Useless quote for 22 August:

"The smith's dog could not overturn the anvil, so it overturned the water-pot."

Sumerian proverb (Segment A 2.112, 190), 3rd~2nd millennium BCE

#UselessQuote #SumerianProverbs

Link to text:
https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/proverbs/t.6.1.02.html

Useless quote for 21 August:

"The only question is whether they [i.e., environmental problems] will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation, disease epidemics, and collapses of societies."

~ Jared Diamond, 2005

#UselessQuote #JaredDiamond

Useless quote for 20 August:

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."

~ Emerson W. Pugh, 1977

#UselessQuote #EmersonWPugh

Useless quote for 19 August:

"... The birds are restless underneath the eaves,
Down in the byre the uneasy cattle stir,
And through the fret of branches grows the dawn."

~ Vita Sackville-West, 1921

#UselessQuote #VitaSackvilleWest

(From her poem, 'Night' in "Orchard and Vineyard")

Useless quote for 18 August:

"The business of a public library is not to supply the public with the books the committee thinks good for the public, but to supply the public with the books the public wants.

… Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read."

George Bernard Shaw, 1913

#UselessQuote #GeorgeBernardShaw #GBShaw

Useless quote for 17 August:

"We are all colours that are constantly fluctuating, we change every day, we change every minute …"

~ Jadé Fadojutimi, 2020

#UselessQuote #JadeFadojutimi

Useless quote for 16 August:

"To my mind, comedy is merely tragedy which has gone wrong, and of course tragedy is merely comedy which has gone wrong."

~ Peter Ustinov, 1992

#UselessQuote #PeterUstinov

Useless quote for 15 August:

"L'imitazione del male supera sempre l'esempio; comme per il contrario, l'imitazione del bene è sempre inferiore."

(He who imitates what is evil always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good always falls short.)

~ Francesco Guicciardini, 1537~1540

#UselessQuote #FrancescoGuicciardini

Guicciardini was a major political writer of the Italian Renaissance, and friends with Niccolò Machiavelli.

Useless quote for 14 August:

"Nostalgia makes good Stalinists of us all, as that which … is inconvenient or unpopular to remember becomes progressively less real, fading to a grey rendered ever more muzzy by the bold tones and snappy graphics of the authorised version."

Charles Shaar Murray, 2012

#UselessQuote #CharlesShaarMurray

Useless quote for 12 August:

"And Gyle dooth hym to go,
A-gast for to dye;
Ac marchauntz metten with hym
And made hym abide,
And bi-shetten hym in hire shoppes
To shewen hire ware,
Apparailed hym as apprentice
The peple to serve."

~ William Langland (from "Piers Plowman", Passus II), c. 1377

#UselessQuote #PiersPlowman #WilliamLangland

(Modern translation in the attached image.)

Useless quote for 11 August:

"Corporations … benefit from the public goods — security, legal systems, infrastructure, educated workforces and sociopolitical stability — provided by the world’s most powerful liberal democracies.

Yet they are also in a perfect position to exploit tax loopholes …"

~ Martin Wolf, 2019

Link to FT article, "Martin Wolf: why rigged capitalism is damaging liberal democracy":
https://www.ft.com/content/5a8ab27e-d470-11e9-8367-807ebd53ab77

#UselessQuote #MartinWolf

Useless quote for 10 August (in memory of 9 August):

"I was perched atop a giant persimmon tree in our backyard catching cicadas.

Suddenly, the sun exploded."

~ Minoru Moriuchi, who was a child 4.8 km from the hypocenter on 9 August 1945

Link to the 1945 Project by Haruka Sakaguchi:
https://www.1945project.com/gallery/

Note:
The 1945 Project includes harrowing memories from people who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

#UselessQuote #MinoruMoriuchi #1945Project

Useless quote for 9 August:

"[M]ost people are afraid to admit that they don't know the answer to some question, and as a consequence they refrain from mentioning the question, even if it is a very natural one."

~ Jean-Paul Sierre, 1985

#UselessQuote #JeanPaulSierre

Link to source:
https://sms.math.nus.edu.sg/index.php/volume-13-1985/

Useless quote for 8 August:

"They [grassroots historians] know that what people wanted and needed was not always what their betters, or those who were cleverer and more influential, thought they ought to have."

~ Eric Hobswarm, 1997

#UselessQuote #EricHobswarm

Useless quote for 6 August:

"Much wants more and loses all."

~ Aesop, c. 620–564 BCE (Translated by V. S. Vernon Jones, 1912)

#UselessQuote #Aesop

Useless quote for 5 August:

"Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.

Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily."

~ Robert A. Heinlein, 1973

#UselessQuote #RobertAHeinlein

Useless quote for 4 August:

"The world of the future will be an ever more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves."

~ Norbert Wiener, 1964

#UselessQuote #NorbertWiener

Useless quote for 3 August:

"What is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other. This is where intelligence lies.

The fact of being quick or slow isn't really relevant.

Naturally, it's helpful to be quick, like it is to have a good memory. But it's neither necessary nor sufficient for intellectual success."

~ Laurent Schwartz, 1997 (in French; 2001 English translation)

#UselessQuote #LaurentSchwartz

Useless quote for 2 August:

"Stupefied, we have rejected our own biological imperative, which defends life for life's sake as a superior cause, and we have replaced it by functional consumerism and accumulation."

~ José Mujica, 2013

#UselessQuote #JoseMujica

Useless quote for 1 August:

"… I often say that being courageous or being brave is just the deep breath you take before you start something difficult."

~ Moana Jackson, 2022 (b. 1945, d. 2022)

#UselessQuote #MoanaJackson

[Note that I call these "useless quotes" because they are useless until we think about them and act.]