Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance. — John Ruskin
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker
The superfluous, a very necessary thing. — Voltaire
Things that are complex are not useful, Things that are useful are simple. — Mikhail Kalashnikov
It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing. — Seneca
The most useless are those who never change through the years. — James Barrie
The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces. — Paul Halmos
Many people are busy trying to find better ways of doing things that should not have to be done at all. There is no progress in merely finding a better way to do a useless thing. — Henry Ford
To do unnecessary and very long work, to do nothing effective. — French Proverbs
Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo. — Theodore Levitt
What a lot of things there are a man can do without. — Socrates
Short Useless Things Quotes
Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. — Peace Pilgrim
We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities. — Oscar Wilde
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. — Thomas A. Edison
The government - they're completely useless. — Chamath Palihapitiya
A man who lacks reliability is utterly useless. — Confucius
An idler is a watch that wants both hands; As useless if it goes as when it stands. — William Cowper
You're about as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest. — Rowan Atkinson
Nothing is cheap which is superfluous, for what one does not need, is dear at a penny. — Plutarch
How many things are there which I do not want. — Socrates
Useless Things Image Quotes
Some days I wish I could go back in life. Not to change anything, but to feel a few things twice.
Most Useless Things Quotes
Gold is the most useless thing in the world. I am not interested in money but in the things of which money is merely a symbol. — Henry Ford
Virtually every beginning poet hurts himself by an addiction to adjectives. Verbs are by far the most important things for poems-especially wonderful tough monosyllables like "gasp" and "cry." Nouns are the next most important. Adjectives tend to be useless. — Donald Hall
Denounce useless guilt. Don’t make a cult of suffering. Live in the now(or at least the soon). Always do the things you fear most. Courage is an acquired taste like caviar. Trust all joy. If the evil eye fixes you in its gaze, look elsewhere. Get ready to be 87. — Erica Jong
Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that made him sick.
I know a lot about a few things - mostly useless things. — Mo Rocca
The most useful thing about art is it's uselessness. — Tom Robbins
From an evolutionary point of view, most emotions - fear, desire, anger - serve some practical purpose, but nostalgia is a useless, futile thing because it is a longing for something that is permanently lost . . . . — David Nicholls
The most important thing however is the money. What use would it be to us, to have a a mighty stadium but a useless team, because we couldn't afford anything better? — Franz Beckenbauer
But the most wretched thing, is it not-is to drag out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice. — Gustave Flaubert
Hope could be the most powerful thing or the most useless. — Deb Caletti
You were supposed to have hope, right? You were supposed to respect its power and hold on. And so I did. I held, and held, and let hope fill me. But as the days went on, it seemed I could be holding for a long, long time. Hope could be the most powerful thing or the most useless — Deb Caletti
Pointless Things Quotes
It's the pointless things that give your life meaning. Friendship, compassion, art, love. All of them pointless. But they're what keeps life from being meaningless. — Tim Winton
As they say in my country, the only thing that separates us from the animals is mindless superstition and pointless ritual. — Andy Kaufman
Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative, and pointless. But if one insists in a photograph that is both complex and vigorous it is almost impossible — John Szarkowski
What you hope for Is that at some point of the pointless journey, Indoors or out, and when you least expect it, Right in the middle of your stride, like that, So neatly that you never feel a thing, The kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead And blow your brains out. — Richard Wilbur
I don't really understand the concept of having a career, or what agents mean when they say they're building one for you. I just do things I think will be interesting and that have integrity. I hate those tacky, pointless, big, fluffy, unimportant movies. — Gwyneth Paltrow
I like to use my hands and make things... It might seem pretty stupid or pointless but that doesn't matter... some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that - out of a raw need for activity. — Bruce Nauman
Please remember, no matter what you go through in life, somebody else might have it harder. So just appreciate. I feel like in our world today, we focus on so many things that are completely pointless. — Jessica Simpson
This usually happens in the white-collar classes: These people take to worshipping pointlessness. Examples are Twin Peaks, Christo's artwork, and academic liberal politics. But a strange thing happens; these people view their ultra pointlessness as a way of being like God. — Noah Cicero
I had a lot of anger against the way things 'should be done' - conforming to social norms, ticking boxes to gain acceptance. Frustration at the pointlessness and predictability of smalltalk. Oh and a lot of anger about tea, which the British seem to use to avoid actually saying anything. — Rupert Friend
