I think the genre of comics sometimes overtakes the medium, and people assume that they are kind of frivolous. If you have a good, strong story teller, they can be as affecting as any character in literature. Period."
Author: Chip Kidd
12. "Does all this frivolous sex make our species sound "animalistic"? It shouldn't. The animal world is full of species that have sex only during widely spaced intervals when the female is ovulating. Only two species can do it week in and week out for nonreproductive reasons: one human, the other very humanlike. Sex for pleasure with various partners is therefore more "human" than animal."
Author: Christopher Ryan
13. "MEPHIST. Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it: Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells, In being depriv'd of everlasting bliss? O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!"
Author: Christopher Marlowe
14. "Our education system is increasingly embracing a black-and-white way of thinking, in which 'learning' and 'play' are diametrically opposed. 'Learning' is the serious stuff that happens inside a classroom and can be measured via multiple choice questions and a No. 2 pencil. 'Play' is frivolous, fun, and worst of all, optional."
Author: Darell Hammond
15. "A defense [of religion] is needed because none has been forthcoming. The discussion has been ceded to men who regard religious belief with frivolous contempt. Their books have in recent years poured from every press, and although differing widely in their style, they are identical in their message: Because scientific theories are true, religious beliefs must be false."
Author: David Berlinski
16. "I know that for every reader who has lost the habit or can't find the time, there are people who've never enjoyed reading and question the value of literature, either as entertainment or education, or believe that a love of books, and of fiction in particular, is sentimental or frivolous."
Author: David Nicholls
17. "I avoid contemporary TV...politics...art: all too frantic, fevered, and frivolous, or else angry, bitter."
Author: Dean Koontz
18. "You'll want to read books - novels, because ladies are frivolous; poetry because ladies are sentimental; and sermons, because we are pious. If you must read essays, Mr. Emerson might be best. Your gentleman may have a nodding acquaintance with his works."
Author: Donald McCaig
19. "While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn't sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn't such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all."
Author: E.A. Bucchianeri
20. "A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys."
Author: Edith Wharton
21. "To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity... the more womanly we are, the more manly men will be and the more God is glorified. Be women, be only women, be real women in obedience to God."
Author: Elisabeth Elliot
22. "It was widespread that the politics of Tea Party people would be foreign to Ronald Reagan and they would be seen by him as frivolous and uninformed."
Author: Eugene Jarecki
23. "Yes, the laws of self-preservation and of self-destruction are equally powerful in this world. The devil will hold his empire over humanity until a limit of time which is still unknown. You laugh? You do not believe in the devil? Scepticism as to the devil is a French idea, and it is also a frivolous idea. Do you know who the devil is? Do you know his name? Although you don't know his name you make a mockery of his form, following the example of Voltaire. You sneer at his hoofs, at his tail, at his horns—all of them the produce of your imagination! In reality the devil is a great and terrible spirit, with neither hoofs, nor tail, nor horns; it is you who have endowed him with these attributes! But… he is not the question just now!"
Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
24. "The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason."
Author: G.K. Chesterton
25. "The flowered trim on the hems [of the dress] seemed superfluous, even frivolous, but at the same time it comforted her, as though the idea that a seamstress had thought to adorn clothing so innocently implied that somewhere, innocence was safe."
Author: Gael Baudino
26. "It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it--if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of the Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructable force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy--the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love."
Author: George Eliot
27. "Simon Monjack had nothing to do with 'Factory Girl.' He filed a frivolous lawsuit against us... making bogus claims that we had stolen his script. He held us literally to hostage and we were forced to settle with him as he held our production over a barrel."
Author: George Hickenlooper
28. "Tea at the Ritz is the last delicious morsel of Edwardian London. The light is kind, the cakes are frivolous and the tempo is calm, confident and leisurely."
Author: Helen Simpson
29. "I know at least what I am,' he simply went on; 'the other side of the medal's clear enough. I've not been edifying--I believe I'm thought in a hundred quarters to have been barely decent. I've followed strange paths and worshipped strange gods; it must have come to you again and again--in fact you've admitted to me as much--that I was leading, at any time these thirty years, a selfish frivolous scandalous life. And you see what it has made of me."
Author: Henry James
30. "Frivolous lawsuits are booming in this county. The U.S. has more costs of litigation per person than any other industrialized nation in the world, and it is crippling our economy."
