125 quotes about useless follow in order of popularity. Be sure to bookmark and share your favorites!

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

Oscar Wilde

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde

The only excuse for creating something useless is that one admires it intensely.

Oscar Wilde

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing, as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.

Oscar Wilde

Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.

Chuck Palahniuk

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

Benjamin Disraeli

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

Seneca

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

Charles Dickens

Culture is activity of thought, and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth.

Alfred North Whitehead

It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.

Pythagoras

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless.

Niccolo Machiavelli

You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself.

John Ruskin

So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.

Robert Louis Stevenson

No man is useless while he has a friend.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

Thomas A. Edison

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

John Adams

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

Jonathan Swift

In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.

Milton Friedman

Passion is univeral humanity. Without it religion, history, art, and romance would be useless.

Honore De Balzac

Academic Bowl is a great way to keep up with all that useless knowledge that you sometimes accidentally get in class.

Catie Eisel

Stability is useless if it means mediocrity.

Pierre Blayau

The national sport of England is obstacle-racing. People fill their rooms with useless and cumbersome furniture, and spend the rest of their lives in trying to dodge it.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Samuel Johnson

My friends have always said that I'm a stockpile of useless knowledge, so hopefully it will amount to something.

Nick Hurd

Berlin. What a garrison of spies! what a cabinet full of useless, liquid secrets, what a playground for every alchemist, miracle worker and rat piper that ever took up the cloak.

John Lecarre

I'm almost convinced that dieting is totally useless.

Cris Slentz

When one is trying to do something beyond his known powers it is useless to seek the approval of friends. Friends are at their best in moments of defeat.

Henry Miller

This bloody past suggests to us that enemies cease hostilities only when they are battered enough to acknowledge that there is no hope in victory - and thus that further resistance means only useless sacrifice.

Victor Davis Hanson

The presumption is that the Legislature does not do a useless act and that the new enactment (in 2003) changes the law.

Judge Pat Priest

Now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of the burden of your failed and useless lives. But remember, as my plastic surgeon always said: if you gotta go, go with a smile.

Jack Nicholson

There's nothing worse than not being able to participate. It's the worst. It's not boring - nothing about this job is boring - but it's not as much fun when you're standing on the sidelines. You start feeling useless.

Kent Mercker

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Bertrand Russell

Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.

George Santayana

The classes didn't change my opinion on drinking, but they did give me a chance to see where I was being irresponsible. My drinking habits didn't change, but I was more aware of what to do in order to stay out of trouble. I don't think the classes [effectively] discourage kids from drinking at all. Alcohol 101 may be useless for many people who just get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Pat Hanlon

Regret for time wasted can become a power for good in the time that remains, if we will only stop the waste and the idle, useless regretting.

Arthur Brisbane

I don't think people should worry about that stuff to tell you the truth, because they are almost always wrong. I just think it's really spurious and useless to everyone to pursue [rankings].

Matthew Bell

We were en route but we got horribly lost, ... We were on the outskirts of Budapest for about an hour. We just couldn't find our way into the centre. I wasn't navigating, it was a man so he was completely useless.

Amanda Lamb

I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.

Bill Watterson

Worry is a useless mulling over of things we cannot change.

Peace Pilgrim

There is no time for more research. Too much has already been done and there are stacks of reports already. The government has them. Universities have them. (More research) is useless.

Faisal Basri

If you know the course and are not ready, it is useless.

Rita Jeptoo

Our trade remedy laws are useless unless enforced. The Section 421 safeguard is the last line of defense for this struggling industry and we shouldn't be afraid to use it.

Phil English

It's not about everybody signing a petition against climate change that's useless, ... The effort needs to be applied town by town, building by building, so that as an example, we can see the greening of churches, synagogues and mosques, making those buildings themselves more responsible and more economical to operate.

Jonathan Rose

People might be negotiating now but five years from today, should nanotechnology go into full swing, those deals will be rendered useless.

Jim Thomas

He is my son. But if a son does not care about the dignity of his family, God can take him. You cannot make anything out of such a son. He is useless.

Abdul Manan

They proved what they can do. So my opinion is useless. If every team had lost, does that mean those teams can't play? No.

Billy Packer

It was a tough day. I played well but took 36 putts and that's useless.

Sam Torrance

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.

David M. Ogilvy

If the map shows a different structure from the territory represented - for instance, shows the cities in a wrong order. . . . then the map is worse than useless, as it misinforms and leads astray.

Alfred Korzybski

The most useless are those who never change through the years.

