futility

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
a68ae1b	If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.	futility dreams castles-in-the-air work-lost foundations security goals	Henry David Thoreau
aa3412f	Life ... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.	hopelessness futility life	William Shakespeare
411de15	If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.	shakespeare futility	Kurt Vonnegut
06d4997	He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.	futility inspirational ignorance	Kurt Vonnegut
090c961	I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?	futility electricity exhaustion energy sherlock-holmes	Arthur Conan Doyle
f9e45c5	"It's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them from."	winter futility maternal nihilism mother	Betty Smith
07628cd	Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?	mankind futility stupidity humanity learning intelligence wisdom foolishness knowledge	H. Rider Haggard
29af0de	Women are often belittled for trying to resurrect these men and bring them back to life and to love. They are in a world that would be even more alienated and violent if caring women did not do the work of teaching men who have lost touch with themselves how to love again. This labor of love is futile only when the men in question refuse to awaken, refuse growth. At this point it is a gesture of self-love for women to break their commitment and move on.	violence futility life love labor self-love growth resurrection	Bell Hooks
a7f893a	Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed.	futility meaning interpretation-of-dreams senselessness interpretation	H.P. Lovecraft
54b1f8f	Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.	futility humor	Ian McEwan
a0365ac	Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man.	mankind time man futility learning fallen-nations inevitability nations passing-of-time materialism knowledge	H. Rider Haggard
4efa599	If you're a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable--if the sea wants you and your time has come.	futility orlov 1966 sailing drowning swimming	James Clavell
84ef879	There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.	grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia	Joseph Conrad
aebe039	Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered.	futility wisdom	J.R.R. Tolkien
cb9753b	We spend our lives learning many things, only to discover (again and again) that most of what we've learned is either wrong or irrelevant. A big part of our mind can handle this; a smaller, deeper part cannot. And it's that smaller part that matters more, because that part of our mind is who we really are (whether we like it or not).	futility learning	Chuck Klosterman
45eb83c	I'm curious about everyone, hungry for everything, greedy for all ideas. My awareness that not everything can be seen, not everything read and not everything thought torments me like the loss of ..... But I don't see with fixed attention, I don't read with great care, and I don't think with continuity. I'm an ardent and inconsequential dilettante in everything. My soul is too weak to sustain the force of its own enthusiasm. Made out of ruins of the unfinished, I'm definable as a landscape of resignations.	futility	Fernando Pessoa
c5810f9	Dabbling in the sandbox gives Rabbit a small headache. Over at the pavilion the rubber thump of Roofball and the click of checkers call to his memory, and the forgotten smell of that narrow plastic ribbon you braid bracelets and whistlechains out of and of glue and of the sweat on the handles on athletic equipment is blown down by a breeze laced with children's murmuring. He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.	futility lost-innocence lost-youth sense-memory rabbit-angstrom childhood	John Updike
ea80093	Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely.	futility imagination dreams cloud-cuckoo-land irreality phantasy desires wishful-thinking wishes irrationality	Iain Pears
5bc7d3d	What do you expect? This place is one big anti-climax.	hopelessness time existence futility apathy existentialism hopeless habit	Michel Faber
7f8b128	"There is only one sure means in life," Deasey said, "of ensuring that you are not ground into paste by disappointment, futility, and disillusion. And that is always to ensure, to the utmost of your ability, that you are doing it solely for the money."	money futility disillusion	Michael Chabon
036e2f0	She had a strong, if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged.	futility self-doubt howards-end insecure out-of-place society	E.M. Forster

a68ae1b

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

futility dreams castles-in-the-air work-lost foundations security goals

Henry David Thoreau

aa3412f

Life ... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

hopelessness futility life

William Shakespeare

411de15

If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness.

shakespeare futility

Kurt Vonnegut

06d4997

He was talking about the sign that said 'THE COMPLICATED FUTILITY OF IGNORANCE.

futility inspirational ignorance

Kurt Vonnegut

090c961

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

futility electricity exhaustion energy sherlock-holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle

f9e45c5

"It's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them from."

