To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowl...
Why do they [Americans] quarrel, why do they hate Negroes, Indians, even Germans, why do they not have science and poetry commensurate with themselves, why are there so many frauds and so much nonsense? I cannot soon give a solution to these question...
Even though there is clearly a strong cultural no-no machine telling you not to summon them on what is functionally penalty of death, the same voice also tells you precisely how to do it, and why you would. That’s more or less my experience of cult...
Cat: You probably think this world is a dream come true. But you're wrong. The other Wybie told me so. Coraline Jones: That's nonsense. He can't talk. Cat: Perhaps not to you. We cats, however, have far superior senses than humans, and can see and sm...
Lestat: Mon dieu, what melancholy nonsense. I swear you grow more like Louis each day. Soon you'll be eating rats! Claudia: Rats? When did you eat rats, Louis? Louis: It was a long, long time ago. Before you were born, and I don't recommend them.
Daniel Molloy: What about crucifixes? Louis: Crucifixes? Daniel Molloy: Yes, can you look at them? Louis: Actually I am quite fond of looking at crucifixes. Daniel Molloy: What about the old stake through the heart? Louis: Nonsense Daniel Molloy: Cof...
Elizabeth Bennet: He's been a fool about so many things, about Jane, and others... but then, so have I. You see, he and I are so similar. [starts laughing helplessly] Elizabeth Bennet: We've been nonsensical! Papa, I... Mr. Bennet: [also starts laugh...
Luke Skywalker: You don't believe in the Force, do you? Han Solo: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force c...
You make the choice concerning who you associate with on a daily basis. Whenever there are people around you who continually gossip or nag, you have the option to entertain that nonsense or leave it alone. The choice is yours. Most of the time people...
I don't believe in school prayer. I think it's total nonsense...who is the teacher there that is going to have them pray? And is the teacher going to be Catholic or Mormon or Episcopalian or what? It just causes all sorts of problems. And what are th...
Poetic justice, with her lifted scale, Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs, And solid pudding against empty praise. Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep, Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep, Till genial Jacob, or a warm...
... I, as an anarch, renouncing any bond, any limitation of freedom, also reject compulsory education as nonsense. It was one of the greatest well-springs of misfortune in the world. Compulsory schooling is essentially a means of curtailing natural s...
As for the new world war that's waiting in the womb of time, a healthily developed foetus, who can say what will spark it, how destructive it will be? We've already played at this war in film and fiction, indicating that there's a part of us that des...
If God existed (a question concerning which Jubal maintained a meticulous intellectual neutrality) and if He desired to be worshiped (a proposition which Jubal found inherently improbable but conceivably possible in the dim light of his own ignorance...
Not only is democracy mystical nonsense, it is also immoral. If one man has no right to impose his wishes on another, then ten million men have no right to impose their wishes on the one, since the initiation of force is wrong (and the assent of even...
Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set on its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering w...
To construct mechanically the brain of a somniferous tale, it is not enough to dissect nonsense & mightily stupefy the reader's intelligence with renowned doses, so as to paralyze his faculties for the rest of his life by the infallible law of fatigu...
Nonsense Bella, it was all a misunderstanding. We just need to talk about it.” Her stunned amazement quickly gave way to anger. “I don’t think I misunderstood that twenty- something coed riding you like a pony!” She nearly shouted. “Bella, ...
I certainly should have,' he agrees, smiling and thinking what an absurd and universally-accepted bit of nonsense it is, that your best friends must necessarily be the ones who best understand you. As if there weren't far too much understanding in th...
There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven...
The message sent by this policy is that if women are to be accepted into the exclusive ranks of men, then they have to look like men: buttoned up, stuffy, and no-nonsense. As if to show a little cleavage, to highlight a curvaceous figure, or to in an...