If you repeat something, it can become pointless. Some things can repeat and be endlessly fascinating. — Andy Goldsworthy
Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. — Leo Tolstoy
The really great thing about my shop is that there's not one dead animal in it. ... Manolo's got a load of fabric shoes as well! We use plastic, fabric, rubber- anything but leather. I almost feel like I've been put here to show everyone that it's unnecessary. — Stella McCartney
It is a wise thing to be polite; consequently, it is a stupid thing to be rude. To make enemies by unnecessary and willful incivility, is just as insane a proceeding as to set your house on fire. For politeness is like a counter--an avowedly false coin, with which it is foolish to be stingy. — Arthur Schopenhauer
One has said that Christ excelled all other moralists in this, that He puts the padlock not upon the hand, but upon the heart. But He does not use the padlock at all, He renders such a thing unnecessary. He takes the tiger from the heart, and replaces it with the lamb. — Edward Thomson
We can travel a long way in life and do many things, but our deepest happiness is not born from accumulating new experiences. it is born from letting go of what is unnecessary, and knowing ourselves to be always at home. — Sharon Salzberg
Give thanks to God, who made necessary things simple, and complicated things unnecessary. — Gregory Skovoroda
Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any. — Duke of Wellington
As designers we have a great responsibility. I believe designers should eliminate the unnecessary. That means eliminating everything that is modish because this kind of thing is only short-lived. — Dieter Rams
And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary. — Erykah Badu
Useless Information Quotes
You need your ego to survive in the three-dimensional world, but you need only that part of the ego which processes information. The rest - pride, arrogance, defensiveness, fear - is worse than useless. The rest of the ego separates you from wisdom, joy, and God. — Brian Weiss
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information. — Oscar Wilde
Do not store in your brain useless information. Learn to unmind the mind. Unlearn whatever has been of no use to you. Then only can you fill your mind with divine thoughts. — Sivananda
If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement. — Orson Scott Card
So long as I remain alive and well I shall continue to feel strongly about prose style, to love the surface of the earth, and to take a pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. — George Orwell
I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information. — Bill Watterson
There is a lot of information out there. To the degree that your life changes, it is made useful or useless. — Laurence Gartel
As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations. — Bill Watterson
I have known some men possessed of good qualities which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within. — Jonathan Swift
Quantum entanglement allows you to send information faster than light, which upset Einstein. But Einstein has the last laugh. The information you send on quantum entanglement is random, useless information. So Einsein still has the last laugh. — Michio Kaku
Meaningless Things Quotes
There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless. — Napoleon Bonaparte
It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours. — Tim Minchin
the problem is not suffering itself or oblivion itself but the depraved meaninglessness of these things, the absolutely inhuman nihilism of suffering. — John Green
It's not the imbalances of life that will get you down-it's doing meaningless things that aren't taking you where you want to go. — Danielle LaPorte
If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless. — Francis Schaeffer
The point is that only one thing matters in this world, to prepare oneself for death. One can try to be as comfortable as possible until one dies... Because being comfortable does not have any meaning either. It just does not. Everything is only a big meaninglessness that one must bear. — Odd Nerdrum
So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. — Morrie Schwartz
To the Suprematist the visual phenomena of the objective world are, in themselves, meaningless; the significant thing is feeling, as such, quite apart from the environment in which it is called forth. — Kazimir Malevich
A life without love, no matter how many other things we have, is an empty, meaningless one. — Leo Buscaglia
Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about. — John Polkinghorne
Useless Life Quotes
Don't instill, or allow anybody else to instill into the hearts of your girls the idea that marriage is the chief end of life. If you do, don't be surprised if they get engaged to the first empty, useless fool they come across. — William Booth
You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone, which can become a watered-down, occasional hope that you'll get to tomorrow. Intention without action is useless. — Caroline Myss
It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice. — Jose Rizal
It is useless to subdue the flesh by abstinence, unless one gives up his irregular life, and abandons vices which defile his soul. — Benedict of Nursia
The study of the wisdom teachings should be a continuous process in which the teachings become the predominant factor of life rather than the useless and oftentimes negative and illusory thoughts of those who are ignorant of spiritual truths. — Egyptian Proverbs
Research your own experience. Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. — Dan Inosanto
I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored. — Louis C. K.
