Nonsense Quotes: best 481 famous quotes about Nonsense

Top Nonsense Quotes

Browse top 481 famous quotes and sayings about Nonsense by most favorite authors.

Favorite Nonsense Quotes

1. "It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things."
Author: Anne Sullivan

2. "Then you may have sheer clotted nonsense; I once chased Julius Caesar all over London to get his recipe for curried eggs."
Author: Arthur Machen

3. "There's a feeling that strength is determined by the size of a union. That clearly is nonsense."
Author: Arthur Scargill

4. "Harness the imagination: Sometimes curbing her, sometimes giving her rein, for she is the whole of happiness. She sets to rights even the understanding. She sinks to tyranny, not satisfied with mere faith, but demanding works. Thus she becomes the mistress of life itself. She does so with pleasure or with pain, according to the nonsense presented. She makes people contented or discontented with themselves. By dangling before some nothing but the specter of their eternal suffering, she becomes the scourge of these fools. To others she shows nothing but fortune and romance, while merrily laughing. Of all this she is capable if not held in check by the wisest of wills."
Author: Baltasar Gracián

5. "To be sure, Wegener made mistakes. He asserted that Greenland is drifting west at about 1.6 kilometres a year, a clear nonsense. (Its more like a centimetre.)"
Author: Bill Bryson

6. "I must say the idea of a United Africa was nonsense."
Author: C. L. R. James

7. "You may be right. I think it was round about Christmas when I got my Welsh dragon tattoo."At that, Tessa had to try very hard not to blush. "How did that happen?"Will made an airy gesture with his hand. "I was drunk…""Nonsense. You were never really drunk.""On the contrary—in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider—" "You can't mean there's truly a Six-Fingered Nigel?"
Author: Cassandra Clare

8. "Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and have her nonsense respected."
Author: Charles Lamb

9. "You know, when I sit in meetings and things are very tense and people take things extremely seriously and they invest a lot of their ego, I sometimes think to myself, 'Come on, you know, there's life and there's death and there is love.' And all of that ego business is nonsense compared to that."
Author: Christine Lagarde

10. "It's a curious thing in American life that the most abject nonsense will be excused if the utterer can claim the sanction of religion. A country which forbids an established church by law is prey to any denomination. The best that can be said is that this is pluralism of a kind."
Author: Christopher Hitchens

11. "I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in the world already; above all, that understanding between lovers, celebrated in song and story, which is actually such torture that no two of them can bear it without frequent separations or fights."
Author: Christopher Isherwood

12. "Percival guessed that his prey preferred to listen, letting her friends carry on with whatever amusing nonsense filled their lives, while she privately assessed their habits, cataloging their strengths and faults with clinical ruthlessness."
Author: Danielle Trussoni

13. "That we are rational agents—that a great many of our actions are not merely the results of serial physiological urges but are instead dictated by coherent conceptual connections and private deliberations—is one of those primordial data I mentioned above that cannot be reduced to some set of purely mechanical functions without producing nonsense. That a number of cognitive scientists should be exerting themselves to tear down the Cartesian partition between body and soul, hoping to demonstrate that there is no Wonderful Wizard on the other side pulling the levers, is poignant proof that our mechanistic paradigms trap much of our thinking about mind and body within an absurd dilemma: we must believe either in a ghost mysteriously animating a machine or in a machine miraculously generating a ghost. Premodern thought allowed for a far less restricted range of conceptual possibilities."
Author: David Bentley Hart

14. "When my sons told me about what they'd found, I went to the priests of Belar and had them examine the auguries. This is the year to go. The ice up there won't be as thick again for years and years. Then they cast my own auguries, and from what they say, this could be the most fortunate year in my whole life.""Do you actually believe that superstitious nonsense?" I demanded. "Are you so gullible that you think that somebody can foretell the future by fondling a pile of sheep guts?"He looked a little injured. "This was important, Belgarath. I certainly wouldn't trust sheep's entrails for something like this.""I'm glad to hear that.""We used a horse instead. Horse guts never lie."
Author: David Eddings

15. "The usual consolations of life, friendship and sex included, appealed to Newton hardly at all. Art, literature, and music had scarcely more allure. He dismissed the classical sculptures in the Earl of Pembroke's renowned collection as "stone dolls." He waved poetry aside as "a kind of ingenious nonsense." He rejected opera after a single encounter. "The first Act I heard with pleasure, the 2d stretch'd my patience, at the 3d I ran away."
Author: Edward Dolnick

