Quotes About Futility

There will always be someone who will see the futility of your actions. There will always be someone who is irritated by what you do, whatever you do. In this way we participate in a kind of shared, communal pessimism.

Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.

One senses that for Schopenhauer, the world does exist, and it's horrible, and there's not much one can do about it.

B]etter the beauty of struggle and futility than the illusion of accomplishment; for as we struggle, he would seem to say, so are we beautiful.

A leaf flattened itself against the window beside his head and leaped away into the darkness, and a feeling of profound despair came over him because everything he had done was useless. All that he believed in and had attempted to prove seemed meager, all of his life was wasted

The world, post-Katrina, was a hard time for my city. The hardest time. For people who didn't live through it, no words can fully express the pain, the rage, the grief, and the futility we New Orleanians felt. For the people who did, words seemed like a feeble protest against a relentless night without end.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility.

Hope of ill gain is the beginning of loss.

History has taught us the futility of the conspiracy theory. Complexity gives rise to error, and in error we grow our prejudice.

A man may tear a jewel From a sea monster's jaws, Cross a tumultuous sea Of raging tides, Or twine garlandwise A wrathful serpent on his head. But no man can alter The thoughts of an obstinate fool.

It was also not until many years later, Baldwin related, that he discovered that the Communists used these fronts as recruiting grounds for the Party. If the treasurer happened to be a party member, funds would be siphoned off for party purposes. Eventually Baldwin recognized the futility of working with the Communists. "I recognized the lesson many others—but, unfortunately, not all liberals—learned: that no movement in which communists participate can successfully resist

Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight.

Ženska srca su kao one male komode sa tajnim skrovištima, prepune fioka koje se uvlace jedne u druge; uzalud se ?ovek mu?i, polomi nokte, da bi na kraju, negde na dnu, pronašao neki sparušeni cvet, prašinu ili ništa!

I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.

Wise men told him his simple fancies were inane and childish, and even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of meaning and purpose as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something back to nothing again, neither heeding nor knowing the wishes or existence of the minds that flicker for a second now and then in the darkness.

The point then is not that there is a lack of public admiration for poetry and philosophy in the modern world, but that such admiration does not constitute a space in which things are saved from destruction by time. The futility of public admiration, which daily is consumed in ever greater quantities, on the contrary, is such that monetary reward, one of the most futile things there is, can become more "objective" and more real.

A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.

The lesson is never learned—there will always be those who persist in seeking the Fountain of Youth, or at least delaying what is irrevocably ordained.

If. A two-letter word for futility.

there was nothing I could do for her, or for Miller either.

Life is over before you get to understand anything and so is probably meaningless

It's all one thing — both tend into one scope - To live upon Tobacco and on Hope, The one's but smoke, the other is but wind.

The moon, like a gardenia in the night's button-hole—but no! why should a writer never be able to mention the moon without likening her to something else—usually something to which she bears not the faintest resemblance?... The moon, looking like nothing whatsoever but herself, was engaged in her old and futile endeavour to mark the hours correctly on the sun-dial at the centre of the lawn.

There comes a point when you have to realize that the sum of all your blood, sweat, and tears will ultimately amount to zero.