Nonentities Quotes & Sayings

Nine out of ten Americans are actually monarchists at bottom. The fact is proved by their high suseptibility to political claims by president's sons and other relatives, usually nonentities. — H.L. Mencken

Every author believes, when his first book is published, that those that acclaim it are his personal friends or impersonal peers, while its revilers can only be envious rogues and nonentities. — Vladimir Nabokov

I can't think of one great human being in the arts, or in history generally, who conformed, who succeeded, as educational experts tell us children must succeed, with his peer group ... If a child in their classrooms does not succeed with his peer group, then it would seem to many that both child and teacher have failed. Have they? If we ever, God forbid, manage to make each child succeed with his peer group, we will produce a race of bland and faceless nonentities, and all poetry and mystery will vanish from the face of the earth. — Madeleine L'Engle

Vice is punished, but virtue is not rewarded — George Orwell

With her back turned, she loosened each plait until her hair hung in waves that curled around her waist. Then she spun to face him and puffed a sigh.
"Fine. You caught me. I guess there's no use pretending anymore."
Doran settled in and waited for the punch line.
"I lured you onto this ship," she said, "because I couldn't get enough of your scintillating personality."
There it was.
"Kiss me, Doran," she cried, flopping onto the mattress with one arm slung over her eyes and the other clutched to her breast. "I burn for you, hotter than a thousand hells."
He cocked his head to the side. "I think there's an ointment for that. — Melissa Landers

Some of those who had been among the most industrious, the kindest, and the most stalwart citizens of Village now went to the platform and shouted their wish that the border be closed so that 'we' (Matty shuddered at the use of 'we') would not have to share the resources anymore.
'We need all the fish for ourselves.
Our school is not big enough to teach their children, too; only our own.
They can't even speak right.
We can't understand them.
They have too many needs.
We don't want to tale care of them.'
And finally: 'We've done it long enough. — Lois Lowry

And if persuasive discourse deceived her soul, it is not on that account difficult to defend her and absolve her of responsibility, thus: discourse is a great potentate, which by the smallest and most secret body accomplishes the most divine works; for it can stop fear and assuage pain and produce joy and make mercy abound. — Gorgias

For me, I skate as masculine as I can. I'm not a big strong guy. I'm not interested in fighting or throwing punches or balling my hands in fists all day. I'm not interested in guns, I'm not interested in football or stereotypically masculine things, so I'm going to skate in a fashion that is manly for Johnny Weir. — Johnny Weir

In training, there is no winning or losing. There is only learning. — Tucker Max

An artist is the magician put among men to gratify
capriciously
their urge for immortality. The temples are built and brought down around him, continuously and contiguously, from Troy to the fields of Flanders. If there is any meaning in any of it, it is in what survives as art, yes even in the celebration of tyrants, yes even in the celebration of nonentities. What now of the Trojan War if it had been passed over by the artist's touch? Dust. A forgotten expedition prompted by Greek merchants looking for new markets. A minor redistribution of broken pots. But it is we who stand enriched, by a tale of heroes, of a golden apple, a wooden horse, a face that launched a thousand ships
and above all, of Ulysses, the wanderer, the most human, the most complete of all heroes
husband, father, son, lover, farmer, soldier, pacifist, politician, inventor and adventurer ... — Tom Stoppard

If we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, the very counterpart of their dead originals, with which hawks, and mice, and spiders are so well acquainted, does it not merit praise instead of penalty [Christians were punished for not worshiping Roman gods] that we have rejected what we have come to see is error? We cannot surely be made out to injure those whom we are certain are nonentities. What does not exist is in its nonexistence secure from suffering. — Tertullian

When men and women who God has created to make a difference in the world, abandon the mandate for their lives and instead, begin to pursue all nonentities of life, God cannot but be frustrated — Sunday Adelaja

I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men. — Sue Monk Kidd

We can accomplish great things by God's grace. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I'm the oldest pretty face around. — Lauren Hutton

The King of Glory does not reward His servants according to the dignity of their office, but according to the humility and love with which they have exercised it. — Francis De Sales

You're afraid of criticism,' she says. 'But criticism is a sign of life! You know who doesn't get criticized? Nonentities! Only the dead escape criticism. — Erica Jong

