Quotes About Nonsense

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted.

We cannot expect that everyone, to use the phrase of a decade ago, will talk sense to the American people. But we can hope that fewer people will listen to nonsense. And the notion that this Nation is headed for defeat through deficit, or that strength is but a matter of slogans, is nothing but just plain nonsense.

You are hurrying to the sweet place, To the nonsense chasing your spirit And in the nonsense you look for answers.

Nonsense is nonsense even when spoken by world-famous scientists.

A virgin can conceive. A dead body can walk again. Your leprosy can be cured. The blind can see. Nonsense. It’s not moral to lie to children. It’s not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people and tell them that if they only would believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.

Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

I conclude that there is as much sense in nonsense as there is nonsense in sense.

The Red Queen shook her head. "You may call it 'nonsense' if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!

There are more martyrs to nonsense than truth, truth preferring missionaries.

Till now poets were privileged to insert a certain proportion of nonsense - very far in excess of one-half of one per cent - into their otherwise sober documents.

I 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.

The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop.

Let us simmer over our incalculable cauldron, our enthralling confusion, our hotchpotch of impulses, our perpetual miracle - for the soul throws up wonders every second. Movement and change are the essence of our being; rigidity is death; conformity is death; let us say what comes into our heads, repeat ourselves, contradict ourselves, fling out the wildest nonsense, and follow the most fantastic fancies without caring what the world does or thinks or says. For nothing matters except life.

There is nothing that can be said by mathematical symbols and relations which cannot also be said by words. The converse, however, is false. Much that can be and is said by words cannot successfully be put into equations, because it is nonsense.

In a society in which equality is a fact, not merely a word, words of racial or sexual assault and humiliation will be nonsense syllables.

A true creator researches how to have confidence in nonsense.

New Zealand is a pretty no-nonsense place to work, like Australia. I mean it doesn't falter to anyone.

You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such nonsense.

Another dream. Another long-distance call on my phantom party line. No wonder i had steadfastly refused to have dreams for most of my life. So stupid; such pointless, obvious symbols. Totally uncontrollable anxiety soup, hateful, blatant nonsense.

People often say that writing is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. This is nonsense, of course. It's pretty much one hundred percent caffeine.

Because you have no memory for things that happened ten or twenty years ago, you're still mouthing the same nonsense as two thousand years ago. Worse, you cling with might and main to such absurdities as 'race,' 'class,' 'nation,' and the obligation to observe a religion and repress your love.

If 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.

There's a fake Facebook me. There's a fake me Twittering. Sometimes, when it was at the height of right-wing nonsense picking on me, there would be a fake me writing letters to the editor. Just totally not even something I've ever said, that will then become part of the echo chamber.

Some people want tolerance to mean now that all ideas are equally valid. That's nonsense. There are some things that are right and there are some things that are wrong.

At 50 you're more confident, more comfortable in your skin and you don't put up with nonsense, especially from men.

Democracy is talking itself to death. The people do not know what they want; they do not know what is the best for them. There is too much foolishness, too much lost motion. I have stopped the talk and the nonsense. I am a man of action. Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.

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?

The distinction between meat and other animal products is total nonsense. Vegetarianism is a morally incoherent position. If you regard animals as members of the moral community, you really don’t have a choice but to go vegan.

There are dark forces in the world that would have you believe that you can't succeed and that you're a failure and that you're evil and all this nonsense.

I’d heard you were dead.” "I heard you wear a red lace corset,” I said matter-of-factly. “But I don’t believe every bit of nonsense that gets rumored about.

Take winter as you find him, and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow; with no nonsense in him, which is a great comfort in the long-run.

I find it difficult to believe that I belong to such an idiotic, rotten species - the species that actually boasts of its freedom of will, heroism on command, senseless violence, and all of the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism.

With a metric you can really go to town, otherwise it is just abstract nonsense.

If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called 'behaviorist psychology.'

Every succeeding scientific discovery makes greater nonsense of old-time conceptions of sovereignty.

To appreciate nonsense you must first acquire wisdom, then compromise the two; only then will the fool understand you, and believe himself to be wise.

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.

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.

Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity.

Keeping books on social aid is capitalistic nonsense. I just use the money for the poor. I can't stop to count it.

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we're done with it, we may find - if it's a good novel - that we're a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little... But it's very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.

Nonsense is to sense, as shade to light; it heightens effect.

Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited.

To me [Christianity] was all nonsense based on that profane compilation of fables called the Bible.

One problem I have with talking about myself in the context of class divisiveness is that I can be - and indeed have been - used by others to demonstrate its absence and that it's only a matter of hard work to move upward socially. After all, how could I complain about anything, if the retort is: "But look where you got to? It can't be all that bad." But this is nonsense as an argument quite aside from its empirical absurdity because no single case can invalidate a statistical claim.

The idea is that inside every human being, however unprepossessing, there is a glorious, talented, and overwhelmingly attractive personality. Nonsense. Inside each of us is a mess of unruly, primitive impulses, and these can sometimes, under the strenuous self-discipline and dedication of art, result in notable creativity.

From the earliest time the old have rubbed it into the young that they are wiser, and before the young had discovered what nonsense this was they were old too, and it profited them to carry on the imposture.

Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.