frivolous QUOTES

1 " I had no illusions about you,' he said. 'I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew. I knew that you'd only married me for convenience. I loved you so much, I didn't care. Most people, as far as I can see, when they're in love with someone and the love isn't returned feel that they have a grievance. They grow angry and bitter. I wasn't like that. I never expected you to love me, I didn't see any reason that you should. I never thought myself very lovable. I was thankful to be allowed to love you and I was enraptured when now and then I thought you were pleased with me or when I noticed in your eyes a gleam of good-humored affection. I tried not to bore you with my love; I knew I couldn't afford to do that and I was always on the lookout for the first sign that you were impatient with my affection. What most husbands expect as a right I was prepared to receive as a favor. "

― W. Somerset Maugham , The Painted Veil

2 " There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and
shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what you
know ain't so'. "

― Mark Twain , Pudd'nhead Wilson

3 " While she could hardly fathom what had just happened to her that night, she reached some conclusions before she fell asleep, certain things now made perfect sense; Moon River didn’t sound so syrupy, mistletoe wasn’t such a bad idea, and perhaps dating was not such a frivolous waste of time after all. "

― E.A. Bucchianeri , Brushstrokes of a Gadfly, (Gadfly Saga, #1)

4 " ... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now -- I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

5 " You’re a gambling man, right? Or do you only bet on frivolous things like poker and fucking women? "

― Amy Andrews , Playing the Player (Sydney Smoke Rugby, #3)

6 " I have no interest in anything so frivolous as the bona fide religion or mankind's pathetic debate over whose version of the church is correct. Circular arguments over the semantics of faith hold no interest for me. Those are questions answered only through death! "

7 " When you rearrange, make it meaningful and significant. Don’t rearrange just for the sake of rearranging. It would be as “pointless as rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.” In other words, why waste your time on frivolous activities which could be easily undone or do nothing to contribute to the solution of your problem? "

― Susan C. Young

8 " McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose, as a matter of policy and a perfect expression of everything he stands for.

Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President? "

― Hunter S. Thompson , Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

9 " Above all the studies in the world, study your own hearts; waste not a minute more of your precious time about frivolous & unsubstantial controversies. My dear flock, I have, according to the grace given me, labored in the course of my ministry among you, to feed you with the heart strengthening bread of practical doctrine, and I do assure you, it is far better you should have the sweet and saving impressions of gospel truths, feelingly and powerfully conveyed to your hearts, than only to understand them by a bare ratiocination, or a dry syllogistical inference. Leave trifling studies to such as have time lying on their hands and know not how to employ it. Remember you are at the door of eternity, and have other work to do. Those hours you spend upon heart-work in your closets, are the golden spots of all your time and will have the sweetest influence up to your last hour. "

― John Flavel

10 " Better far
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means,
Than a sublime art frivolously. "

― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

11 " Creating art is paradoxical because an artist seeks to express truth by penetrating and destroying illusions. Art is always the outpouring of a mind striving to achieve the impossible reconciliation of all the fragmented shards that make people human: frivolous amusements, idle moments, feelings of tenderness and pain, stored memories, future expectations, and unquenchable thirst to experience love and witness beauty. "

12 " One hour a day withdrawn from frivolous pursuits and profitably employed would enable any man of ordinary capacity to master a complete science. One hour a day would in ten years make an ignorant man a well-informed man…In an hour a day, a boy or girl could read twenty pages thoughtfully—over seven thousand pages, or eighteen large volumes in a year. An hour a day might make all the difference between bare existence and useful, happy living. An hour a day might make—nay, has made—an unknown man a famous one, a useless man a benefactor to his race. "

― Orison Swett Marden

13 " The monumental tragedies of the 20th century -- a world-wide Great Depression, two devastating World Wars, the Holocaust, famines killing millions in the Soviet Union and tens of millions in China -- should leave us with a sobering sense of the threats to any society. But this generation's ignorance of history leaves them free to be frivolous -- until the next catastrophe strikes, and catches them completely by surprise. "

― Thomas Sowell

14 " Partially undermining the manufacturer's ability to assert that its work constituted a meaningful contribution to mankind was the frivolous way in which it went about marketing its products. Grief was the only rational response to the news that an employee had spent three months devising a supermarket promotion based on an offer of free stickers of cartoon characters called the Fimbles. Why had the grown-ups so churlishly abdicated their responsibilities? Were there not more important ambitions to be met before Death showed himself on the horizon in his hooded black cloak, his scythe slung over his shoulder? "

― Alain de Botton , The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

15 " The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason. "

― G.K. Chesterton , The Superstition of Divorce

16 " In utopia, rule by masterminds is both necessary and necessarily primitive, for it excludes so much that is known to man and about man. The mastermind is driven by his own boundless conceit and delusional aspirations, which he self-identifies as a noble calling. He alone is uniquely qualified to carry out this mission. He is, in his own mind, a savior of mankind, if only man will bend to his own will. Such can be the addiction of power. It can be an irrationally egoistic and absurdly frivolous passion that engulfs even sensible people. In this, mastermind suffers from a psychosis of sorts and endeavors to substitute his own ambitions for the individual ambitions of millions of people. "

― Mark R. Levin , Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America

17 " The joy you find as a teen, however frivolous and dumb, is pure and meaningful. "

― Goldy Moldavsky , Kill the Boy Band

18 " A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys. "

― Edith Wharton

19 " Let hunger sharpen your awareness. Abstain liquor and frivolous recreation, which dull the mind and weaken the body. "

― Laura Joh Rowland , The Concubine's Tattoo (Sano Ichiro, #4)

20 " Neither parents nor schools are very effective at teaching the young to find pleasure in the right things. Adults, themselves often deluded by infatuation with fatuous models, conspire in the deception. They make serious tasks seem dull and hard, and frivolous ones exciting and easy. Schools generally fial to teach how exciting, how mesmerizingly beautiful science or mathematics can be; they teach the routine of literature or history rather than the adventure. "

― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention

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