On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner. — Lin Yutang
My life was not useless; I gave important truths to the world, and it was only for want of understanding that they were disregarded. I have been ahead of my time. — Robert Owen
Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no need of change. — H. G. Wells
Pointless Quotes
It is pointless trying to know where the way leads. Think only about your first step, the rest will come. — Shams Tabrizi
I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it. — Lemmy Kilmister
I find freedom to be the most important issue facing any human being today, because without freedom, then life is pointless. The more dependent you become on centralized power, the more easily you are lead around. — Russell Means
I'd kill myself without music. Immediately. Life is pointless without music for me. — Matthew Healy
Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. — Bill Watterson
The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people. — Ezra Pound
It is pointless to get your knickers in a twist if a certain person fails to react the way you want. It is best to avoid people and situations that you know drive you crazy. Remember to vote with your feet. If a situation is untenable or unchangeable, walk away. — Stuart Wilde
College degrees becoming increasingly worthless. This will only get worse. Why are we wasting money and resources on this? Fake degrees remove 3-5 labour years from market and cost public money spent on pointless edubureacracies. — Philip Pilkington
The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional. Although they conceal an essential orifice, these pointless globes are as near as the human form can ever come to abstract art. — Kenneth Tynan
Those friendly games are not pointless. They enable us to go forward. — Didier Deschamps
Useless Knowledge Quotes
Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile. — Abu Bakr
Once a kata has been learned, it must be practised repeatedly until it can be applied in an emergency, for knowledge of just the sequence of a kata in karate is useless. — Gichin Funakoshi
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. — Bertrand Russell
Knowledge without practice is useless. Practice without knowledge is dangerous. — Confucius
Thinking is progress. Non-thinking is stagnation of the individual, organisation and the country. Thinking leads to action. Knowledge without action is useless and irrelevant. Knowledge with action, converts adversity into prosperity. — Abdul Kalam
Without wisdom, knowledge is either useless or destructive. — Unknown
Head knowledge without heart knowledge is worse than useless; but when head and heart join forces, it changes our lives forever. — David Jeremiah
Merely gathering knowledge may become the most useless work a man can do. What can you do to help and heal the world? That is the educational test. — Henry Ford
To minds tormented by the divine thirst, it is useless to offer the most certain knowledge of the laws of numbers and the arrangement of the universe — Etienne Gilson
The world needed more fireworks- especially now that there was going to be a shortage of beautiful, useless things. — Scott Westerfeld
Attack anything that makes you feel unworthy, inadequate, hopeless, powerless and useless. That is the evidence of the enemy. All those things need to be attacked with joy, with peace, with love and grace, with mercy, with kindness and the goodness of God. — Graham Cooke
All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest. — Beatrix Potter
Useful men, who do useful things, don't mind being treated as useless.