Author: Jack Kingston
31. "To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous, or to act as if nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful… everything that happens is of consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for unlimited possibility."
Author: James P. Carse
32. "I was trained as a neurologist, and then I went into the theater, and if you're brought up to think of yourself as a biological scientist of some sort, pretty well everything else seems frivolous by comparison."
Author: Jonathan Miller
33. "Hey girls, did you hear the news? It's just been scientifically proven that barrettes are dangerous! So are bracelets and bric-a-brac. It's a fact. And don't be fooled by thick-necked macho men who pretend that "girl stuff" is boring or frivolous, because that's just an act. Because as soon as you ask that guy to hold your purse for a minute, he will start to squirm, as if your handbag were full of worms, as he holds it as far away from his rugged body as possible. Because "girl stuff" is made with the gender equivalent of Kryptonite!"
Author: Julia Serano
34. "As we drove uptown, I spotted a Kmart on a corner,with its familiar red sign.I cleared my throat."Wait. Can we stop for a minute?""What for?""Just - I need a few things."He looked irritated, but pulled into a metered space. "We don't really have time to go shopping."I glared at him."yeah, excuse me for being so frivolous. You have your suitcase all packed already; I dont even have clean underwear.I'll be right back."
Author: L.A. Weatherly
35. "War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Our attitude towards the fearful necessity of war ought to be stern. It boils down to this: we should have done with humbug, and let war be war and not a game. Otherwise, war is a favourite pastime of the idle and frivolous..."
Author: Leo Tolstoy
36. "You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones."
Author: Louisa May Alcott
37. "How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age."
Author: Margaret Atwood
38. "Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me."
Author: Marge Piercy
39. "Had I been placed among those nations which are said to live still in the sweet freedom of nature's first laws, I assure you I should very gladly have portrayed myself here entire and wholly naked.Thus, reader, I am myself the matter of my book; you would be unreasonable to spend your leisure on so frivolous and vain a subject."
Author: Michel De Montaigne
40. "I try to be very modest with what I do. I'm not a frivolous spender."
Author: Nancy Lopez
41. "The steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind."
Author: Philip Dormer Stanhope
42. "I make 98% of my collection in New York City and am generating jobs, so fashion isn't just frivolous for me. I understand levity about it. I also understand the depth of it."
Author: Prabal Gurung
43. "It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do."
Author: Richard Steele
44. "Films about women and their concerns are seen as frivolous, limited and, most damaging of all, niche."
Author: Romola Garai
45. "My dad was an engineer and so I had this picture of science and technology and pursuits of the mind as being more impressive than artistic pursuits, which I saw a as kind of frivolous."
Author: Scott McCloud
46. "I cannot just write a frivolous book, a la-di-da book. Everything isn't la-di-da. There is something that's going to pull you up short. I want to reassure young readers. I want to comfort them, to not fear the unexpected."
Author: Sharon Creech
47. "Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones."
Author: Sophie Swetchine
48. "The ever-changing reality in the midst of which we live should awaken us to the possibility of an uninterrupted dialogue with God. By this I do not mean continuous "talk," or a frivolously conversational form of affective prayer which is sometimes cultivated in convents, but a dialogue of love and of choice. A dialogue of deep wills."
Author: Thomas Merton
49. "Most of life is so dull it is not worth discussing, and it is dull at all ages. When we change our brand of cigarette, move to a new neighborhood, subscribe to a different newspaper, fall in and out of love, we are protesting in ways both frivolous and deep against the not to be diluted dullness of day-to-day living."
Author: Truman Capote
50. "The modern ignorance is in people's assumption that they can outsmart their own nature. It is in the arrogance that will believe nothing that cannot be proved, and respect nothing it cannot understand, and value nothing it cannot sell . . . The next hard time is just as real to him as the last, and so is the next blessing. The new ignorance is the same as the old, only less aware that ignorance is the same as the old, only less aware that ignorance is what it is. It is less humble, more foolish and frivolous, more dangerous. A man, Old Jack thinks, has no choice but to be ignorant, but he does not have to be a fool. He can know his place, and he can stay in it and be faithful."
Author: Wendell Berry
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I can play songs that I hear from a movie and just play it a few times on the keyboard. I will hit all the notes on the keyboard until I find the right key, and then I will play the rest of the song."
Author: Callan McAuliffe

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