“No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Introduction
One Minute Nonsense (1992)
“Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great con trick; it was a mechanism to earn a few hundred men and women incredible sums of money.”
The Summer Before the Dark (1973)
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Doris Lessing94
British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer … 1919–2013Related quotes
“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist
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Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 56e
“Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
Letter to Louis Untermeyer (8 July 1915)
1910s
Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Speech to the Salvation Army William Booth Centenary Celebrations, London (10 April 1929), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 106-107.
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“Talking nonsense is man's only privilege that distinguishes him from all other organisms.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Crime and Punishment
Crime and Punishment (1866)
“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
John McCarthy (1927–2011) American computer scientist and cognitive scientist
PROGRESS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ (1995 – ) <br class="br">1990s
“The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.”
Joseph Conrad book Typhoon
Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2
“There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Preface
1900s, Getting Married (1908)
Context: There is no subject on which more dangerous nonsense is talked and thought than marriage. If the mischief stopped at talking and thinking it would be bad enough; but it goes further, into disastrous anarchical action. Because our marriage law is inhuman and unreasonable to the point of downright abomination, the bolder and more rebellious spirits form illicit unions, defiantly sending cards round to their friends announcing what they have done. Young women come to me and ask me whether I think they ought to consent to marry the man they have decided to live with; and they are perplexed and astonished when I, who am supposed (heaven knows why!) to have the most advanced views attainable on the subject, urge them on no account to compromise themselves without the security of an authentic wedding ring.
