Quotes about nothing
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“Nothing in this universe occurs by accident.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Vol. 1

Universe

“Every something is an echo of nothing”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 4 : Love in action, Sct. 3

Stupidity, World, Sincerity

“I hope nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.”

Nikos Kazantzakis (1883–1957) Greek writer

Fear, Hope

“Nothing on earth can make up for the loss of one who has loved you.”

Selma Lagerlöf (1858–1940) Swedish female writer

Love, Loss

“Nothing is real.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: Beatles Lyrics

“There is nothing stronger than gentleness.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

“Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Knowledge, Reading

“Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

Art, Freedom, Learning

“The kabalists say that a man is not dead when his body is entombed. Death is never sudden; for, according to Hermes, nothing goes in nature by violent transitions. Everything is gradual, and as it required a long and gradual development to produce the living human being, so time is required to completely withdraw vitality from the carcass. "Death can no more be an absolute end, than birth a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the being, as death proves immortality," says the same French kabalist”

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled

Eliphas Levi
Source: Isis Unveiled (1877), Volume I, Chapter XIII

Death, Birth, Nature, Time

“Death makes no sense except to people who have passionately loved life. How can one die without having something to part from? Detachment is a negation of both life and death. Whoever has overcome his fear of death has also triumphed over life. For life is nothing but another word for this fear.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Tears and Saints (1937)

Love, Life, Death, People

“I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet.”

Rosa Parks (1913–2005) African-American civil rights activist

Quoted in "Standing Up for Freedom," Academy of Achievement.org (2005-10-31)

Life, Pain, Happiness, Hope

“Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. … There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.”
Aristoteles hominis animum comparavit tabulae rasae, cui nihil inscriptum sit, inscribi tamen omnia possint. … Hoc interest, quod in tabula lineas ducere non licet, nisi quousque margo permittat: in mente usque et usque scribendo, et sculpendo, terminum nusquam invenies quia (ut ante monitum) interminabilis est.

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

The Great Didactic (Didactica Magna) (Amsterdam, 1657) [written 1627–38], as translated by M. W. Keatinge (1896).
Cf. Aristotle, De anima, III, 4, 430a: "δυνάμει δ' οὕτως ὥσπερ ἐν γραμματείῳ ᾧ μηθὲν ἐνυπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γεγραμμένον· ὅπερ συμβαίνει ἐπὶ τοῦ νοῦ."

“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.””

Xenophon Symposium

“Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”
Symposium, 1.11-13

Men, Food, Thinking, Laughter

“The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

As quoted in Rumi Wisdom: Daily Teachings from the Great Sufi Master (2000) by Timothy Freke
Variant: The fault is in the blamer — Spirit sees nothing to criticize.

“Nothing is terrible except fear itself.”
Nil terribile nisi ipse timor.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, Fortitudo (1623)

Fear

“Nothing is more precious than Independence and Liberty.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

Political slogan, quoted in Ho Chi Minh and His Vietnam : A Personal Memoir (1972) by Jean Sainteny, p. 172

Variant translation: Nothing is more valuable than freedom and independence.

World Marxist Review: Problems of Peace and Socialism (1979), p. 91

“I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.”

P.T. Barnum (1810–1891) American showman and businessman

As quoted in Philip B. Kunhardt, et alm P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman (1995), ISBN 0-679-43574-3, p. vi

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, July 6 2001 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_18_1.MP3 2000s

“Wise people are in want of nothing, and yet need many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by fools, for they do not understand how to use anything, but are in want of everything.”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted in Moral Epistles by Seneca, iii. 10.

People, Fools, Understanding

“I write and leave behind me this letter at St. Petersburg. I feel that I shall leave life before January 1st. I wish to make known to the Russian people, to Papa, to the Russian Mother and to the children, to the land of Russia, what they must understand. If I am killed by common assassins, and especially by my brothers the Russian peasants, you, Tsar of Russia, have nothing to fear, remain on your throne and govern, and you, Russian Tsar, will have nothing to fear for your children, they will reign for hundreds of years in Russia. But if I am murdered by boyars, nobles, and if they shed my blood, their hands will remain soiled with my blood, for twenty-five years they will not wash their hands from my blood. They will leave Russia. Brothers will kill brothers, and they will kill each other and hate each other, and for twenty-five years there will be no noblers in the country. Tsar of the land of Russia, if you hear the sound of the bell which will tell you that Grigory has been killed, you must know this: if it was your relations who have wrought my death then no one of your family, that is to say, none of your children or relations will remain alive for more than two years. They will be killed by the Russian people…I shall be killed. I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of your blessed family.”

Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916) Russian mystic

Grigory Rasputin in a letter to the Tsarina Alexandra, 7 Dec 1916

Life, Death, Hate, Children

“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) Duce and President of the Council of Ministers of Italy. Leader of the National Fascist Party and subsequen…

Speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928), quoted in Propaganda and Dictatorship (2007) by Marx Fritz Morstein, p. 48
1920s

“When anything is blocking my head or there's worry in my life, I just go sit on Mars or something and look back here at Earth. All you can see is this tiny speck. You don't see the fear. You don't see the pain. You don't see thought. It's just one solid speck. Then nothing really matters. It just doesn't.”

Heath Ledger (1979–2008) Australian actor

As quoted in an interview in Vanity Fair (August 2000).

Life, Pain, Fear

“I am absolutely sickened with and demoralized by this life, I've been leading for so long. When you get to my age, there is nothing more to look forward to.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in a letter to , September 1879; as cited in The Private Lives of the Impressionists Sue Roe; Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 2006, pp. 202-203; also partly cited in: Jane Kinsman, Michael Pantazzi, National Gallery of Australia. Degas: the uncontested master, National Gallery of Australia, 7 apr. 2009. p. 25
1870 - 1890
Context: I am absolutely sickened with and demoralized by this life, I've been leading for so long. When you get to my age, there is nothing more to look forward to. Unhappy we are, unhappy we'll stay. Each day brings its tribulations and each day difficulties arise... So I'm giving up the struggle once and for all, abandoning all hope of success... I hear my friends are preparing another exhibition this year [the Impressionists, in Paris, 1880] but I'm ruling out the possibility of participating in it, as I just don't have anything worth showing.

Life, Age

“Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.”

C.G. Jung book Psychology and Alchemy

CW 12, par. 126 (p 99)
Psychology and Alchemy (1952)
Context: People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian yoga and all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Thus the soul has gradually been turned into a Nazareth from which nothing good can come.

Soul

“Happy people are ignoramuses and glory is nothing else but success, and to achieve it one only has to be cunning.”

Mikhail Lermontov book A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Happiness, People, Success

“They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.”

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838) French diplomat

and variations
Recognized since the 19th century as a borrowing, possibly used by Talleyrand, from a 1796 letter to Mallet du Pan by French naval officer Charles Louis Etienne, Chevalier de Panat: Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien apprendre. "Nobody has been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything."
Sources: Craufurd Tate Ramage Ll.D.Beautiful thoughts from French and Italian authors, E. Howell (1866)
Misattributed

Learning

“It’s sad to think what the state of rock and roll will be twenty years from now. It just seems like when rock and roll is dead the whole world’s gonna explode. It’s already so rehashed and so plagariazed that it’s barely alive now. It’s disgusting. I mean, kids don’t even really care about rock and roll as much as they used to, as the other generations have. It’s already turned into nothing but a fashion statement and an identity for kids to use as a tool for them to fuck and have a social life. And at that point I really can’t see music being of any importance to a teenager, really.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist

to Michael Azerrad in an interview from 1992 or 1993, in Kurt Cobain: About a Son
Interviews (1989-1994), Video

Life, World, Sadness, Music

“I made a metamorphose, I'm a new person today, because I used to strongly and honestly, honestly! I feel like I can represent my generation so much because I honestly did not care whether I lived or died. But now I can not die, with people thinking I'm a rapist or a criminal, I can not leave until this shit is straight, you know I'm not suicidal. I can't go until ya'll really know what time it is. And then after that, BOOM!, It's all over and we can see how this shit fall, but that's how it is, and the reason being is because if I can't live free, if I can't live with the same respect as the next man, I don't wanna be here, because god has cursed me to see what life should be like, If God wanted me to be this person and be happy here, he wouldn't let me feel so oppressed, he wouldn't let me feel so trampled on, you know what I'm saying, he wouldn't let me think the things I think. So I feel I'm doing Gods work, you know what I'm saying just because I don't have nothing to pass around for people to put money in a bucket don't mean I ain't doing God's work.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Ed Gordon interview (1994)

Life, Money, God, Happiness

“God is love but God has got nothing to do with religions. Same as love is free from any religious belief”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, God, Religion

“God is love but God has got nothing to do with religions. Same as love is free from any religious belief.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, God, Religion

“Nothing and no one makes sense to a genius except his own mind. Meaning, he doesn’t trust anyone except if you’re a genius too.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Sense

“Our educational system is filled with the art of memorisation, how much you can recall in the exams hall, and nothing to do with the testing of our intelligence.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Education, Art, Intelligence

“I truly love our Code of Chivalry. We are taught that noblemen must take everything and say nothing. Noblemen must stand alone. Well, we're men, and men aren't born to stand alone.
-Myles of Olau”

Tamora Pierce book Alanna: The First Adventure

Source: Alanna: The First Adventure

Love, Men

“… Granny Weatherwax, who had walked nightly without fear in the bandit-haunted forests of the mountains all her life in the certain knowledge that the darkness held nothing more terrible than she was…”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Life, Fear, Mountain, Knowledge

“What nobody seems to understand is that love can only be one-sided, that no other love exists, that in any other form it is not love. If it involves less than total giving, it is not love. It is impotent; for the moment it is nothing.”

