#utility

I live an immoral life. It is immoral because it is deadly futile. ↗

— Mary MacLane

#life

When I was a fairly precocious young man I became thoroughly impressed with the futility of the hopes and strivings that chase most men restlessly through life. Moreover, I soon discovered the cruelty of that chase, which in those years was much more carefully covered up by hypocrisy and glittering words than is the case today. By the mere existence of his stomach everyone was condemned to participate in that chase. The stomach might well be satisfied by such participation, but not man insofar as he is a thinking and feeling being. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#life

Man makes plans . . . and God laughs. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#futility #humor

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin. ↗

— P.D. James

#pessimism #posterity #the-future #men

Where utility ends and decoration begins is perfection. ↗

— Jack Gardner

#decoration #perfection #utility #art

Finally, gentleman, from the considerations above mentioned, as I cannot consistently with my own honor, nor with utility to my country, considering the manner in which Business is transacted here, remain any longer in this chair, I now resign it. ↗

— Henry Laurens

#any #business #cannot #chair #considerations

I turned away from him and went on my way, up the street and about my business. The past was dead. The future was resignation, fatality, and could only end one way now. The present was numbness, that could feel nothing. Like Novocaine needled into your heart. What was there in all the dimensions of time for me? ("Life Is Weird Sometimes" first chapter of unpublished novel THE LOSER) ↗

— Cornell Woolrich

#life #numb #numbness #past-future #resignation

(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#freedom #futility #mankind #freedom

Listen up - there's no war that will end all wars. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#war #end

Love consists in giving without getting in return; in giving what is not owed, what is not due the other. That's why true love is never based, as associations for utility or pleasure are, on a fair exchange. ↗

— Mortimer Adler

#based #consists #due #exchange #fair