Quotes about wasting
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“Our own history and that of other wealthy countries show that child poverty is anything but an unalterable reality. The record also shows that changing it requires mobilizing funds of the sort now being wasted on ventures like America’s multitrillion-dollar forever wars.”

Rajan Menon (1953) political scientist

Trump’s War on the Poor Includes Our Children (February 4, 2020)

War, History, Reality, Change

“A part of eugenic politics would finally land us in an extensive use of the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of existence simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Shaw’s Lecture to the London’s Eugenics Education Society, The Daily Express, (March 4, 1910), quoted in Modernism and the Culture of Efficiency: Ideology and Fiction, Evelyn Cobley, University of Toronto Press (2009) p. 159
1910s

People, Time, Parting

“What vexations there are in the external customs which are thought to belong to religion, but which in reality are related to ecclesiastical form! The merits of piety have been set up in such away that the ritual is of no use at all except for the simple submission of the believers to ceremonies and observances, expiations and mortifications (the more the better). But such compulsory services, which are mechanically easy (because no vicious inclination is thus sacrificed), must be found morally very difficult and burdensome to the rational man. When, therefore, the great moral teacher said, 'My commandments are not difficult,' he did not mean that they require only limited exercise of strength in order to be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, as commandments which require pure dispositions of the heart, they are the hardest that can be given. Yet, for a rational man, they are nevertheless infinitely easier to keep than the commandments involving activity which accomplishes nothing... [since] the mechanically easy feels like lifting hundredweights to the rational man when he sees that all the energy spent is wasted.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996). Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View https://books.google.com/books?id=TbkVBMKz418C. Translated by Victor Lyle Dowdell. Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780809320608. Page 33. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Religion, Feeling, Exercises, Reality

“Save me from that! To pour your life into sons for eighteen or twenty years, and then have the government take them away and waste them cleaning up after some failure of politics—no thanks.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Shards of Honor (1986), Chapter 3 (p. 41)

Life, Failure

“Maybe we should gather a few more facts before wasting our time speculating.”

Stephen Baxter book Ring

Source: Ring (1994), Chapter 30 (p. 852)

Time

“Here's what I thought: they raped her, they lined up. I was angry because of the rape, yes, but she was so beautiful, and the mayor should have been first. What a waste.”

Rodrigo Duterte (1945) Filipino politician and the 16th President of the Philippines

Original: (tl) Ang pumasok sa isip ko, ni-rape nila, pinagpilahan nila. Nagalit ako kasi ni-rape, oo, isa rin iyun. Pero napakaganda, dapat ang mayor muna ang mauna. Sayang. Duterte on Australian rape victim: Napakaganda. Dapat ang mayor ang mauna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr-XRWT40Do&t=38 (April 16, 2016)

Beauty

“Some think that we are approaching a critical moment in the history of Liberalism. ... We hear of a divergence of old Liberalism and new. ... The terrible new school, we hear, are for beginning operations by dethroning Gladstonian finance. They are for laying hands on the sacred ark. But did any one suppose that the fiscal structure which was reared in 1853 was to last for ever, incapable of improvement, and guaranteed to need no repair? ... Another heresy is imputed to this new school which fixes a deep gulf between the wicked new Liberals and the virtuous old. We are adjured to try freedom first before we try interference of the State. That is a captivating formula, but it puzzles me to find that the eminent statesman who urges us to lay this lesson to heart is strongly in favour of maintaining the control of the State over the Church? But is State interference an innovation? I thought that for 30 years past Liberals had been as much in favour as other people of this protective legislation. ... [O]ther countries have tried freedom and it is just because we have decided that freedom in such a case is only a fine name for neglect, and have tried State supervision, that we have saved our industrial population from the waste, destruction, destitution, and degradation that would otherwise have overtaken them. ... In short, gentlemen, I am not prepared to allow that the Liberty and the Property Defence League are the only people with a real grasp of Liberal principles, that Lord Bramwell and the Earl of Wemyss are the only Abdiels of the Liberal Party.”