Andrei Tarkovsky book Sculpting in Time

Source: Sculpting in Time (1986), p. 217

Love, Understanding

“Gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you're looking for. If you're picking raspberries, you see only what's red, and if you're looking for bones you see only the white. No matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones.”

Tove Jansson book The Summer Book

Source: The Summer Book

“Be afraid of nothing. Hating none, giving love to all, feeling the love of God, seeing His presence in everyone, and having but one desire - for His constant presence in the temple of your consciousness - that is the way to live in this world.”

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship

Source: In the Sanctuary of the Soul: A Guide to Effective Prayer

Love, God, Hate, World

“You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

This is probably the most quoted statement attributed to Burke, and an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source. They closely resemble remarks known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrew (1 February 1867) http://books.google.com/books?id=DFNAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA36&dq=%22Bad+men+need+nothing+more+to+compass+their+ends,+than+that+good+men+should+look+on+and+do+nothing%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RUh5U6qWBLSysQT0vYGAAw&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Bad%20men%20need%20nothing%20more%20to%20compass%20their%20ends%2C%20than%20that%20good%20men%20should%20look%20on%20and%20do%20nothing%22&f=false : Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. The very extensively used remarks attributed to Burke might be based on a paraphrase of some of his ideas, but he is not known to have ever declared them in so succinct a manner in any of his writings. It has been suggested that they may have been adapted from these lines of Burke's in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/HTMLs/0005-01_Pt02_Thoughts.html (1770): "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (see above) :This purported quote bears a resemblance to the narrated theme of Sergei Bondarchuk's Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, produced in 1966. In it the narrator declares "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", although since the original is in Russian various translations to English are possible. This purported quote also bears resemblance to a quote widely attributed to Plato, that said "The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." It also bears resemblance to what Albert Einstein wrote as part of his tribute to Pablo Casals: "The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it." : More research done on this matter is available at these two links: Burkequote http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html & Burkequote2 http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html — as the information at these links indicate, there are many variants of this statement, probably because there is no known original by Burke. In addition, an exhaustive examination of this quote has been done at the following link: QuoteInvestigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/. Disputed Variant: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing

Men, Evil, For Men

“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

No Exit (1944)
Variant: A man is what he wills himself to be.
Source: Existentialism and Human Emotions

“When all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

“Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they'll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same.”

Haruki Murakami book Hear the Wind Sing

Source: Hear the Wind Sing

People

“Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

A New Earth (2005)
Variant: Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now, and if the past cant prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Past

“Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull.”

George Orwell book 1984

Source: 1984

“You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Smile, Waiting

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Source: The Open Door (1957) This quotation is often contracted into: Security is mostly a superstition... Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. or paraphrased: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Life, Motivational

“We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors have taken over the Ship (1998)

Love

“If, after I die, they should want to write my biography,
There's nothing simpler.
I've just two dates—of my birth, and of my death.
In between the one thing and the other all the days are mine.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Se, depois de eu morrer, quiserem escrever a minha biografia,
Não há nada mais simples.
Tem só duas datas—a da minha nascença e a da minha morte.
Entre uma e outra coisa todos os dias são meus.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), "Se, depois de eu morrer" (8 November 1915), trans. Jonathan Griffin.
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Death, Birth

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'

'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.'

'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'

'That was the curious incident,' remarked Sherlock Holmes.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Adventure of Silver Blaze

Source: Silver Blaze

Dogs, Time, Drawing, Night

“In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all.”

Karl Rahner (1904–1984) German Catholic theologian

God

“Nothing spoils romance so much as a sense of humor in the woman”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Sense

“You know how easily things grow out of nothing, when they pass through a mouth that smears them all over and makes something else out of them”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

Source: Chopin's Letters

“There is nothing more horrifying than stupidity in action.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Stupidity

“The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them;
It is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself.”

