Quotes About Futility

Is there really no hope? our young woman asked as she stood before her. None whatever. There never has been. It has not been a successful life. No — it has only been a beautiful one.

One went through the vain motions, but it was mostly a waste of life.

When a situation gets so bad that no solution seems possible there is left only murder and suicide, or both. These failing, one becomes a buffoon.

The universe has dwindled; it is only a block long and there are no stars, no trees, no rivers. The people who live there are dead; they make chairs which other people sit on in their dreams. In the middle of the street is a wheel and in the hub of the wheel a gallows is fixed. People already dead are trying frantically to mount the gallows, bu the wheel is turning too fast

I had to grow foul with knowledge, realize the futility of everything; smash everything, grow desperate, then humble, then sponge myself off the slate, as it were, in order to recover my authenticity. I had to arrive at the brink and then take a leap in the dark.

I was lonely amidst a world of things lit up by phosphorescent flashes of cruelty. I was delirious with an energy which could not be unleashed except in the service of death and futility.

It has been that way ever since the Greeks—a blind fuck in the mud and then a quick spawn and then death.

Dondequiera que fuese fomentaba la discordia: no porque fuera idealista, sino porque era como un reflector que revelaba la estupidez y futilidad de todo.

I was a philosopher when still in swaddling clothes. I was against life, on principle. What principle? The principle of futility.

La atmósfera está saturada de desastres, frustración, futilidad. Rascarse y rascarse... hasta que no quede piel. Sin embargo su efecto en mí es estimulante. En lugar de desanimarme, o deprimirme, disfruto. Pido a gritos cada vez más desastres, calamidades mayores, fracasos más rotundos. Quiero ver el mundo escacharrado, quiero que todo el mundo se rasque hasta morir.

She spoke as to a child who could not understand All the futility that lay ahead Yet who she knew would go on to repeat Repeat repeat the things men had to learn. The gods gave death to man and kept life for Themselves. That is the only way it is. Cherish your rests; the children you might have; You are a thing that carries so much tiredness.

I'm not a religious person. Chances are that the universe neither treasures nor regrets us.

The meaning of man's life, as we have seen, is not measured by what he has, but by what he is. No matter how many possessions we have amassed, how much wealth we have accrued, how respected and secure our position is in society, how numerous the pieces of information we have accumulated, in moments of lucidity we may still abruptly perceive the dreadful futility of it all, the overwhelming emptiness and pointlessness of such a life.

XXIV I saw a man pursuing the horizon; Round and round they sped. I was disturbed at this; I accosted the man. "It is futile," I said, "You can never-" "You lie" he cried And ran on.

It was a good day to die, but nobody did.

Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

He sighed and shook his head slowly. 'And there will be no bringing back the light once it has gone.

Death cannot be struggled against, brother. It ever arrives, defiant of every hiding place, of every frantic attempt to escape. Death is every mortal's shadow, his true shadow, and time is its servant, spinning that shadow slowly round, until what stretched before one now stretched before him.

As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like claiming to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.

Skyjackers had a pretty abysmal success rate - once you commandeered a plane in American airspace, your odds of a happy ending were slim. After the epidemic ended in 1973, what folks tended to remember most about the skyjackers was their futility.

Life itself was only futility, vain words, a squabble of cap and bells.

Life may seem pointless if we are fated to spend it staring stupidly at our ultra-intelligent progeny as they try to describe their ever more spectacular discoveries in baby-talk that we can understand.

El fin de todo esto es trágico: el que hace muy poco se sabía con el poder en las manos, se encuentra de pronto inmóvil en una caja de madera; y los que lo rodean, conscientes de su inutilidad, le queman en un horno.

I realized that there was no point or sense in chasing after happiness that had perished.