John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1838–1923) British Liberal statesman, writer and newspaper editor

Annual presidential address to the Junior Liberal Association of Glasgow (10 February 1885), quoted in 'Mr. John Morley At Glasgow', The Times (11 February 1885), p. 10
1880s

People, School, History, Thinking

“Private armies, and for that matter private air forces- are expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970) former Governor-General of Australia

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 457

“Maitreya is sending a clear message to the world's political leaders: no wars can now be won, and spending vast amounts of money on international arms programmes is a complete waste.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Share International Magazine

Money, War, World

“This is why you're wasting your life away.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Other

Life

“Why waste time doing experiments in the organization with technologies that are going to be out of date in 5 years or 10 years?”

Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013) American engineer and inventor

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OojVnbrgF2A&feature=youtu.be&start=1704&end=1772

Time

“Yes, star-crossed in pleasure, the stream flows on by
Yes, as we're sated in leisure, we watch it fly, yes
And time waits for no one, and it won't wait for me...
Hours are like diamonds, don't let them waste...
Drink in your summer, gather your corn...
The dreams of the nighttime will vanish by dawn”

Mick Jagger (1943) British rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones

Time Waits for No One (co-written with Keith Richards) on the Rolling Stones' 1974 album It's Only Rock 'n Roll (1973).
Lyrics

Pleasure, Dreams, Star, Drink

“He [the British taxpayer] must be taught that war is not precise or economical. It is almost inconceivably wasteful and extravagant. It burns the house to roast the pig, and even then seldom roasts him effectively..... waste is the law of modern war; and nothing is cheap on the battlefield except the lives of men...... Therefore, my taxpayer, resign yourself to this: that we may fight bravely, fight hard, fight long, fight cunningly, fight recklessly, fight in a hundred and fifty ways, but we cannot fight cheaply.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

The Daily Chronicle on the 7 March 1917 https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/george-bernard-shaw-joyriding-on-the-front. 1910s, The Technique of War (1917)

Men, War, Law, Way

“I repeat: our practical choice is not between a tax-cut deficit and a budgetary surplus. It is between two kinds of deficits: a chronic deficit of inertia, as the unwanted result of inadequate revenues and a restricted economy; or a temporary deficit of transition, resulting from a tax cut designed to boost the economy, increase tax revenues, and achieve--and I believe this can be done--a budget surplus. The first type of deficit is a sign of waste and weakness; the second reflects an investment in the future.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Future

“The coming stock market crash will inevitably cause much unemployment. This will lead to a complete change of government priorities: the supplying of adequate food, shelter, health-care and education will become paramount responsibilities of all forward looking nations. The waste of resources as today, in armaments and competitive practices, will cease. A rational and sustainable economic structure based on sufficiency will become the norm. Leisure will be the natural by-product of such a structure. p.156”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Source: Maitreya's Mission Vol. II (1993), After the stock markets collapse

Health, Education, Food, Nature

“Never quit. You can’t wait for yourself to happen, you have to go out there and make it happen. If you truly believe in something you can make it happen. Get a good agent. They cost money, but that’s your first step. Your first film opportunities will most likely not be big, but that’s how you’re discovered by others. Eventually a director or a casting director will see you in a minor film/commercial/broadway, etc. and you’ll get your big break. Always be polite and professional. There are often many, many other people auditioning for the same part as you. If you’re not polite or professional they won’t even waste their time with you.”

Mackenzie Rosman (1989) American actress

Source: Mack’s Fan’s Questions & Answers http://mackrosman.net/press-release (March 19, 2008)

Money, People, Making love, Time

“What a book a Devil’s chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horridly cruel works of nature!”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Letter to J.D. Hooker, 13 July 1856
Other letters, notebooks, journal articles, recollected statements

Books, Nature

“I say, those who cry ‘patriotism, patriotism’ around cricket, if all of them for one day did not drop banana skin on the streets or did not spit on the streets or obeyed traffic rules, the country would have changed. This huge energy was not wasted after cricket and was used to do one’s work honestly even for a day, that would be showing patriotism. I do not understand the definition of patriotism of these people.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://newshour.online/2017/06/20/mashrafe-mortaza-says-dont-understand-patriotism-around-cricket/

People, Understanding, Change, Cry

“When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn't even curious. It sounded like a waste of time.
What got me interested, though, was the phrase "true happiness lies within."”

