Quotes about nothing
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“Give to all the children, from their birth, the same means of maintenance, education, and instruction; give then to all the men thus raised the same social milieu, the same means of earning their living by their own labor, and you will see then that many of these differences, that we believe to be natural differences, will disappear because they are nothing but the effect of an unequal division of the conditions of intellectual and physical development — of the conditions of life.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism

Second Address to the Second Congress of Peace and Freedom (1868)

Life, Men, Children, Education

“I don’t ask you to like reality. I only ask you to be strong enough to face it. There is nothing beyond this.”

Brent Weeks book The Way of Shadows

Source: The Way of Shadows (2008), Chapter 24 (p. 201)

Reality, Strong

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

World, Inspirational, For Team

“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Water

“I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Love, Romantic, For Him, For Boyfriend

“Having nothing, nothing can he lose.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

Isocrates (-436–-338 BC) ancient greek rhetorician

Variant: True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Wisdom, Wise

“Criticism is something you can easily avoid by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“All things change; nothing perishes.”

Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet

Change

“Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world any more. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

World, Beauty, Tree

“Life's most important questions are, for the most part, nothing but probability problems.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827) French mathematician and astronomer

citation needed
"Les questions les plus importantes de la vie ne sont en effet, pour la plupart, que des problèmes de probabilité."

Life, Question, Problem, Parting

“There Is Nothing More Beautiful Than Someone Who Goes Out Of Their Way To Make Life Beautiful For Others”

Alireza Kohany (1993) Musician, Actor, Entrepreneur

Source: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Business_In_Simple_Language/aiXfDwAAQBAJ

Life, Beauty, Way, Beauty

“Nothing hurts more than When our broken dreams don't let us live. It hurts when someone breaks our trust. It hurts more when someone plays with our feelings. It hurts when we don't get what we deserve. It hurts when someone throws us out from their life.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Life, Dreams, Feeling, Hurt

“In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Strong

“It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Wisdom

“What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run. Do you imagine that I triumph in Italy in order to aggrandise the pack of lawyers who form the Directory, and men like Carnot and Barras? What an idea!”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

As quoted in Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito (1788 - 1815) as translated by Frances Cashel Hoey and John Lillie (1881), Vol. II, p. 94

Men, Imagination, Idea

“Almost everyone can forgive us for honesty: and, say, not enough professional game, and even not enough professional verses. There are many examples of this. But when honesty disappears, they forgive nothing.”

Viktor Tsoi (1962–1990) Soviet rock musician (1962-1990)

As quoted in an interview with newspaper Arguments and Facts (1987), " 'Almost everyone can forgive us for honesty': the rules of life of Viktor Tsoi, who passed away 29 years ago" in Forum Daily https://www.forumdaily.com/en/nam-za-chestnost-mogut-prostit-prakticheski-vse-pravila-zhizni-viktora-coya-ushedshego-29-let-nazad/ (15 August 2019)

Game, Forgiveness

“Freedom is sweeter than peace. Meaning, every country that has a prime minister without a president as the head of the state; has got peace but not freedom. Their sovereignty is nothing but an illusion.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Peace, Freedom, Country

“A man must take responsibility, according to your culture and the limit of your pocket. Don't try to show off when you have nothing left.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Honesty is the only sign of those who expect nothing from anyone.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“You have got nothing to fear except the ignorance of your intelligence or lack of knowledge.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Fear, Intelligence, Knowledge

“Everybody likes a bit of gossip to some point, as long as it's gossip with some point to it. That's why I like history. History is nothing but gossip about the past, with the hope that it might be true.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

Quoted in Gert Jonkers, "Gore Vidal, the Fantastic Man," Butt, No. 20 (7 April 2007)
2000s

Hope, History, Past

“People want to see it because although it’s not a pretty scene that the movie is reflecting; it still is the reality that we live in, and it just portrays and exemplifies the life that we live in as it is. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Park So-dam (1991) South Korean actress

On why Parasite has been a tremendous success in South Korea in "PARASITE Interview: Park So-dam on Failure, Family, and "Appa" Song Kang-ho" in Screen Anarchy (21 October 2019) https://screenanarchy.com/2019/10/parasite-interview-park-so-dam-on-bong-joon-ho-and-song-kang-ho.html

Life, People, Reality

“It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it! All this proves that one must think of nothing but them [impressions]; it is by dint of observation and reflection that one makes discoveries.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

2 quotes in Monet's letter to Frédéric Bazille from Honfleur, July 15, 1864; as cited in Mary M. Gedo (2013) Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Art. p. 114-15 / p. 60
1860s

Nature, Thinking

“Nothing is so apt to draw men under teaching, as to love, and be loved.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homily 6 on First Timothy https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230606.htm

Love, Men, Drawing

“All portions of this confederacy should act in harmony and with careful deliberation. The Democrats cry John Brown invasion. We are guiltless of it, but our denial does not satisfy them. Nothing will satisfy them but disinfecting the atmosphere entirely of all opposition to slavery. They have not demanded of us to yield the guards of liberty in our state constitutions, but it will naturally come to that after a while. If we give up to them, we cannot refuse even their utmost request. If slavery is right, it ought to be extended; if not, it ought to be restricted, there is no middle ground. Wrong as we think it, we can afford to let it alone where it of necessity now exists; but we cannot afford to extend it into free territory and around our own homes. Let us stand against it!”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Home, Nature, Thinking, Cry

