Take Nothing Seriously Quotes & Sayings

There are those who see film and take it seriously as an artistic medium, and others who go to have a good time, to simply be entertained. I have to be careful , because it sounds like I am condemning, or criticizing what people are doing. I have nothing against that, in the same way that some people like rock music or to go dancing, and other people like to go to a Beethoven concert. It's just that I'm more interested in the one than the other. — Michael Haneke

When I have suggested to my colleagues that we must take seriously Eichmann's repeated testimony to the effect that he learned from Heydrich in the fall of 1941 of Hitler's order for the physical destruction of the Jews, I have met with either embarrassed silence or open skepticism. How can I be so gullible? Don't I know that Eichmann's testimony is a useless conglomeration of faulty memories on the one hand and calculated lies for legal defense and self-justification on the other? From it we can learn nothing of value about what actually happened during the war, only about Eichmann's state of mind after the war. These are documents that reveal how Eichmann wished to be remembered, not what he did.

-- Perpetrator Testimony: Another Look at Adolf Eichmann, pages 4-5 — Christopher R. Browning

Scientists are embarrassed by science fiction; they want to distance themselves as much as possible ... I think there's nothing to be ashamed of [and that] we should take science fiction seriously. — Michio Kaku

Now having Brynhildic fantasies about her was nothing
I have all sorts of extraordinary fantasies which I don't take seriously
but bringing my fantasies into the real world frightened me very much. It's not that they were bad in themselves, but they were Unreal and therefore culpable; to try to make Real what was Unreal was to mistake the very nature of things; it was a sin not against conscience (which remained genuinely indifferent during the whole affair) but against Reality, and of the two the latter is far more blasphemous. It's the crime of creating one's own Reality, of "preferring oneself" as a good friend of mine says. — Joanna Russ

When I looked back, nothing was ever as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was usually better than I could have imagined. I learned that we should take each moment both more and less seriously because everything passes. The joyful moments are just as fleeting as the terrible ones. — Noelle Hancock

The value of a philosopher's thought is not in its answers - no philosopher has any that are more helpful than saying nothing at all - but in how well they speak to the prejudgments of their consumers. Such is the importance - and the nullity - of rhetoric. Ask any hard-line pessimist, but do not expect him to expect you to take his words seriously. — Thomas Ligotti

The truth of who we are has nothing to do with religion or the type of car that we drive or the color of our skin. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. And the human experience part is very temporary. So, things like the bar, love, magic, dancing, and colors are there to remind us to not take all of this stuff so seriously. — RuPaul

I have begun with the assumption that the Orient is not an inert fact of nature. It is not merely there, just as the Occident itself is not just there either. We must take seriously Vico's great observation that men make their own history, that what they can know is what they have made, and extend it to geography: as both geographical and cultural entities - to say nothing of historical entities - such locales, regions, geographical sectors as "Orient" and "Occident" are man-made. Therefore as much as the West itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other. — Edward W. Said

To be practical in life means to take everything seriously and nothing tragically. — Arthur Schnitzler

Nothing wastes more energy than worrying. The longer one carries a problem, the heavier it becomes. Don't take life too seriously. Live a life full of serenity, not of regrets. — Douglas Pagels

Aurit argued that for the person with more power in a relationship to refuse to take seriously the unhappiness of the other, simply because nothing is forcing them to, is the ultimate dick move: "It's like if the United States in the 1950s said, 'Sorry, black people in the South, but if you don't like the way you're being treated, you can go back to Africa. — Adelle Waldman

There is probably nothing wrong with art for art's sake if we take the phrase seriously, and not take it to mean the kind of poetry written in England forty years ago. — Allen Tate

People meet in bars after work all over the world and talk about the great problems of life and death and the world and politics and they don't take themselves seriously. They can do nothing else except chat about these things in bars after work. — Whitfield Diffie

Nothing comes easy when I'm in character, because everything I do in character, I take seriously. — Vin Diesel

The simple person lives the way he breathes, with no more effort or glory, with no more affectation and without shame Simplicity is freedom, buoyancy, transparency. As simple as the air, as free as the air The simple person does not take himself too seriously or too tragicallyHe has nothing to prove, since he has no appearances to keep up, and nothing to seek, since everything is before him. What is more simple than simplicity? What is lighter? It is the virtue of wise men and the wisdom of saints. — Andre Comte-Sponville

Unless a person can give reasons, there is, literally, no reason why anyone else should take that person seriously. But without reasons, all we are left with is emotional blackmail. We sometimes call it 'moral blackmail,' but it has nothing to do with morals, only with the implied juvenile threat of having a tantrum unless everyone else gives in. — N. T. Wright