David Lynch book Catching the Big Fish

At first I thought it sounded kind of mean, because it doesn't tell you where the "within" is, or how to get there. But still it had a ring of truth. And I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within.
The First Dive, p. 3
Catching the Big Fish (2006)

Happiness, Time

“Ay, soon upon the stage of life,
Sweet, happy children, you will rise,
To mingle in its care and strife,
Or early find the peaceful skies.
Then be it yours, while you pursue
The golden moments, quick to haste
Some noble work of love to do,
Nor suffer one bright hour to waste.”

Daniel Clement Colesworthy (1810–1893) American writer

School is out (1876); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“As new technologies search out and lace over every interstice in the net of global communication, we find ourselves with increasingly less excuse for…slack. And that, I would argue, is what the World Wide Web, the test pattern for whatever will become the dominant global medium, offers us. Today, in its clumsy, larval, curiously innocent way, it offers us the opportunity to waste time…It will probably evolve into something considerably less random, and less fun — we seem to have a knack for that — but in the meantime, in its gloriously unsorted Global Ham Television Postcard Universes phase, surfing the Web is a procrastinator’s dream. And people who see you doing it might even imagine you’re working.”

William Gibson book Distrust That Particular Flavor

"The Net Is a Waste of Time," The New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1996.
Distrust That Particular Flavor (2012)

People, World, Dreams, Way

“Mastery requires both impatience and patience. The impatience to have a bias toward action, to not waste time, and to work with a sense of urgency each day. The patience to delay gratification, to wait for your actions to accumulate and to trust the process.”

James Clear (1986) American author and speaker

Sense, Time, Waiting, Patience

“Patience is wasted on the lazy.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Patience

“For my own part I am deeply convinced that all excess in the public expenditure beyond the legitimate wants of the country is not only a pecuniary waste—for that is a comparatively trifling matter—but a great political and a great moral evil. It is a characteristic of the mischief which arise from financial prodigality, that they creep onwards with a noiseless and surreptitious step; that they are unseen and unfelt until they have reached a magnitude absolutely overwhelming, and then at length, we see them, as perhaps they now exist in the case of one at least among the great European nations, so fearful and menacing in their aspect that they seem to threaten the very foundations of national existence.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1861/apr/15/first-night#column_595 in the House of Commons (15 April 1861) 1860s

Fear, Evil, Parting, Country

“Rarely is there money in the federal bureaucracy for the cultural and environmental needs of the Natives. I find it ironic however, that federal monies always miraculously appear to study and develop coal strip miners, uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps on Reservations.”

Winona LaDuke (1959) author and activist

As quoted in All Our Relations Native Struggle For Land & Life (1999), pg.101

Money, Study, Appearance

“Those too poor to own their own home pay no property taxes, but their rent reflects the taxes that the landlord must pay. The poor pay higher rents to subsidize inefficiency and waste.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 123

Home

“Mum said school mighta been different for me if I only give a damn. Maybe it was wasted on me like the teachers said. I didn't have any philosophy in me then, so I didn't know what to listen for. Most of it was pointless crap. Don't reckon I met a single wise person all the years I stayed but like I say, I wasn't paying close attention. And the thing is I miss it a bit. That's something I never thought I'd hear myself say. I didn't know what I was, what I could do. Except the lame things I did do.”

Tim Winton (1960) Australian writer

Part I, Ch.6 - p.43
The Shepherd's Hut (2018)

School, Teachers, Personality

“Meaning can be found in all sorts of places. For most individuals it is found in the love of the people and places around them: in friends, family and loved ones, in culture, place and wonder. A sense of purpose is found in working out what is meaningful in our lives and then orientating ourselves over time as closely as possible to those centres of meaning. Using ourselves up on identity politics, social justice (in this manifestation) and intersectionality is a waste of a life.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity (2019)

Love, Life, People, Making love

“There is no greater harm than that of time wasted.”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Time

“No yesterdays are ever wasted for those who give themselves to today.”

