“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.”

Source: The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb

Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 56e

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (8 July 1915)
1910s

Speech to the Salvation Army William Booth Centenary Celebrations, London (10 April 1929), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), pp. 106-107.
1929

Crime and Punishment (1866)

PROGRESS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/ (1995 – )
1990s

Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2

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.

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest