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I do not think that G. H. Hardy was talking nonsense when he insisted that the mathematician was discovering rather than creating, nor was it wholly nonsense for Kepler to exult that he was thinking God's thoughts after him. The world for me is a necessary system, and in the degree to which the thinker can surrender his thought to that system and follow it, he is in a sense participating in that which is timeless or eternal.
Brand BlanshardAll philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
Samuel ButlerDon't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.
Ludwig WittgensteinPerhaps there is more sense in our nonsense and more nonsense in our 'sense' than we would care to believe.
David BohmWe also heard the usual old nonsense that banning hunting would affect employment if we abolished crime we would put all the police out of work. If we abolished ill-health we would put all the nurses and doctors out of work. Will anybody argue that we should preserve crime and ill-health in order to keep people in jobs?
Ann WiddecombeI don't think feminism, as I understand the definition, implies the rejection of maternal values, nurturing children, caring about the men in your life. That is just nonsense to me.
Hillary ClintonLearning -the kind of ignorance affected by (and affecting) civilized races, as distinguished from ignorance, the sort of learning incurred by savages. See nonsense.
Ambrose BierceThe teachings of Christianity - from vicarious redemption to the love of enemies, no thought for the morrow need be taken, that no thrift or care or family or society or solidarity is necessary - these are immoral teachings that have done and continue to inflict untold moral and physical harm on our species. And until we outgrow this nonsense, we have no chance of emancipating ourselves.
Christopher HitchensFor awareness you need not go to the Himalayas; you need not go anywhere. Your life gives you enough opportunities to be aware. Somebody insults you - listen to it in full awareness. And you will be surprised - the insult is no more an insult. You may even smile. It does not hurt; it hurts only when received in unawareness. Somebody praises and appreciates you - listen with alertness. And then nobody can persuade you to do foolish things. Nobody can bribe you; flattery becomes impossible. You will smile at the whole nonsense.
RajneeshDuring the Boom Years, it was so easy to lose sight of basic values. For example, there was lots of nonsense said and written about the so-called "New Economy." Some people said all economic laws have been overturned! Then all the problems developed. Corporations were heavily fined for illegalities. Many of their senior-level executives were indicted, convicted, and sent to prison.
Rosabeth Moss KanterThere is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.
George Bernard ShawNonsense is an assertion of man's spiritual freedom in spite of all the oppressions of circumstance.
Aldous HuxleyThe tree of nonsense is watered with error, and from its branches swing the pumpkins of disaster.
Nick HarkawayIf I'm teaching deep things, then I view it as important to make people feel like they're learning deep things, because otherwise, they will still have a hole in their mind for "deep truths" that needs filling, and they will go off and fill their heads with complete nonsense that has been written in a more satisfying style.
Eliezer YudkowskyIf we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood, because there is nothing in music to understand...... But until we find this new way of speaking, until we can find a nonapproximate vocabulary, nonsense words are the best thing we've got. Ifactifice is one such word.
Jonathan Safran FoerIt wasnโt like in the storybooks. No witches lurked at crossroads disguised as crones, waiting to reward travelers who shared their bread. Genies didnโt burst from lamps, and talking fish didnโt bargain for their lives. In all the world, there was only one place humans could get wishes: Brimstoneโs shop. And there was only one currency he accepted. It wasnโt gold, or riddles, or kindness, or any other fairy-tale nonsense, and no, it wasnโt souls, either. It was weirder than any of that. It was teeth.
Laini TaylorAt 50 you're more confident, more comfortable in your skin and you don't put up with nonsense, especially from men.
Amanda DonohoeI don't like to meet the actor and have a lot of conferences and talk about their sub-life and their off-screen life and their back stories and all that nonsense, because it never means anything.
Woody AllenA man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village; the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
C. S. LewisI think the must-have power qualities for a female or male power leader are really the ability to focus, to work hard, to be extremely goal oriented and to not let the noise and the nonsense interfere with your mission - what you really feel you want to do with your career and your life.
Anne SweeneyThen she told herself to stop her nonsense. If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them, more easily each time, so easily, soon, that you did not even realize you had gone out searching. Women alone often developed into experts at the practice. She must never join their dismal league.
Dorothy ParkerSome consider me as a living Buddha. That's nonsense. That's silly. That's wrong. If they consider me a simple Buddhist monk, however, that's probably okay.
Dalai LamaWith a metric you can really go to town, otherwise it is just abstract nonsense.
Jennifer Tour ChayesToo often the media assumes that "poverty" is an African American or a Latino issue. Of course, that's nonsense. While a higher percentage of the African American and Latino population does live in poverty as compared to the white population, when overall numbers are looked at, it is clear that people of all races, ethnicities, and colors, are represented amongst America's poor.
Sasha AbramskyI'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being skin deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?
Jean KerrI can understand the idea that there is a conspiracy. In fact, in much of the world there is a sense of an ultra-powerful CIA manipulating everything that happens, such as running the Arab Spring, running the Pakistani Taliban, etc. That is just nonsense. They [CIA] created a monster and now they are appalled by it.
Noam ChomskyEveryone from the pope to some hobo thinks, "I'm a human being. What am I doing here?" You can't get carried away with fame and fortune and all that. It's all nonsense. The whole pop-star side of it is all fun and good, but you don't get anywhere without putting in the hours. I get so fulfilled when we play a song live that we spent hours working on. It's all cool. Fame is something to have fun with, but you shouldn't take it too seriously because it is bollocks.
Chris MartinObserve that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches. Stones were formed to be quarried and to build castles; and My Lord has a very noble castle; the greatest Baron in the province should have the best house; and as pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all year round; consequently, those who have asserted all is well talk nonsense; they ought to have said that all is for the best.
VoltaireIt is a safe rule to apply that, when a mathematical or philosophical author writes with a misty profundity, he is talking nonsense.
Alfred North WhiteheadIf anybody thinks they should listen to me because I'm a professor at MIT, that's nonsense. You should decide whether something makes sense by its content, not by the letters after the name of the person who says it.
Noam ChomskyThe idea that the growing demand for energy worldwide can be met with energy from nuclear power is nonsense.
Sigmar GabrielI think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense.... But it's unquestionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter or recovering from flu.
Georgette HeyerIn truth it is best to learn wisdom, and abandoning all nonsense, to leave it to boys to enjoy their season of play and mirth.
HoraceThe idea that a reporter has to be 'fair and balanced' is ridiculous. The fact is, the truth usually is not fair and it's not balanced. Truth stands by itself. And the idea that something called fair and balanced is a substitute for truth and fact is mindless nonsense that has captured much of the national media.
Lou DobbsCities give us collision. 'Tis said, London and New York take the nonsense out of a man.
Ralph Waldo EmersonYou're a very difficult person to manipulate, you know." "Nonsense," he said. "You just have to promise me that I won't have to do a thing, and then I'll do anything you want." "Anything?" "Anything that doesn't require doing anything." "That's nothing, then." "Is it?" "Yes." "Well, that's something.
Brandon SandersonI'm not somebody who no matter where I go there are paparazzi or any of that nonsense. But I have a little window into that world and I can enter it and dance around. I want to be the audience's ticket into the party.
Kathy GriffinI've almost come to feel that it doesn't make much difference what you believe in - the thing that's important is a state of belief. It's much better to believe in nonsense than in nothing.
Margaret Ayer BarnesIt was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now.
Anthony BurgessIts obvious nonsense, but it makes nice people feel good about themselves to do their bit for the planet. Its vanity of a grotesque kind to believe that mankind, and our carbon footprint, has more impact on the future of Earth than Nature, which bends our planet to its will, as it sees fit.
Charles Saatchi