Superfluous Quotes

A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.
Ingrid Bergman

Nature, Words, Become

The superfluous, a very necessary thing.
Voltaire

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous.
Leonardo da Vinci

Nature, Beautiful, Simple

It is the superfluous things for which men sweat, - superfluous things that wear our togas theadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Nature, Easy, Within

If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
Will Durant

Sure, Needs, Thinks

When a thing is said to be not worth refuting you may be sure that either it is flagrantly stupid - in which case all comment is superfluous - or it is something formidable, the very crux of the problem.
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Stupid, May, Problem

Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.
George Gurdjieff

Laughter, Negative, Energy

It's a good thing I was born in this century, when superfluous television seems to be part of the economy.
Conan O'Brien

Good, Born, Seems

The question I asked Georges has now become a general one - You, who thought you were superfluous, who thought there was no place for you in society, not only are you not superfluous, you are needed and so those who were beggars become givers.
Abbe Pierre

Society, Thought, Become

But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.
Edward Gibbon

Power, Happy, Almost

Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
J. G. Ballard

Reality, Almost, Writer

Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
Elias Canetti

Boring, Pessimists

Be convinced that, if man were able to reach the end without preparatory studies, such studies would not be preparatory but tiresome and utterly superfluous.
Maimonides

End, Able, Reach

It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
Johannes Brahms

Hard, Leave, Table

Modeling is a lonely business... You don't speak. You don't really portray anything but an image... the business is so superfluous about dealing with the outside, it messes with your mind.
Kim Alexis

Business, Lonely, Mind

Thinking has become a superfluous exercise... purely internal, without compelling force, more or less a game.
Jacques Ellul

Game, Thinking, Become

Also a great part of Polish industry proved to have existed only to support the Soviet military industry, and it became superfluous and incapable of being transformed into anything else. We did not foresee that or the magnitude of these phenomena.
Andrzej Wajda

Great, Else, Support

A lot of people think theatre must be much harder work than film, but anything histrionic or superfluous gets seen on camera so you have to work to distil it into a complete sense of what's true.
Eddie Redmayne

Work, True, Sense

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.
Hans Kung

Human, Rights, United

One can measure the importance of a scientific work by the number of earlier publications rendered superfluous by it.
David Hilbert

Work, Scientific, Number

I don't live in Los Angeles and I don't do a lot of superfluous press.
Mary-Louise Parker

Live, Press, Angeles

Some pacifists have carried the sound idea of the prime importance of security too far, to the point of declaring that any consideration of disarmament is superfluous and pointless as long as eternal peace has not been attained.
Ludwig Quidde

Peace, Long, Far

Let us assume that the ideal were reached; let us imagine a state of international life in which the danger of war no longer exists. Then no one would dare to demand a penny for obviously completely superfluous armaments.
Ludwig Quidde

Life, War, State

For any writer, the ability to look at a sentence and see what's superfluous, what can be altered, revised, expanded, and, especially, cut, is essential. It's satisfying to see that sentence shrink, snap into place, and ultimately emerge in a more polished form: clear, economical, sharp.
Francine Prose

Place, Writer, Ability

The primary, the fundamental, the essential purpose of the United Nations is to keep peace. Everything it does which helps prevent World War III is good. Everything which does not further that goal, either directly or indirectly, is at best superfluous.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

Peace, Good, Best

The problem is the following, black music is increasing encumbered by white elements, often pleasant but always superfluous, easily and advantageously replaced with black elements.
Boris Vian

Music, Black, Problem

Share with your Friends

Everyone likes a good quote - don't forget to share.

Related Definition

Superfluous Definition

Arthur Balfour

Popular Topics

Friendship Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

Get Social with BrainyQuote

BrainyQuote Desktop

BrainyQuote Mobile

Site

Quote of the Day

Social

BQ on Pinterest

Syndication

Funny Quote Feed

Love Quote Feed

Nature Quote Feed

About Us