But the useless always judge themselves as being important and hide all their incompetence behind authority. — Paulo Coelho
It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few. — Pythagoras
What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all. — Peter Drucker
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming. — Cheryl Strayed
Anyone can leave the body and do astral traveling, but they have to believe that ' they can do ' this. It is quite useless for a person to put out repelling thoughts of disbelief, or thoughts such as 'I cannot do' such a thing. Actually, it is remarkably easy to Astral Travel when one gets over the first hurdle of fear. Fear is the great brake. — Lobsang Rampa
The important thing in strategy is to suppress the enemy's useful actions but allow his useless actions — Miyamoto Musashi
What one seems to want in art, in experiencing it, is the same thing that is necessary for its creation, a self-forgetful, perfectly useless concentration. — Elizabeth Bishop
The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless. — Nicolas Chamfort
I do a lot of things hopin I never had to fit in, so tryin to keep up with my progress is like a dead end. — Drake
The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. — Thomas More
It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with. — Stephen Fry
It becomes necessary to learn how to clear the mind of all clouds, to free it of all useless ballast and debris by dismissing the burden of too much concern with material things. — Indra Devi
I didn't have any aspirations of becoming famous or successful; in fact I was scared to death of all that. I remember somebody once said that if a rock musician goes on tour, he goes insane. I was very impressionable and I carried this useless weight of fear around with me about going on tour, all because of this thing somebody said. — Steve Vai
A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be superstitious or useless, prove today on examination to have been of immense value to mankind. — Lafcadio Hearn
Jewels, lies, slips of paper, dried flowers, memories of thing long past, useless quotations, idle hands, beads, buttons, and mischief. — Holly Black
I actually think the whole concept of retirement is a bit stupid, so yes, I do want to do something else. There is this strange thing that just because chronologically on a Friday night you have reached a certain age... with all that experience, how can it be that on a Monday morning, you are useless? — Stuart Rose
There are two Newman's laws. The first one is "It is useless to put on your brakes when you're upside down." The second is "Just when things look darkest, they go black. — Paul Newman
They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing. — Tom Stoppard
There are two things that we should avoid, oh disciple! A life of pleasures, that is low and vain. A life of mortification, that is useless and vain. — Buddha
To any situation the reaction may be different. That's why it's useless - in a way - to memorize patterns, because the possibilities in life are endless, and you cannot be prepared for every single thing. Therefore it's better to be able to move in a natural way, and not even physically but intuitively. — Vladimir Vasiliev
Only useless things are indispensable. — Francis Picabia
All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be not worth passing on to grandchildren. — Charles Frazier
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. — Jonathan Swift
I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was... nothingness. — Frances Farmer
If by gaining knowledge we destroy our health, we labour for a thing that will be useless in our hands. — John Locke
Oscar Wilde quite rightly said, 'All art is useless'. And that may sound as if that means it's something not worth supporting. But if you actually think about it, the things that matter in life are useless. Love is useless. Wine is useless. Art is the love and wine of life. It is the extra, without which life is not worth living. — Stephen Fry
Memory is so crazy! It's like we've got these drawers crammed with tons of useless stuff. Meanwhile, all the really important things we just keep forgetting, one after the other. — Haruki Murakami
I want to let her know though that all the nights sleeping beside her even the useless arguments were things ever splendid and the hard words I ever feared to say can now be said: I love you. — Charles Bukowski
I took to writing at an early age to escape from meaninglessness, uselessness, unimportance, insignificance, poverty, enslavement, ill health, despair, madness, and all manner of other unattractive, natural and inevitable things. — William Saroyan
The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known. — Leonardo da Vinci
It is a common thing for men to benumb their own arms, and make them as dead and useless by leaning too much upon them: so it is in a moral as well as a natural way: all the prudence and pains in the world avail nothing without God. So saith the Psalmist, in Psalm cxxvii. 2. — John Flavel
Worry is a useless mulling over of things we cannot change. — Peace Pilgrim
In Conclusion
Which quotation resonated with you best? Did you enjoy our collection of useless things quotes? Or may be you have a slogan about useless things to suggest. Let us know using our contact form.
Citation
Feel free to cite and use any of the quotes in this collection of useless things quotations. For popular citation styles(APA, Chicago, MLA), please use this citation page.
