Quotes About Futile

Useless, like a revolution.

Anger is a futile emotion. The man who is angry loses more energy than his victim. So if you are angry you put yourself at a disadvantage.

Yet even in the loneliness of the canyon I knew there were others like me who had brothers they did not understand but wanted to help. We are probably those referred to as "our brother's keepers," possessed of one of the oldest and possible one of the most futile and certainly one of the most haunting instincts. It will not let us go.

The story of your species is indeed a tragic story, for it closes with desolation. Your part in that story is both to strive and to fail in a unique opportunity, and so to set the current of history toward disaster. But think not therefore that your species has occurred in vain, or that your own individual lives are futile. Whatever any of you has achieved of good is an excellence in itself, and a bright thread woven into the texture of the cosmos.

The lay Zen Master Kawajiri Hogin also warns against this empty type of sitting: To begin with, most people who practice zazen consciously try to make themselves empty. This is a grave mistake because you have thoughts about becoming empty, and it is futile to sit however long you may try to do so.

I absentmindedly fantasize as I rest my chin in my hand. But in the end I can do nothing.

This novel was doomed from the start. All posture and no substance. Whether I write one page or a hundred, it amounts to the same thing. Though I knew this from the start.

Already several prophecies of ours have applied to insignificant trifles, and what rests upon dreams is apt to be vain. (The Circle of Myths: Cyrus)

It is the luxury of looking backward. You can do it forever, and it is useless.

and that looking for her would serve about as much purpose as calling for a cat.

The act of writing in real time in order to deflect, escape, or slow it down is obviously futile yet not entirely fruitless.

Es natural que un gobierno de un país en situación de posguerra trate de defenderse, pero no le servirá de nada.

Desire for something impossible does not make it less impossible.

a genius of means, barren of ends