“I know that many will call this useless work.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
“I am very much interested in the so-called useless object. I mean, it takes perfect craftsmanship, beautiful material carefully measured and crafted, but at the same time it’s really useless.”
Ai Weiwei, interview in “ Change http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/episode-change,” Episode 1, Season Six, Art: 21—Art in the Twenty-First Century, PBS, April 2012. <br class="br">2010-, 2012
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Chinese concept artist 1957Related quotes
Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician
A Theory of Roughness (2004)
Context: For many years I had been hearing the comment that fractals make beautiful pictures, but are pretty useless. I was irritated because important applications always take some time to be revealed. For fractals, it turned out that we didn't have to wait very long. In pure science, fads come and go. To influence basic big-budget industry takes longer, but hopefully also lasts longer.
Source: "Why I Write" http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/write.html, Gangrel (Summer 1946) <br class="br">Context: Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood. 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 pleasure in solid objects and scraps of useless information. It is no use trying to suppress that side of myself. The job is to reconcile my ingrained likes and dislikes with the essentially public, non-individual activities that this age forces on all of us.<br>It is not easy. It raises problems of construction and of language, and it raises in a new way the problem of truthfulness.
Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune
Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.17
Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer
Treason's Shore (Inda #4, 2009)
Mary Harris Jones (1837–1930) Irish-born American labor and community organizer
Source: Autobiography of Mother Jones
“Before Christ comes, it is useless to expect to see a perfect Church.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Source: Practical Religion (1878), Ch. XX: "The Great Separation", p. 449
Julia Gillard (1961) Australian politician and lawyer, 27th Prime Minister of Australia
In Question Time, c. March 2012 <br class="br"> "Labor cleans up after aftermath" http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2012/s3445116.htm, in Insiders (ABC), 4 March 2012
“It is useless to be young without being beautiful, or beautiful without being young.”
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Il ne sert à rien d'être jeune sans être belle, ni d'être belle sans être jeune.
Maxim 497.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)