#utility

Utility is when you have one telephone, luxury is when you have two, opulence is when you have three - and paradise is when you have none. ↗

— Doug Larson

#none #opulence #paradise #telephone #three

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

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor? ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#electricity #energy #exhaustion #futility #sherlock-holmes

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

Without the hope of posterity, for our race if not for ourselves, without the assurance that we being dead yet live, all pleasures of the mind and senses sometimes seem to me no more than pathetic and crumbling defences shored up against our ruin. ↗

— P.D. James

#pessimism #posterity #the-future #men

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it without a sense of ironic futility. ↗

— Errol Morris

#condemned #futility #ironic #past #remember

(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute ↗

— Bruce Sterling

#freedom #futility #mankind #freedom

Ah! how little knowledge does a man acquire in his life. He gathers it up like water, but like water it runs between his fingers, and yet, if his hands be but wet as though with dew, behold a generation of fools call out, 'See, he is a wise man!' Is it not so? ↗

— H. Rider Haggard

#foolishness #futility #humanity #intelligence #knowledge

Na początku Bóg stworzył Ziemię i oglądał ją z wyżyn swojej kosmicznej samotności. I rzekł Pan: Ulepmy z gliny żywe stworzenia, aby glina mogła zobaczyć, co uczyniliśmy. I ulepił Bóg wszelkie zwierzęta, jakie żyją na Ziemi, a pośród nich i człowieka. Jedynie glina w postaci człowieka potrafiła mówić. Bóg pochylił się nisko, kiedy glina w postaci człowieka powstała, rozejrzała się dokoła i przemówiła. Człowiek zamrugał i grzecznie spytał: Jaki jest sens tego wszystkiego? - Czy wszystko musi mieć jakiś sens? - spytał Bóg. - Oczywiście - odpowiedział człowiek. - W takim razie pozostawiam tobie znalezienie sensu tego wszystkiego - powiedział Bóg. I odszedł. ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#niche

All I ever promised was that I was sure I could develop a new pharmacological agent which might answer a physiological question. Any utility would be implicit in that answer. ↗

— James W. Black

#answer #any #could #develop #ever