#utility

The wise hero must realise how terrible it will be, when all the wealth of this world lies waste, as now in various places throughout this middle-earth walls stand, blown by the wind covered with frost, the buildings storm-swept. The halls decay, their lords lie deprived of joy, the whole hearth-troop has fallen, proud by the wall. from THE WANDERER, lines 73-80 ↗

— Anonymous

#beautiful-writing #destruction #futility #haunting #middle-earth

Indeed if fish had fish-lore and Wise-fish, it is probable that the business of anglers would be very little hindered. ↗

— J.R.R. Tolkien

#futility #wisdom #business

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

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

#art #uselessness #utility #art

Even at that time the hope of leaving behind messages in bottles on the flood of barbarism bursting on Europe was an amiable illusion: the desperate letters stuck in the mud of the spirit of rejuvenesence and were worked up by a band of Noble Human-Beings and other riff-raff into highly artistic but inexpensive wall-adornments. Only since then has progress in communications really got into its stride. Who, in the end, is to take it amiss if even the freest of free spirits no longer write for an imaginary posterity, more trusting, if possible, than even their contemporaries, but only for the dead God? ↗

— Theodor W. Adorno

#futility #god #writing #communication

It is not a single cowardice that drives us into fiction's fantasies. We often fear that literature is a game we can't afford to play — the product of idleness and immoral ease. In the grip of that feeling it isn't life we pursue, but the point and purpose of life — its facility, its use. ↗

— William H. Gass

#indolence #luxury #purpose #utility #life

...why will men fight and suffer to advance the interests of their masters, who fling them aside when they have no further use for them? ↗

— Arthur Findlay

#men

Why spend ten dollars to buy one item that does two things, when for five dollars a piece I can sell you two items that each does one thing?
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#deals #efficiency #function #funny #humor

The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat. ↗

— Confucius

#knowledge #religion #religion

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

— Haruki Murakami

#war #end