#utility

Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul. ↗

— Karl Jaspers

#mean #morality #philosophy #practice #produces

Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away to be forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This is but one of several; for Time eats up the works of man. ↗

— H. Rider Haggard

#fallen-nations #futility #inevitability #knowledge #learning

The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless. ↗

— Umberto Eco

#method #order #utility #imagination

If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other people's vanity and foolishness. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#futility #shakespeare #shakespeare

People forget already how much utility they get out of the Internet - how much utility they get out of e-mail, how much utility they get out of even simple things like brochureware online. ↗

— Jeff Bezos

#e-mail #even #forget #get #how

With a painter or a sculptor, one cannot begin to alter his works, but an architect has to put up with anything, because he makes utility objects - the building is there to be used, and times change. ↗

— Arne Jacobsen

#anything #architect #because #begin #building

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise. ↗

— Peter Singer

#against #always #exercise #i #lying

The only reason of the institution of civil government; and the only rational ground of submission to it, is the common safety and utility. ↗

— Jonathan Mayhew

#civil government #common #government #ground #institution

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