16. "It's all nonsense. It's only nonsense. I'm not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn't."
Author: Ernest Hemingway

17. "Nonsense make senseto the onewho misses them"
Author: Ferrer Joey Palomar Fesico

18. "MRS PEARCE. Mr Higgins: youre tempting the girl. It's not right. She should think of the future.HIGGINS. At her age! Nonsense! Time enough to think of the future when you havnt any future to think of."
Author: George Bernard Shaw

19. "I got him' is nonsense in terms of love relationships, and so is 'I lost him'. If we could stop thinking in terms of capture, we would not have to fear the loosening of the captives' bonds and our failing beauty, and he would not have ulcers about being outsrtipped or belittled."
Author: Germaine Greer

20. "You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships.You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones."
Author: Harlan Coben

21. "I can't bear these accounts I read in the Times and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn't even silly; it is the death of art."
Author: Harold Bloom

22. "The point is: what happens in heaven?''Unknowable wonderfulness?' 'Nonsense. The answer is nothing. Nothing can happen because if something happens, in fact if something can happen, then it doesn't represent eternity. Our lives are about development, mutation and the possibility of change; that is almost a definition of what life is: change.''If you disable change, if you effectively stop time, if you prevent the possibility of the alteration of an individual's circumstances - and that must include at least the possibility that they alter for the worse - then you don't have life after death; you just have death."
Author: Iain M. Banks

23. "To a thoughtful biographer, [Ebling Mis's house] was "the symbolization of a retreat from a non-academic reality", a society columnist gushed silkily at its "frightfully masculine atmosphere of careless disorder", a University Ph.D called it brusquely, "bookish, but unorganized", a non-university friend said, "good for a drink anytime and you can put your feet on the sofa", and a breezy newsweekly broadcast, that went in for color, spoke of the "rooky, down-to-earth, no-nonsense living quarters of blaspheming, Leftish, balding Ebling Mis". To Bayta, who thought of no audience but herself at the moment, and who had the advantage of first-hand information, it was merely sloppy."
Author: Isaac Asimov

24. "I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enough—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone. And so you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his."
Author: Jane Austen

25. "Mrs. Weston's friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella's sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew older— and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence—to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston— no one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have their powers in exercise again."
Author: Jane Austen

26. "You speak baby gibberish?' asked Jack.'Fluently. The adult-education center ran a course, and I have a lot of time on my hands.''So what did he say?''I don't know.''I thought you said you spoke gibberish?''I do. But your baby doesn't. I think he's speaking eitherpre-toddler nonsense, a form of infact burble or an obscure dialect ofgobbledygook. In any event, I can't understand a word he's saying.''Oh."
Author: Jasper Fforde

27. "It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."
Author: John Kenneth Galbraith

28. "The problem is you make the tricks look good. You are a brilliant acrobat, and a witty comedian. You are skillful. People want a fool to be foolish--trip on banana peels and grin and spout nonsense. These men want fools to make them feel better about themselves, not to remind them what they lack."
Author: Kelli Swofford Nielsen

29. "Distances and days existed in themselves then; they all had a story. They were not barriers. If a person wanted to get to the moon, there is a way; it all depended on whether you knew the directions... on whether you knew the story of how others before you had gone. He had believed in the stories for a long time, until the teachers at Indian school taught him not to believe in that kind of "nonsense". But they had been wrong."
Author: Leslie Marmon Silko

30. "I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense."
Author: Lewis Carroll

31. "We are four worthy orphans with a no-nonsense nanny."Like Mary Poppins?" suggested the man, with a pleased look of recognition.Not one bit like that fly-by-night woman," Nanny said with a sniff. "It almost gives me diabetes just to think of her: all those disgusting spoonfuls of sugar!"
Author: Lois Lowry

32. "She'd stepped out of sex as if out of a loose dress. Now she was brisk, decisive, no nonsense."
Author: Margaret Atwood

33. "Bernadette,Are you done? You can't honestly believe any of this nonsense. People like you must create. If you don't create, Bernadette, you will become a menace to society.Paul"
Author: Maria Semple

34. "After eighteen long months covering this dreary business, the whole campaign appears in my mind's eye as one long, protracted scratch-fight over Internet-fueled nonsense."
Author: Matt Taibbi

