#Futility Quotes

“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.”

“None can cure their harms by wailing them.”

“We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.”

“Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop.”

“I pray thee cease thy counsel,Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.”

“The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.”

“We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.”

“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.”

“Care is no cure, but rather corrosive, For things that are not to be remedied.”

“Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”

“This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“You dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.”

“Golf. Trying to knock a tiny ball into an even smaller hole with implements ill suited to the purpose.”

“There are some people who, if they don't already know, you can't tell 'em.”

“You should never try and teach a pig to read for two reasons. First, it's impossible; and secondly, it annoys the hell out of the pig!.”

“Praise and blame alike mean nothing. No, delightful as the pastime of measuring may be, it is the most futile of all occupations, and to submit to the decrees of the measurers the most servile of attitudes.”

“Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them.”

“But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile.”

“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”

“Nothing is gained by debate on non-debatable subjects.”

“In other localities certain places in the streams are much better than others, but at Niagara one place is just as good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere.”

“There is no use in your walking five miles to fish when you can depend on being just as unsuccessful near home.”

“So you see how endlessly futile and fruitless it would be if we wanted to refute their objections every time they obstinately resolved not to think through what they say but merely to speak, just so long as they contradict our arguments in any way they can.”

“The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil.”

“Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.”

“The dread of futility has been my life-long plague.”

“There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.”

“One might as well try to charge through a wall.”

“I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life.”

“This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.”

“Why does life feel, to us as we experience it, so desperately urgent and so utterly pointless at the same time?”

“Beware of spitting against the wind!”

“There's no defense against stupidity.”

“One generation abandons the enterprises of another like stranded vessels.”

“Energy wasted on negative ends.”

“Much like the hands of a clock go nowhere fast, anxious thoughts run us round-and-round without taking us anywhere!”

“Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.”

“The only thing worried thoughts have the power to change is what the next thing will be for you to worry over!”

“Believing that anxious thoughts and feelings can restore order to your life is like using a chain-saw to fold your laundry.”

“Perpetual peace is a futile dream.”

“There is no explaining anything by reasoning and so it is useless to reason.”

“I don't know who the great lawyers are, and I presume you can't get to them. I know of no case where it can be said for certain that they took part. They defend some people, but you can't get them to do that through your own efforts, they only defend the ones they want to defend. But I assume a case they take on must have progressed beyond the lower court. It's better not to think of them at all, otherwise you'll find the consultations with the other lawyers, their advice and their assistance, extremely disgusting and useless.”

“No matter how much you keep encouraging someone who is blindfolded to stare through the cloth, he still won’t see a thing.".”

“Worry pretends to be necessary but serves no useful purpose”

“The more horses you yoke the quicker everything will go - not the rending of the block from its foundation, which is impossible, but the snapping of the traces and with that the gay and empty journey.”

“War is not won by victory.”

“In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.”

“What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to something that already is?”

“Worry means the mind is controlling you. Worry is always pointless. A solution never comes out of worry.”