“He went on to speak of the manner in which slavery was treated by the Constitution. The word 'slave' is no where used; the supply of slaves was to be prohibited after 1808; they stopped the spread of it in the territories; seven of the states abolished it. He argued very conclusively that it was then regarded as an evil which would eventually be got rid of, and that they desired, once rid of it, to have nothing in the constitution to remind them of it. The Republicans go back to first principles and deal with it as a wrong. Mason, of Va., said openly that the framers of our government were anti-slavery. Hammond of S.C., said 'Washington set this evil example'. Bully Brooks said: 'At the time the Constitution was formed, no one supposed slavery would last till now.'”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

We stick to the policy of our fathers.
1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Evil, Time

“The interconnectedness of all things: Buddhists have always known it and physicists now confirm it. Nothing that happens is an isolated event, it only appears to be. The more we judge and label it, the more we isolate it.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Chapter 10 Suffering and the End of Suffering

Appearance

“Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on the surface of the water? Who is it that sees this? Who is it that is aware of the fleetingness of your physical and psychological form? I am. This is the deeper “I” that has nothing to do with past and future.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003)

Water, Past, Future

“Don't believe the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Misattributed Source: Often attributed to Twain, but sourced to Robert J. Burdette, Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/06/world-owes/

World

“Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords?”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Source: "Forced Emigration," New York Daily Tribune, 22 March 1853.

Life, Money, Way, Housing

“The most difficult part was letting yourself ignore the lies your eyes told. Eyes were like children. If they had nothing to say, they made things up.”

Jim C. Hines (1974) American writer

Source: The Goblin Quest Series, Goblin Quest (2004), Chapter 7 (p. 128)

Children, Parting

“A woman can only be superior as a woman; as soon as she wants to emulate man, she is nothing but an ape.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

Letter to his daughter Constance de Maistre, Lettres, 146
Letters

“My hand feels touched as well as it touches; reality says this, and nothing more.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Original: (fr) Ma main se sent touchée aussi bien qu’elle touche ; réel veut dire cela, et rien de plus.
Source: Unsourced

Feeling, Reality

“Nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Memory, Forgetting

“Nothing worse than a hypocrite
Change, he ain't really different
He ain't even try to get permission
Ask for advice and they dissed him
Said I'm finna do a gospel album
What have you been hearing from the Christians?
They'll be the first one to judge me
Make it feel like nobody love me.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Hands On
Lyrics, Jesus Is King (2019)

Love, Feeling, Change

“See, before I let you go
One last thing I need to let you know
You ain't never seen nothing crazier than
This nigga when he off his Lexapro
Remember that last time in Mexico?
Remember that last time, the episode?”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

FML
Lyrics, The Life of Pablo (2016)

Time

“And I heard 'em say
Nothing's ever promised tomorrow or today
From the Chi, like Tim, it's a harder way
So this is in the name of love like Robert say
Before you ask me to go get a job today,
Can I at least get a raise on the minimum wage?”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Heard 'Em Say
Lyrics, Late Registration (2005)

Love, Way

“God show me the way, because the Devil's trying to break me down
The only thing that I pray is that my feet don't fail me now
And I don't think there's nothing I can do now to right my wrongs
I wanna talk to God, but I'm afraid 'cause we ain't spoke in so long.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Jesus Walks
Lyrics, The College Dropout (2004)

God, Way, Thinking

“O, wither’d is the garland of the war!
The soldier’s pole is fall'n; young boys and girls
Are level now with men; the odds is gone,
And there is nothing left remark
Beneath the visiting moon.”

Cleopatra VII (-69–-30 BC) last active pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt

As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act III, (1623)

Men, War, Girl, Boy

“Do not underestimate emptiness, because, all great things are made out of nothing.”

Yusuf Cornelius Otijenu

“Nothing is constant.
Balanced and changeable by situation, and time.”

Md Mim Akhtar

Time

“God lives in “want” of nothing. Anything God wants, God can have. Yet God does have desires. It is God’s desire that fuels the engine of creation. It is Divine Desire that powers the universe.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

God, Universe

“Love is that which is without condition, it requires nothing in order to be expressed. It asks nothing in return. And it is free. Love is that which is free, for freedom is the essence of what God is, and love is God, expressed.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Love, God, Freedom

“Always keep your mind open. In all things, always keep your mind open. Everything is possible. Especially things you know nothing about.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=346794326803029&set=pb.100044173926915.-2207520000.&type=3

“If we stayed home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Context: 'Of course, it is likely enough, my friends,' he said slowly, 'likely enough that we are going to our doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later. That thought has long been growing in our hearts; and that is why we are marching now. It was not a hasty resolve. Now at least the last march of the Ents may be worth a song.

Home

“Every second of every minute of every hour of every day you are making decisions. These choices are about what will change, and how. You are doing nothing but changing. How you are changing is up to you. What you are evolving into is up to you.”