To quarrel with God is to pay God the supreme compliment: it is to take God seriously. It is to say that God matters enough to be worth some anger. To be indifferent to God is to pay God the supreme insult. It is to say that nothing of consequence is at stake. — Robert McAfee Brown

I hear very little from evangelicals about the impact of gun proliferation on violent crime, much less an issue like nuclear disarmament. I hear almost nothing about health care for the poor and protecting widows and orphans, both biblical mandates, and scant mention of the thirteen million children who die worldwide from malnutrition in a year. I hear scornful dismissal of concerns about global warming, an issue viewed seriously by the vast majority of scientists. I hear talk about family values, but when an administration proposed legislation to allow mothers to take unpaid leave after childbirth, conservative religious groups opposed it. — Philip Yancey

If you can make me laugh, my heart is yours! I think there's nothing more attractive than someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously. — Shay Mitchell

Because they are so emphatically there, and so inconvertibly interior, it is almost inevitable that we take our feelings seriously as reputable guides to the reality that is deep within us--our hearts before God. But feelings are no more spiritual than muscles. They are entirely physical. They are real, and they are important. But they are real and important in the same way that our fingernails and noses are important--we would not want to live without them (although we could if we had to), but their length and shape and colour tell us nothing about our life with God. — Eugene H. Peterson

Nothing's more charming than someone who doesn't take herself too seriously. — Melissa McCarthy

It has been reported that I was seriously ill
it was another man; dying
it was another man; dead
the other man again ... As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford and let it talk. — Mark Twain

Narcissus looked at him gravely: I take you seriously when you are Goldmund. But you're not always Goldmund. I wish nothing more than to see you become Goldmund through and through. You are not a scholar, you are not a monk - scholars and monks can have a coarser grain. You think you're not learned or logical or pious enough for me. On the contrary, you are not enough yourself. — Hermann Hesse

I don't want to have to be like a Scarlett Johansson - who I have nothing against - but I don't want to have to go on talk shows and pull out every SAT word I've ever learned to prove, like, 'Take me seriously, I am intelligent, I can speak.' — Megan Fox

I was living in a large apartment with no furniture, just a typewriter, and because I had nothing else to do with my time, it made me take my writing seriously. — Simon Van Booy

Sentimental Humanitarianism: A Dangerous Temptation Gregg argues that sentimental humanitarianism: Reduces most debates to exchanges of feelings. Common responses to disagreements are "you can't say that" or "that's hurtful" or "that offends me." But in quoting British novelist Ian McEwan, Gregg says there is nothing virtuous about being offended. Is naive of human nature. It assumes everyone is of good will. Rather, Gregg says we have to acknowledge that there are some groups of people in which rational conversation is not possible. Doesn't take free choice seriously. It claims all evil emanates from bad education and unjust structures, but this is hardly the full story. Evil is a free choice of each individual, and Gregg says it's not something that can be explained away by the fact that someone is wealthier than — Anonymous

The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously. — Rajneesh

In politics it is necessary to take nothing tragically and everything seriously. — Louis Adolphe Thiers

There is nothing in life to take seriously except the joy of life. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I am a historian. With the exception of being a wife and mother, it is who I am. And there is nothing I take more seriously. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Well, there's another set forward, you see. Up to now you couldn't stand all this dance and jazz music. It was too superficial and frivolous for you. Now you have seen that there's no need to take it seriously and that it can all the same be very agreeable and delightful. And by the way, the whole orchestra would be nothing without Pablo. He conducts it and puts fire into it. — Hermann Hesse

Do not take life's experiences too seriously. For in reality they are nothing but dream experiences. Play your part in life, but never forget that it is only a role. — Paramahansa Yogananda

If you take being a father seriously, you'll know that you're not big enough for the job, not by yourself ... Being a father will put you on your knees if nothing else ever did. — Elisabeth Elliot

When we built Roomba, we explicitly designed it to not have a face. We didn't want to think it was cute; we wanted people to take it seriously, so we gave it more of an industrial look. People personified their Roomba anyway. Over 80 percent of people name their robot. We did nothing to encourage people to do that, but they do it anyway. — Colin Angle

There are many people who know nothing of a world in which we take the reality of the 'other' seriously. I'm running on that platform: other people in other countries are really, really real, and there has to be a way of presenting their reality that is not condescending to them or about our psycho-social needs. — Teju Cole

Some people, I think, think that because I don't take it as seriously as a lot of the girls do, that I frown upon modeling or think it's stupid. I don't at all. This is my life. I would be nothing without this. But I really don't take it seriously. — Chrissy Teigen

The psychological need to believe that others take you as seriously as you take yourself. There is nothing particularly wrong with it, as psychological needs go, but yet of course we should always remember that a deep need for anything from other people makes us easy pickings. — David Foster Wallace