winter futility maternal nihilism mother

Betty Smith

07628cd

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so?

mankind futility stupidity humanity learning intelligence wisdom foolishness knowledge

H. Rider Haggard

29af0de

Women are often belittled for trying to resurrect these men and bring them back to life and to love. They are in a world that would be even more alienated and violent if caring women did not do the work of teaching men who have lost touch with themselves how to love again. This labor of love is futile only when the men in question refuse to awaken, refuse growth. At this point it is a gesture of self-love for women to break their commitment and move on.

violence futility life love labor self-love growth resurrection

Bell Hooks

a7f893a

Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed.

futility meaning interpretation-of-dreams senselessness interpretation

H.P. Lovecraft

54b1f8f

Arguing with a dead man in a lavatory is a claustrophobic experience.

futility humor

Ian McEwan

a0365ac

Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man.

mankind time man futility learning fallen-nations inevitability nations passing-of-time materialism knowledge

H. Rider Haggard

4efa599

If you're a sailor, best not know how to swim. Swimming only prolongs the inevitable--if the sea wants you and your time has come.

futility orlov 1966 sailing drowning swimming

James Clavell

84ef879

There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.

grief futility depression hope dark-history falling-short haunted-past smoke-in-the-eyes why-the-world-needs-jesus unrest pointlessness bittersweet-memories sins heartache vanity disappointment expectations despair regrets nostalgia

Joseph Conrad

aebe039

Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered.

futility wisdom

J.R.R. Tolkien

cb9753b

We spend our lives learning many things, only to discover (again and again) that most of what we've learned is either wrong or irrelevant. A big part of our mind can handle this; a smaller, deeper part cannot. And it's that smaller part that matters more, because that part of our mind is who we really are (whether we like it or not).

futility learning

Chuck Klosterman

45eb83c

I'm curious about everyone, hungry for everything, greedy for all ideas. My awareness that not everything can be seen, not everything read and not everything thought torments me like the loss of ..... But I don't see with fixed attention, I don't read with great care, and I don't think with continuity. I'm an ardent and inconsequential dilettante in everything. My soul is too weak to sustain the force of its own enthusiasm. Made out of ruins of the unfinished, I'm definable as a landscape of resignations.

futility

Fernando Pessoa

c5810f9

Dabbling in the sandbox gives Rabbit a small headache. Over at the pavilion the rubber thump of Roofball and the click of checkers call to his memory, and the forgotten smell of that narrow plastic ribbon you braid bracelets and whistlechains out of and of glue and of the sweat on the handles on athletic equipment is blown down by a breeze laced with children's murmuring. He feels the truth: the thing that has left his life has left irrevocably; no search would recover it. No flight would reach it. It was here, beneath the town, in these smells and these voices, forever behind him. The fullness ends when we give Nature her ransom, when we make children for her. Then she is through with us, and we become, first inside, and then outside, junk. Flower stalks.

futility lost-innocence lost-youth sense-memory rabbit-angstrom childhood

John Updike

ea80093

Felix had gone to live in a lotus land of his imagination. Where what is desired is dreamed of as already happened, where obstacles dissolve under the weight of desire, and where reality has vanished entirely.

futility imagination dreams cloud-cuckoo-land irreality phantasy desires wishful-thinking wishes irrationality

Iain Pears

5bc7d3d

What do you expect? This place is one big anti-climax.

hopelessness time existence futility apathy existentialism hopeless habit

Michel Faber

7f8b128

"There is only one sure means in life," Deasey said, "of ensuring that you are not ground into paste by disappointment, futility, and disillusion. And that is always to ensure, to the utmost of your ability, that you are doing it solely for the money."

money futility disillusion

Michael Chabon

036e2f0

She had a strong, if erroneous, conviction of her own futility, and wished she had never come out of her backwater, where nothing happened except art and literature, and where no one ever got married or succeeded in remaining engaged.

futility self-doubt howards-end insecure out-of-place society

E.M. Forster