James M. Barrie

We shouldn't call winners or losers immediately after a debate. Those calls have been useless as a guide to what really matters. . . . What matters is what the press focuses on.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson

You need an infinite stretch of time ahead of you to start to think, infinite energy to make the smallest decision. The world is getting denser. The immense number of useless projects is bewildering. Too many things have to be put in to balance up an uncertain scale. You can't disappear anymore. You die in a state of total indecision.

Jean Baudrillard

He's our biggest repository of useless knowledge. National Icon, National Treasure, and National Dustbin.

Michael Parkinson

Love's boat has been shattered against the life of everyday. You and I are quits, and it's useless to draw up a list of mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains.

Vladimir Mayakovsky

Resistance is useless.

Doctor Who

He's operating under a definition the city gave him of what constitutes a city prisoner, and if that definition is wrong, the testimony is going to be useless.

C. Burt Newell

We don't want a memory that is going to store every bit of every experience. We would be overwhelmed with clutter of useless trivia ... We're probably better off having ... a more selective coding of info.

Daniel Schacter

At sub-65-nanometer dimensions, increased electrical noise and crosstalk will render on-chip bus structures useless. It will require a network with an error correction protocol.

John Barber

Research about possible future climate change is useless unless institutions actually use the results to guide long-range planning.

Philip Mote

In the first round when Dempsey hit me with a left hook, I tried hard to continue, but I was rapidly losing my strength. My eye closed at that end of the third round and I realized that it would be useless for me to continue, as I could hardly see. It was hard to admit defeat, but Dempsey is the hardest puncher I ever faced.

Jess Willard

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.

Lin Yutang

We don't want to risk becoming irrelevant or useless due to the way that our content is blocked or filtered currently.

Andrew Mclaughlin

This case is forward-looking enough, dealing with the Internet and other technologies, that the outcome won't be useless once it's all over.

Spencer Waller

High School is like a spork: it's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end it's just plain useless.

John Mayer

You realize there are certain things that you'll never do that you always thought would be part of your future, ... It's a big relief to discover what you are best-suited for, and it's a real advantage to be able then to focus. You can just jettison all this useless floundering around, attempting to do stuff that's really not in your range, and focus.

Richard Hell

To stay away from a useless election, an election that does not even remotely attend to the national crisis.

William Bango

When the tunnel went through, it was like poking a hole in the bathtub, ... Half of (the tribe's) land was rendered useless. You can't use it for anything.

Karl Johnson

Worry not about the possible troubles of the future; for if they come, you are but anticipating and adding to their weight; and if they do not come, your worry is useless; and in either case it is weak and in vain, and a distrust of God's providence.

Hugh Blair

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

Charles de Gaulle

We still believe that the law violates the United States Constitution. We feel very strongly that it's extremely unfair and useless to evict Mr. Slack. He is not a danger to the students of Woodward Elementary.

Stephen Johnsongrove

Music is essentially useless, as life is.

George Santayana

They wonder much to hear that gold, which in itself is so useless a thing, should be everywhere so much esteemed, that even men for whom it was made, and by whom it has its value, should yet be thought of less value than it is.

Sir Thomas More

Only useless things are indispensable.

Francis Picabia

I'm scared out of my mind, ... The advice that everyone has given me to this point is absolutely useless. I especially liked signing the insurance form that said nobody is responsible for my death.

Tim Murphy

I was intrigued by this term 'genius,' because as far as I can see it is completely useless.

Phil Grabsky

It is useless to discuss the situation in Palestine...without the Palestinian representatives.

Mikhail Margelov

A terrified dog would be useless scientifically.

William Lane

It's fun, it thwarts capitalism, and it pays directly in useful stuff instead of having that useless intermediary, money.

Iris Peppar

TrustE icons, ... are useless. No one understands what they mean.

Jakob Nielsen

The only thing that stops God from sending another flood is that the first one was useless.

Nicholas Chamfort

(Love) is easily the most empty cliché, the most useless word, and at the same time the most powerful human emotion—because hatred is involved in it, too.

Toni Morrison

If the public and legislators come away saying, 'Oh, we can never get an answer from these scientists. It's useless to spend money testing diet' -- then a lot of damage will have been done. Nutrition is important. We've already learned a lot that offers people plenty of sound advice. But there is a lot more we can learn. We just have to approach it in a smarter way.

Meir Stampfer

I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial.

Charles Baudelaire

Invention consists in avoiding the constructing of useless contraptions and in constructing the useful combinations which are in infinite minority. To invent is to discern, to choose.