Brendan Behan (1923–1964) Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright

“It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own responsibility. You can try to stop time, but it’s a complete waste of energy.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Life, World, Failure, Time

“God gave me this talent of being an actor, and I’m not going to waste it. That’s just who I am. I love working, and with five kids and a fantastic wife, I want to make sure I’m taking care of everyone. That’s what my dad did, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Neal McDonough (1966) American actor

Neal McDonough Admits Putting God And His Family First Has Been ‘Hard’ On His Career (Exclusive) https://www.closerweekly.com/posts/neal-mcdonough-admits-putting-god-and-his-family-first-was-hard-on-his-career-exclusive/ (January 5, 2019)

Love, God

“We are used to thinking that what we give is the same as what we receive, but people who love, expecting to be loved in return, are wasting their time. Love is an act of faith, not an exchange.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by

Love, People, Faith, Thinking

“I'm not going to do a virtual debate. I’m not going to waste my time at a virtual debate.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump commented on the initiative of having the presidential candidates participating from remote locations for the second presidential debate, in view of his Covid-19 infection, as quoted by * 2020-10-08
Trump says he will 'not waste my time' with a 'virtual debate' after CPD announces changes
Brooke Singman
Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/second-trump-biden-debate-will-be-virtual-organizers-say
2020, October 2020

Time

“Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak. Then come back.
Don't worry. You won't have lost time. Your energy will be more direct and less wasted.”

Natalie Goldberg book Writing Down the Bones

Essay, "The Goody Two-Shoes Nature". p.140
Writing Down the Bones (1986)

Time, Waiting

“Preventing and fighting corruption and waste is an important, urgent and long-term task of extreme difficulty and complexity. To enhance the efficiency of the work, timely detection, investigation and handling of offences plays a decisive role.”

Trần Đại Quang (1956–2018) 8th President of Vietnam

"Re-elected President Tran Dai Quang gives media interview" in Nhân Dân https://en.nhandan.vn/politics/domestic/item/4492502-re-elected-president-tran-dai-quang-gives-media-interview.html (26 July 2016)

Decision, Time, Fight

“Idle wishing for circumstances different from what you had was a waste of time.”

Charles Sheffield book Resurgence

Source: The Heritage Universe, Resurgence (2002), Chapter 20, “Tally on Down” (p. 245)

Time

“You will simply be wasting your energy by putting too much emphasis on the improvement of the body, while leaving the mind idle — leaving it to rot.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“If we give it to our kids they are going to waste it. It’s best to invest it in our villages and our students. Eventually, they can do the same thing.”

Vinod Gupta (1946) American businessman

Business Opportunities, Vinod Gupta Lifelong Philanthropist, Nicolas, Smith, January 29, 2020 https://www.business-opportunities.biz/2020/01/29/vinod-gupta-lifelong-philanthropist/,

“Dissipating a mood through overanalyzing it wastes our power.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

The Eagle's Gift, (1981)

Mood

“Look up! the proof is round you written large;
Your Faith is in the balance wanting found;
Your shipless seas confess it; bridgeless streams;
Your wasted wealth of ore, and moor, and bay.
Beneath the Upas shade of Faith depraved
All things lie dead -- wealth, comfort, freedom, power.”

Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902) Irish poet and critic

"The Sisters; or, Weal in Woe: An Irish Tale" in The Sisters, Inisfail, and Other Poems (1861), pp. 3-42.

Lie, Faith, Freedom, Sea

“First, kill all the math classes beyond algebra. Stop wasting so much of our students’ time learning math. It’s not useful, it’s not helpful.”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

Source: Knowledge@Wharton https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/the-righteous-mind-why-liberals-and-conservatives-cant-get-along/ (2013)

Learning, Time, Help

“Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears
Waste of youth's most precious years,
Waste of ways the saints have trod,
Waste of Glory, waste of God,
War!”

Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (1883–1929) British saint

Source: from Waste, in More Rough Rhymes of a Padre (1919)

God, War, Youth, Way

“We are a sovereign country so we must get out from this crisis by ourselves. We must draw away danger with our own hands. History would never forgive the present generation for wasting this chance.”

Wojciech Jaruzelski (1923–2014) Polish military officer and politician

Source: Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

History, Forgiveness, Chance, Drawing

“People think they follow advice but they don't. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don't waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.”

