#meaningless

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, Creating awe and fear in other men? Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd Than they in fearing. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out With titles blown from adulation? Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#burdens #ceremony #emptiness #empty-form #equality

I don't feel a lack of hope. It's just disappointment that after all these years we're still fighting meaningless wars for a handful of people. ↗

— Geezer Butler

#disappointment #feel #fighting #handful #hope

Mathematics is a game played according to certain simple rules with meaningless marks on paper. ↗

— David Hilbert

#certain #game #marks #mathematics #meaningless

If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt. ↗

— Leslie Stephen

#atheism #collection #doubt #express #few

After a certain point, money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts. ↗

— Aristotle Onassis

#after #ceases #certain #certain point #counts

Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history. ↗

— Octavio Paz

#also #contrary #deprivation #expression #feeling

Chance doesn't mean meaningless randomness, but historical contingency. This happens rather than that, and that's the way that novelty, new things, come about. ↗

— John Polkinghorne

#chance #come #contingency #happens #historical

I think there is an element of nihilism about, but I don't think most artists feel their work is meaningless. ↗

— Leonard Baskin

#artists #element #feel #i #i think

Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. ↗

— Ray Kurzweil

#death #gives #importance #lives #meaning

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. ↗

— Morrie Schwartz

#because #busy #chasing #doing #even