Quotes about nothing
page 31
“Saving the world is only a hobby. Most of the time I do nothing.”
Source: Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast
“Nothing is so loved by tyrants as obedient subjects.”
“Delete nothing. Move nothing. Change nothing. Learn everything.”
“There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”
Often attributed to Hugo as a paraphrase of a similar idea in his Histore d'un Crime (1877): "One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas", the wording of this famous statement actually more closely resembles a passage from the relatively obscure Les Francs-Tireurs (1861) by Gustave Aimard, p. 68 https://books.google.com/books/about/Les_francs_tireurs.html?id=mKI4AQAAIAAJ:
Il y a quelque chose de plus puissant que la force brutale des baïonnettes: c'est l'idée dont le temps est venu et l'heure est sonnée.
There is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck.
Translated into English as The Freebooters : A Story of the Texan War (1861) https://archive.org/details/freebootersstory00aima, p. 57, Ward & Lock edition
Misattributed
Variant: More powerful than the mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.
“Self-esteem isn't everything; it's just that there's nothing without it.”
Source: Tomorrow, When the War Began
Source: The Darkness That Comes Before
Jace and Alec, pg. 73-74
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)
Source: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Source: Drinking Midnight Wine
“Choices are easy when you have nothing to lose.”
Source: While My Sister Sleeps
Source: Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories
“Without love, most of life remains concealed. Nothing is as fascinating as love, unfortunately.”
Source: Intimacy: das Buch zum Film von Patrice Chéreau
Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Source: Dexter in the Dark
“Why you?
- (…) I’m the best.
- Modest of you.
- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.”
Source: The Left Hand of God
William Black talking with Oskar
"A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem" (p. 297)
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: "It's easy to be emotional. You can always make a scene... Highs and lows make you feel that things matter, but they're nothing." "So what's something?" "Being reliable is something. Being good."
Source: Love in the Afternoon
“Death is forever. Death is nothing. But to save a life, that’s everything.”
Source: Magic Breaks
“Life is doubt,
And faith without doubt is nothing but death.”
“There was nothing like having a dead husband return from the grave to ruin a fine spring morning.”
Source: Second Sight
“[A] pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”
Source: Fer-de-Lance
Source: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay
Source: The Quiet American
“The entire teaching of Buddhism can be summed up in this way: Nothing is worth holding on to.”
Source: Living Dharma: Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters
Source: The Glass Castle
“I got nothing. Even the spies I’m spying on who are spying on other spies got nothing.”
Source: Shadow's Claim
“There is no hurry. Time means nothing
to you.”
Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966
“There's nothing like your mother's sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.”
Source: Confessions of a Shopaholic
Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117
The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
Source: The Candymakers
Source: The Blind Assassin (2000) first lines
“Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose".”
Song lyrics, Me and Bobby McGee (1969)
Variant: Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free
“Who wouldn't be a mountaineer! Up here all the world's prizes seem nothing”
“Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.”
Source: Girl with a Pearl Earring
Source: Scandalous Lovers
taken from 'Brandalism' in the book 'Cut It Out' (inspired from Sean Tejaratchi's piece in Crap Hound No.6, July 1999.) Source http://readingfrenzy.com/ledger/2012/03/taking_the_piss_conclusion
Other sources
Source: Wall and Piece
Context: People are taking the piss out of you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you. You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity. Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don't owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.
“Forget the self and you will fear nothing, in whatever level or awareness you find yourself to be.”
Source: The Active Side of Infinity
Variant: It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 6
Context: It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.
“There is nothing wrong with God's plan that man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.”
Source: Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues
Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Circles
Source: Sweet Surrender
“Nothing is so essential as dignity…Time will reveal who has it and who has it not.”
Source: The Signature of All Things
Source: American Psycho
Variant: The sweetness of doing nothing.
Source: Eat, Pray, Love
“He was not bone and feather but a perfect idea of freedom and flight, limited by nothing at all”
Source: Jonathan Livingston Seagull