Molière The Misanthrope

Plus on aime quelqu'un, moins il faut qu'on le flatte:
À rien pardonner le pur amour éclate.
Act II, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)

Love

“Ignorance is a cure for nothing.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

“That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

Drink, Problem, Forgetting

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Love, People, Nature, Friendship

“There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Existencilism (2002)

World

“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Happiness, Wine, Sea, Happy

“Talent is perhaps nothing other than successfully sublimated rage.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Rage

“Nothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis, that we get at the real meaning of things.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400) English poet

Wisdom

“Money, it turned out, was exactly like sex. You thought of nothing else if you didn't have it and thought of other things if you did.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

"The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy" in Esquire (May 1961)

Money, Sex

“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Silence

“The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy

Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

God, Faith, For Men

“Nothing should be out of the reach of hope. Life is a hope.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Life, Hope

“Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is an act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets, and cannons, all of which are highly authoritarian means. And the victorious party must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries. Would the Paris Commune have lasted more than a day if it had not used the authority of the armed people against the bourgeoisie? Cannot we, on the contrary, blame it for having made too little use of that authority? Therefore, one of two things: either that anti-authoritarians don’t know what they are talking about, in which case they are creating nothing but confusion. Or they do know, and in that case they are betraying the cause of the proletariat. In either case they serve only reaction.8 This”

Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher

Source: On Authority, see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm

People, Communication, Victory, Parting

“there are worse things
than being alone
but it often takes
decades to realize this
and most often when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than too late”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

People, Feeling

“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Life

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.

Thinking, Attitude, For Men

“Nothing eases suffering like human touch.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Source: Chess Meets of the Century

Suffering

“Evil will win if good people do nothing.”

P. C. Cast book Hunted

Source: Hunted

People, Evil

“You love the beauty that you can see and touch and handle, the beauty that you can destroy, and do destroy, but of the unseen beauty of life, of the unseen beauty of a higher life, you know nothing.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Love, Life, Beauty

“To know nothing about yourself is to live. To know yourself badly is to think.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Thinking

“A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Money, Funny

“If I had to tell you how humans made their way to Earth, it would go like this: In the beginning, there was nothing at all but the moon and the sun. And the moon wanted to come out during the day, but there was something so much brighter that seemed to fill up all those hours. The moon grew hungry, thinner and thinner, until she was just a slice of herself, and her tips were as sharp as a knife. By accident, because that is the way most things happen, she poked a hole in the night and out spilled a million stars, like a fountain of tears.

Horrified, the moon tried to swallow them up. And sometimes this worked, because she got fatter and rounder.. But mostly it didn't, because there were just so many. The stars kept coming, until they made the sky so bright that the sun got jealous. He invited the stars to his side of the world, where it was always bright. What he didn't tell them, though, was that in the daytime, they'd never be seen. So the stupid ones leaped from the sky to the ground, and they froze under the weight of their own foolishness.

The moon did her best. She carved each of these blocks of sorrow into a man or a woman. She spent the rest of her time watching out so that her other stars wouldn't fall. She spent the rest of her time holding onto whatever scraps she had left.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Stupidity, World, Way, Star

“Hope costs nothing.”

Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi

Hope

“Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.”

Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter

Justice

“though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Soul

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

God, Fear

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Source: Me: Stories of My Life

Love, Relationship, Cute, Romantic

“Last year nothing happened
The year before nothing happened
And the year before that nothing
happened.”

Osamu Dazai book The Setting Sun

Source: The Setting Sun

“Everything interests me, but nothing holds me.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

“I'm nothing,
I'll always be nothing.
I can't even wish to be something.
Aside from that, I've got all the world's dreams inside me.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Não sou nada.
Nunca serei nada.
Não posso querer ser nada.
À parte isso, tenho em mim todos os sonhos do mundo.
Álvaro de Campos (heteronym), Tabacaria ["The Tobacconist's" or "The Tobacco Shop"] (15 January 1928)
Variant translations:
I am nothing.
Never shall be anything.
Cannot will to be anything.
This apart, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
trans. Jonathan Griffin, in Selected Poems (Penguin Books, 1974), p. 111
I am not nothing.
I will never be nothing.
I cannot ever want to be nothing.
Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
In Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 649
I am nothing.
I shall never be anything.
I cannot even wish to be anything.
Apart from this, I have within me all the dreams of the world.
Variant: I am nothing.
I will never be anything.
I cannot wish to be anything.
Bar that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.

World, Dreams

“When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to loose.”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

“There is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful woman.”

Gianni Agnelli (1921–2003) Italian businessman

Agnelli: The Rules of the Game, Vanity Fair (1991)

Beauty, Beauty, For Her

“You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the South? Nothing! Somebody's losing a trailer.”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

“Two things made The Dice of the Gods, another play about drugs, seem much better than it had any real right to seem. One was that Morphia had come first, and once you had seen Morphia, nothing seemd so very terrible to you. p. 375”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway, 1918–1923 (2014) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25758762M/Dorothy_Parker_Complete_Broadway_1918-1923, Chapter 6: 1923

God