Scott Adams book God's Debris

Source: Books, God's Debris (2001)

People, Thinking, Change, Time

“Contingency time is useless wasted time, right until you need it.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Labyrinth Index (2018), Chapter 8, “A Game of Vampires” (p. 236)

Time

“Story of my life. I wasted nearly a decade before I realized that life is not a game and there are no save points or second chances.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Labyrinth Index (2018), Chapter 1, “God Save the King” (p. 40)

Life, Game, Chance

“I often think my life has been a failure. But whenever I drop into a theater and hear women laugh at one of my films, I think, well, if I brightened their day before they went home and did the dishes, maybe my life wasn't wasted, after all.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Source: As quoted in "They Changed Their Careers and Became Famous; Cary a Failure?" https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87358421/the-boston-globe/ by Jack Harrison Pollack, Parade (November 16, 1969), p. 7; and The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1978) by Leslie Halliwell, p.229

Life, Women, Home, Failure

“Burying nuclear, chemical and solid Israeli waste poses danger to the environment and to people's health.”

Mohammad Shtayyeh (1958) Palestinian politician

Source: Mohammad Shtayyeh (2021) cited in: " PA calls for probing Israel's disposal of hazardous nuclear waste in the occupied territories https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211208-pa-calls-for-probing-israels-disposal-of-hazardous-nuclear-waste-in-the-occupied-territories/" in Middle East Monitor, 8 December 2021.

People, Health

“We spent three trillion dollars in the Middle East, right now, where that money could have been used to take care of our veterans, first and foremost, who've been over there fighting, but also take care of the people that need help here in the United States instead of wasting it overseas.”

Danny Tarkanian (1961) American businessman, attorney, and perennial candidate

Source: Danny Tarkanian on MAGA: ‘Secure Our Borders’ and ‘Build a Wall’ https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/10/19/danny-tarkanian-on-maga-secure-our-borders-and-build-a-wall/ (19 October 2018)

Money, People, Help, Fight

“You have the power to change the world and your only fear should be wasting the opportunity while you have the time to wield it.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Future Proofing You (2021)

World, Fear, Change, Time

“I have just one regret in life:
that chance I wasted when you said goodbye.
And to be honest, at the time,
though I could see, I must have been blind.
Oh what I'd give to have you back,
relive those moments once again,
I'd take your hand and we would fly,
Just you and me, my love and I.”

Gilbert O'Sullivan (1946) Irish singer-songwriter

"My Love and I" (song) Song lyrics Source: Gilbert O'Sullivan, "My Love and I" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf1PNTPRlo0 (song on YouTube)

Love, Life, Chance, Time

“People predict by making up stories.
People predict very little and explain everything.
People live under uncertainty whether they like it or not.
People believe they can tell the future if they work hard enough.
People accept any explanation as long as it fits the facts.
The handwriting was on the wall. It was just the ink that was invisible.
People often work hard to obtain information they already have and avoid new knowledge.
Man is a deterministic device thrown into a probabilistic Universe. In this match, surprises are expected.
Everything that has already happened must have been inevitable.
A part of good science is to see what everyone else can see but think what no one else has ever said.
The difference between being very smart and very foolish is often very small.
So many problems occur when people fail to be obedient when they are supposed to be obedient, and fail to be creative when they are supposed to be creative
The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.
It is sometimes easier to make the world a better place than to prove you have made the world a better place.”

Amos Tversky (1937–1996) Israeli psychologist

Source: Notes made by Tversky for a scientific paper, c.1972. Michael Lewis. "The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World". Penguin, 2016 (ISBN 9780141983035).

People, Secret, World, Knowledge

“Wasting the mind is far more horrible than wasting money”

asaghaei

Money

“I have been opposed to vivisection for many years; not just because it is unbelievably barbaric and unforgivably cruel but also because it is worthless, wasteful, inaccurate, uninformative and dangerously misleading. The cruelty is indefensible and an affront to human dignity, but in a desperate attempt to justify their evil practices many vivisectors still claim that what they do helps save human lives. They are lying. The truth is that animal experiments kill people and animal researchers are responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children every year; they are also directly responsible for a massive amount of human suffering.”

Vernon Coleman (1946) British doctor

"Why Animal Experiments Must Stop" (1991), in animalliberationfront.com http://www.animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Animal%20Testing/Vivisection/waems.htm.

Death, Women, Men, Children

“Don't wait, don't waste, don’t tarry until the flowers have gone away!”

Kazeronnie Mak

Flowers, Waiting