That day must come when men will understand that freedom and daily bread enough to satisfy all are unthinkable and can never be had together, as men will never be able to fairly divide the two among themselves. And they will also learn that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities born wicked and rebellious. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It's like passing around samples of sputum. — Vladimir Nabokov

Gradually, after being the target a few times of a similar capriciousness, which he discerned as default behavior for most people, and not liking it, Paul learned to not be more generous or enthusiastic or attentive that he could sustain regardless of his mood and to not talk to people if his only reason to was because he felt lonely or bored. — Tao Lin

A government at bottom is nothing more than a group of men, and as a practical matter most of them are inferior men ... Yet these nonentities, by the intellectual laziness of men in general ... are generally obeyed as a matter of duty (and) assumed to have a kind of wisdom that is superior to ordinary wisdom. — H.L. Mencken

In a market economy, a main determinant of social standing is participation in the labor market and the associated willingness to 'self-commodify' (e.g., Esping-Andersen 1999), the latter term nicely emphasizing how market economies render all forms of worth, even self-worth, a function of market valuation. When individuals fail to self-commodify, they fall outside the most fundamental institutions of the society, thereby reducing them to nonentities and social ciphers. This is why a mere transfer of income to the underclass... is inconsequential in relieving feelings of social exclusion. If anything, such a transfer only draws attention to the initial failure to self-commodify. although a class map also embodies distinctions of social standing among those who have an enduring commitment to the labor market, the social divide between the underclass and all other classes looms especially large because it captures this fundamental insider-outsider distinction. — Ravi Kanbur

Total self acceptance is empowering. It means allowing others to see you as they choose, without being offended. — Deepak Chopra

Everything drifts. Everything is slowly swirling, philosophies tangled with the grocery lists, unreal-real anxieties like rose thorns waiting to tear the uncertain flesh, nonentities of thoughts floating like plankton, green and orange particles, seaweed
lots of that, dark purple and waving, sharks with fins like cutlasses, herself held underwater by her hair, snared around auburn-rusted anchor chains. — Margaret Laurence

Daniel!" Luce said. "He looks - "
"Different and also precisely the same?" Bill asked.
"Yes."
"That's his soul you recognize. Regardless of how you two may look on the outside, you'll always
know each other's souls."
It hadn't occurred to Luce until now how remarkable it was that she recognized Daniel in every life.
Her soul found his. "That's ... beautiful. — Lauren Kate

The most celebrated pocket borough was Dunwich, a coastal town in Suffolk that had once been a great port - the third biggest in England - but was washed into the sea during a storm in 1286. Despite its conspicuous nonexistence, it was represented in Parliament until 1832 by a succession of privileged nonentities. — Bill Bryson

Many accepted authors simply do not exist for me. Their names are engraved on empty graves, their books are dummies, they are complete nonentities insofar as my taste in reading is concerned. Brecht, Faulkner, Camus, many others, mean absolutely nothing to me, and I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I see blandly accepted as "great literature" by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterley's copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Pound, that total fake. I note he has replaced Dr. Schweitzer in some homes. — Vladimir Nabokov

His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.
If you choose to say, 'God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,' you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prifex to them the two other words, 'God can.'
It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God. — C.S. Lewis

Why do I write today? The beauty of the terrible faces of our nonentities stirs me to it: colored women day workers- old and experienced- returning home at dusk, in cast off clothing faces like old Florentine oak. — William Carlos Williams

This is critical to the region. Every other major city has public transportation going downtown. We have a world-class airport now, and this could be an important additional piece to the airport development. This is a significant investment and one that should be seen as a significant long-term commitment to making this a reality. — Debbie Stabenow

Every night I go over what I did in the day, in ethical or moral terms. Have I treated people properly? Did I tell the truth? — Jeanne Moreau

Noughts... Even the word was negative. Nothing. Nil. Zero. Nonentities. It wasn't a name we'd chosen for ourselves. It was a name we'd been given. — Malorie Blackman

Olivia, you can have any man you want. Why him ? Why is it always about Caleb ?" "Because ... because I didn't need anyone until I met him. — Tarryn Fisher