35. "They are filled with earnest nonsense, the sort of things that a boy writes to his sweetheart, but which somehow, when they are meant for you, never feel tired or cliched or anything other than absolutely tender and true."
Author: Natasha Solomons

36. "Photography is without mercy--though it's nonsense to say it does not lie. Rather, it lies in a particular, capricious way which makes beggars of ministers and gods of cat's meat men."
Author: Nick Harkaway

37. "Don't let the title mislead you," Arlbeth told her. "The king is simply the visible one. I'm so visible, in fact, that most of the important work has to be done by other people.""Nonsense," said Tor.Arlbeth chuckled. "Your loyalty does you honor, but you're in the process of becoming too visible to be effective yourself, so what do you know about it?"
Author: Robin McKinley

38. "I believe that. But I want you to know something — when it comes to all this enemies nonsense, I'm out. I am a neutral country. I am Switzerland. I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes between mythical creatures. Jacob is family. You are . . . well, not exactly the love of my life, because I expect to love you for much longer than that. The love of my existence. I don't care who's a werewolf and who's a vampire. If Angela turns out to be a witch, she can join the party, too."
Author: Stephenie Meyer

39. "People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action."
Author: Steve Maraboli

40. "Pretend those around you are deaf to your words. Let your actions speak and communicate your feelings and intentions. This way of living ensures the potency of your message is delivered and serves as a gauge against our verbal nonsense."
Author: Steve Maraboli

41. "The quest of discovering your empowered self is a process of refinement, not accumulation. Cut away the nonsense, the drama, the regret, the scars of the past, and make a decision to no longer let them govern your happiness and freedom."
Author: Steve Maraboli

42. "The Christian Church has put a spiritual hierarchy on jobs. Ministers and missionaries are on top, then perhaps doctors and nurses come next, and so on to the bottom, where artists appear. Artists of whatever kind have to compromise everything to entertain. Art is fluffy froth that is no good in the Kingdom of God. What nonsense."
Author: Steve Taylor

43. "Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married."
Author: Susanna Clarke

44. "I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense."
Author: Susanna Clarke

45. "They were saying computers deal with numbers. This was absolutely nonsense. Computers deal with arbitrary information of any kind."
Author: Ted Nelson

46. "You are very clever,' said the old man shyly. 'I would like to eat your brains, one day,'For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, 'You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!', but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for, 'It's very kind of you to say so."
Author: Terry Pratchett

47. "We may be rats in a maze as far as the Obama administration is concerned, but in Texas, we are rats with a firm knowledge of just where the button is and how to push it. It helps us put up with all the nonsense and it would do the folks in Washington well to remember that. - Tom King ("Why the Secession Talk in Texas")"
Author: Tom King

48. "This old notion that work is drudgery is nonsense. Most days, even back when Xerox was under siege, I could not wait to get to the office."
Author: Ursula Burns

49. "An offering for the sake of offering, perhaps. Anyhow, it was her gift. Nothing else had she of the slightest importance; could not think, write, even play the piano. She muddled Armenians and Turks; loved success; hated discomfort; must be liked; talked oceans of nonsense: and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not know.All the same, that one day should follow another; Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday; that one should wake up in the morning; see the sky; walk in the park; meet Hugh Whitbread; then suddenly in came Peter; then these roses; it was enough. After that, how unbelievable death was!-that it must end; and no one in the whole world would know how she had loved it all; how, every instant . . ."
Author: Virginia Woolf

50. "I don't care about image and all that nonsense. I'm in sweat pants every day. I don't play the game at all."
Author: Zach Braff

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In the time we spend reeling in confusion, grasping at straws trying to piece our egos together, we forget to acknowledge some things. Society created gender roles and categorizations and lifestyles and names and titles because we fear the unknown, especially when the unknown is us.It's as though we're stranded in the middle of an ocean, but we were promised the current would bring us back ashore. We're given all we need on the life raft. As far as we can see, we're being led back, slowly. We don't know when we'll approach the shore, but all evidence points to the fact that we will. But we don't spend our time looking around, enjoying the view, seeing who came with us, and riding out the waves. We sit and panic about what we're doing and why we came here.It doesn't matter where we started because we may never know. It matters where we're going, because that, we do. We begin and we end. We've seen one, so there's only one other option."
Author: Brianna Wiest