Neale Donald Walsch (1943) American writer

Decision, Change

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Strong

“In the end, it's just everyday life and forgetting, because there's nothing fantastic about people having to die every day.”

José Baroja book Un hijo de perra y otros cuentos

Life, People, Forgetting

“There's nothing in this world so sweet as love, and next to love the sweetest thing is hate.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Love, Hate, World

“There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

“You might well ask just what the hell he was thinking. The answer is, probably nothing at all. He'd probably say he was exercising his God-given right to stupidity.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

God, Stupidity, Exercises, Hell

“Calvin: As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You've taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.
p.90”

Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes

There's Treasure Everywhere
Variant: Calvin: As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You've taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.
Source: Calvin and Hobbes

Question, Forgetting

“she tapped her finger and nothing happened and she thought she had lost her magic, but it had only changed and it took her awhile to figure it out.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Change

“Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler.”

W.C. Fields (1880–1946) actor

Housing

“You must pay for everything in this world one way and another. There is nothing free except the Grace of God. You cannot earn that or deserve it.”

Charles Portis book True Grit

Source: True Grit (1968), Chapter 3, p. 37 : thoughts of 'Mattie Ross'

God, World, Way

“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: The Red Headed League

Time

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, West India Emancipation (1857)
Context: Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. [... ] Men might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

People

“We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.”

Richard Bach book Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull

World, Learning

“The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be.”

Haruki Murakami book Norwegian Wood

Source: Norwegian Wood

Books

“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Persuasion (1817)
Works, Persuasion

Love, Suffering

“Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.”

Sherwood Smith (1951) American fantasy and science fiction writer

Source: King's Shield (Inda #3, 2008)

Men

“It's not given to people to judge what's right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

People

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”

Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer

Love, Feeling, Suffering, Learning

“There are two essential kinds of loneliness: that of not having found someone to love, and that of having been deprived of the one you did love. The first kind is worse. Nothing can compare to the loneliness of the soul in adolescence.”

Julian Barnes (1946) English writer

Source: Levels of Life

Love, Soul, Loneliness

“There’s nothing here,” Carter said.
“What do you want?” I asked. “We’ve got wax, some toilet papyrus, an ugly statue.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

“I have noticed that nothing I have never said ever did me any harm.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

“Nothing could have survived our life.”

Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Life

“Usually when we hear or read something new, we just compare it to our own ideas. If it is the same, we accept it and say that it is correct. If it is not, we say it is incorrect. In either case, we learn nothing.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation

Idea, Learning, Reading

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.”

Margaret Drabble (1939) Novelist, biographer and critic

“We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.”

Maggie O'Farrell (1972) British writer

Source: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

World

“Nothing ever fits the palm so perfectly, or feels so right, or inspires so much protective instinct as the hand of a child”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Feeling

“I was not I, I was nothing - and that seemed to me quite marvelous.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

“Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.”

Isaac Asimov book I, Robot

Source: I, Robot

Faith, Universe

“Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you'll never be criticized.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

John North Willys (as reprinted in Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings, Part 2 (1998), pp. 331–337, Roycrofters, 1922).
Pamphlets
Source: Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Vol. 3: American Statesmen

“Laws are meaningless, child. There is nothing more important than love. And no law higher.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

Love, Law

“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Fashion

“Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

“Nothing of any importance can be taught. It can only be learned, and with blood and sweat.”

Robert Anton Wilson (1932–2007) American author and polymath

Learning

“She was starting to think there might be such a thing as karma - that repetition - maybe you lived through the same thing over and over until you stopped caring. Maybe eventually it got less intense, until it was just nothing.”

Janet Fitch (1955) American writer

Source: Paint it Black

Thinking

“Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of the history?”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Source: Vanity Fair

Life, History

“Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.”

Jenny Diski (1947–2016) British writer

“Do you know what I think about crying? I think some people have to learn to do it. But once you learn, once you know how to really cry, there's nothing quite like it. I feel sorry for those who don't know the trick. It's like whistling or singing.”

Anne Rice book Memnoch the Devil

Source: Memnoch the Devil

People, Feeling, Thinking, Learning

“Going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Sun Also Rises

Source: The Sun Also Rises

Country

“Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.”

Marian Keyes (1963) Irish writer

Source: Anybody Out There?

Exercises

“Books are for nothing but to inspire”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Books

“You might not understand, but I gave you the best of me, and after you left, nothing was ever the same.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Best of Me

Variant: you might not understand but i gave you the best of me...
Source: The Best of Me

Understanding

“There is nothing you can see that is not a flower;
There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.”

Bashō Matsuo (1644–1694) Japanese poet

見るところ花にあらずと云ふことなし、 思ふところ月にあらずと云ふことなし。 Miru tokoro hana ni arazu to iu koto nashi, omou tokoro tsuki ni arazu to iu koto nashi Classical Japanese Database, Translation #172 http://carlsensei.com/classical/index.php/translation/view/172 (Translation: Reginald Horace Blyth) Statements Variant: There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; There is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

Flowers, Thinking