If we are saved by grace alone, this salvation is a constant source of amazed delight. Nothing is mundane or matter-of-fact about our lives. It is a miracle we are Christians, and the gospel, which creates bold humility, should give us a far deeper sense of humour and joy. We don't take ourselves seriously, and we are full of hope for the world. — Timothy Keller

I've had a pretty charmed life, so there's nothing that I need to take too seriously right now. — Larisa Oleynik

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with. — John Irving

Acting for screen is very different from acting on stage, and then obviously when you dance ... everything is a physical embodiment. But the discipline is the same approach. You have to take both things seriously; nothing well-crafted is by mistake. — Amanda Schull

Economy is not one of the necessary principles of the universe; it is one of the jokes which God indulges in precisely because he can afford it. If a man takes it seriously, however, he is doomed forever to a middle-income appreciation of the world. Indeed, only the very poor and the very rich are safe from its idolatry. The poor, because while they must take it seriously, they cannot possibly believe in it as a good, and the rich, because, though they may see it as a good, they cannot possibly take it seriously. For the one it is a bad joke, for the other a good one; but for both it is only part of the divine ludicrousness of creation - of the sensus lusus which lies at the heart of the matter. And that is why all men should hasten to become very poor or very rich - or both at once, like St. Paul, who had nothing and yet possessed all things. The world was made in sport, for sports; economy is worth only a smile. There are more serious things to laugh at. — Robert Farrar Capon

There's many things in this world that will depress you, and make you good for nothing, if you take them seriously, and that cheer you up if you don't. — E.F. Benson

The failure to take seriously what the Nazis themselves said is comprehensible enough. There is hardly an aspect of contemporary history more irritating and mystifying than the fact that of all the great unsolved political questions of our century, it should have been this seemingly small and unimportant Jewish problem that had the dubious honor of setting the whole infernal machine in motion. Such discrepancies between cause and effect outrage our common sense, to say nothing of the historian's sense of balance and harmony. Compared with the events themselves, all explanations of antisemitism look as if they had been hastily and hazardously contrived, to cover up an issue which so gravely threatens our sense of proportion and our hope for sanity. — Hannah Arendt

Oh yes," said Randolph stretching his legs , lighting a mentholated cigarette, "do not take it seriously, what you see here: it's only a joke played on myself by myself ... it amuses and horrifies ... a rather gaudy grave, you might say. There is no daytime in this room, or night, the seasons are changeless here, and the years, and when I die, if indeed I haven't already, then let me be dead drunk and curled, as in my mother's womb, in the warm blood of darkness. Wouldn't that be an ironic finale for one who, deep in his goddamned soul, sought sweetly the clean-limbed life? bread and water, a simple roof to share with some beloved, nothing more. — Truman Capote

Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game 'or else people won't take it seriously'. Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world. — C.S. Lewis

What inspires me is anxiety and the quest to try to change things in my life ... I got addicted to endings and beginnings and to the idea of always moving around ... Obviously, whenever you're going through something that's the best time to create, if you're going through something amazing, or horrible, or nothing at all you should be creating. Unfortunately the songwriters of today generally torture themselves to make sure they're writing good songs and take it a little too seriously. — Kevin Drew

Kandinski looked up. 'Do you read science fiction?' he asked matter-of-factly.
'Not as a rule,' Ward admitted. When Kandinski said nothing he went on: 'Perhaps I'm too skeptical, but I can't take it too seriously.'
Kandinski pulled at a blister on his palm. 'No one suggests you should. What you mean is that you take it too seriously.'
Accepting the rebuke with a smile at himself, Ward pulled out one of the magazines and sat down at a table next to Kandinski. On the cover was a placid suburban setting of snugly eaved houses, yew trees, and children's bicycles. Spreading slowly across the roof-tops was an enormous pulpy nightmare, blocking out the sun behind it and throwing a weird phosphorescent glow over the roofs and lawns. 'You're probably right,' Ward said, showing the cover to Kandinski. 'I'd hate to want to take that seriously.'
("The Venus Hunters") — J.G. Ballard

Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say Phooey, too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed. — Quentin Crisp

Journalism is not like fiction and will never be. In fiction, you can feed people with lies, yet at the end of the reading, people still live the same life - go to work, eat, come back home, and sleep - nothing really changes aside from, at the very least, their perception of the world. But, things are different in journalism. You tell people a barefaced life, they will believe it, and something is going to happen. People will promptly respond to what they believe is true because it relates to their life, and we take life seriously, don't we? — Aishah Madadiy

To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don't take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don't take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it. — Osho

Nothing is harder than working with an actor who doesn't take it seriously or show up in the same way that you are. — Jesse Eisenberg