Henri Poincare

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have departed from this planet and I have left behind my poor earthly ones with their occupations which are as many as they are useless; at last I am living in the scintillating splendor of the stars, each of which used to seem to me as large as millions of suns..

Jules Massenet

People riddle their resumes with useless pieces of information. They don't tell you how the movie was made or show all the boring scenes, they give you the highlights.

Todd Bermont

I have a little bit of a temper, but it's ... a useless temper, ... It doesn't accomplish anything, generally. It's just a lot of ranting and raving and nothing, so David (Chase) probably saw that and put it into the character.

James Gandolfini

Since I am used to speaking in public, I know that it is useless.

Franklin Pierce Adams

The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.

Karl Marx

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

William Ralph Inge

This is yet another example of the government saying something about transport and the environment that the small print renders useless. How can the government trumpet its green credentials with a zero rate of tax when people can't actually buy the cars that would benefit from it?

Chris Grayling

The way it's written right now, the lawyers tell us it's essentially useless. ... Why pass a bill that doesn't do what you want it to do?

Duke Cox

But the greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. . . . The "wall of separation between church and state" is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.

William H. Rehnquist

Tell mother, tell mother, I died for my country... useless... useless.

John Wilkes Booth

We're given a deadline that's an arbitrary date to replace our machines when we didn't have any problems with our voting machines last time. They worked fine. And now, they are going to be absolutely useless.

Larry Potts

We told our European partners that their policy towards Belarus is groundless and useless.

Andrei Popov

Golf is the most useless outdoor game ever devised to waste the time and try the spirit of man.

Westbrook Pegler

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

W. R. Inge

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Celebrity is a weird appendage, which is useless unless you do something with it.

Minnie Driver

We had a fair weekend in the Useless Bay/Double Bluff area. There was a lot of traffic up there. Everyone was obviously having trouble where they had been fishing. Saturday was good. Saturday was scratch fishing.

Gary Krein

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

Pablo Picasso

If two men on a job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless.

Daryl F. Zanuck

It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

Shirley MacLaine

Obtain from yourself all that makes complaining useless. No longer implore from others what you yourself can obtain.

Andre Gide

Keeping crude oil below $70 is all very well, but in political terms it is a useless achievement if you cannot also keep gasoline below $100. There is an energy crisis, and it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Barclays Capital

When we are unable to find tranquillity within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Web-based multimodal and speech technologies are a welcome solution to the information overload we all face today, representing a fundamental change in the software capabilities of mobile devices. In fact, without them the Web would be practically useless on mobile phones. Wake Forest is a leader in delivering personalized information to students and faculty virtually no matter where they are.

Igor Jablokov

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Peter F. Drucker

Life becomes useless and insipid when we have no longer either friends or enemies.

Christina Of Sweden

Current systems are useless as they record data once every month or two months. You need to record the data every 30 seconds.

Patricio Bernal

What talks can there be otherwise? It is useless trying to resolve the problem under bombs.

Viktor Chernomyrdin

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

John Maynard Keynes

A friend who is near and dear may in time become as useless as a relative.

George Ade

If I could tell the world just one thing it would be we're all okay, and not to worry cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these. I won't be made useless, won't be idle with despair, I will gather myself around my faith, lights the darkness most fear.

Bonnie Jewell

I never ever thought that I was a giggler. I was the one who could hold it together but I didn't on this at all. I was kind of useless. Sometimes Ricky would just look at me and that was it and I would just be away.

Ashley Jensen

Like this gas tank, you are overflowing with preconceptions, full of useless knowledge. You hold many facts and opinions, yet know little of yourself. Before you can learn, you'll have to first empty your tank.

Dan Millman

It would be useless to go through all that soul searching to choose the fund that suits you only to find that the investment manager can do all that she likes with the fund.

Dennis Yaw

It was a good day – a mix of industry stuff and super-stupid useless celebrity nonsense. I mean they're all nonsense in one way or the other.

Mark Lisanti

It was very impressive architecturally, and there was this aerobics room with high ceilings and great views of the Rocky Mountains. But they couldn't use the room because nobody could hear anything in there and the space didn't work and was useless.

George Myers

It would be useless for any player to attempt to explain successful batting.

Tris Speaker

The month-on-month numbers are just totally useless unless the seasonal factor has been applied.

Dong Tao

I have also learned why people work so hard to succeed: It is because they envy the things their neighbors have. But it is useless. It is like chasing the wind...It is better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.

Ecclesiastes

I hate technology. I have no landline. I have no mobile phone (it's currently almost literally thrashing around in the throes of death). I'm nearly useless now.

Eric Cheng