“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”

— Voltaire

Citas, Candide (1759)

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Voltaire 167

French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

Shammai

Avoth, i. 15

“Philosophy must be of some use and we must take it seriously; it must clear our thoughts and so our actions. Or else it is a disposition that we have to check, and an inquiry to see that this is so; i. e. the chief proposition of philosophy is that philosophy is nonsense. And again we must then take seriously that it is nonsense, and not pretend, as Wittgenstein does, that it is important nonsense!”

Frank P. Ramsey (1903–1930) British mathematician, philosopher

"Philosophy" (1929) as quoted by Nils-Eric Sahlin, The Philosophy of F. P. Ramsey (1990)

“Tis the privilege of friendship to talk nonsense, and to have her nonsense respected.”

Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist

Source: The Life, Letters and Writings of Charles Lamb

“To share responsibility with the people of the province should be, in my view, the proudest bequest of a chief to his people.”

Epeli Ganilau (1951) Fijian politician

Views on the chiefly system

“The new "humour", if you can call it that, is pure malicious gossip. Instead of making a genuine point, it's now good enough to repeat any ribald story without a thought for whether it's even true.”

Lindsey Davis book Last Act in Palmyra

Last Act in Palmyra (1994)

“The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)

“It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I talked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.”

Sherwood Smith book Crown Duel

Crown Duel (Crown & Court #1 - 2, 1997)

“For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it's about occupation, then we could also talk about it (Muslim prayers in the streets), because that is occupation of territory. It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. It's an occupation. There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents.”

Marine Le Pen (1968) French lawyer and politician

At a gathering in Lyon – Marine Le Pen: Muslims in France 'like Nazi occupation', The Telegraph (12 December 2010) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8197895/Marine-Le-Pen-Muslims-in-France-like-Nazi-occupation.html

“Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

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

“It is, as a rule, far more important how men pursue their occupation than what the occupation is which they select.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

The Opportunity in the Law, 39 American Law Review 555, 555 (1905).
Extra-judicial writings

“In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.”

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Voltaire 167

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