The most useful thing about art is it's uselessness.
History deals mainly with captains and kings, gods and prophets, exploiters and despoilers, not with useful men.
Not bad in short, though the last one [understanding the language of animals], isn't half as useful as you might expect, since when all's said and done the language of the beasts tends to revolve around: a) the endless hunt for food, b) finding a warm bush to sleep in the evening, and c) the sporadic satisfication of certain glands. (Many would argue that the language of human kind boils down to this too)
I thought being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was. . . it wasn't until I failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.
Agreeable advice is seldom useful advice.
Don't eat me. I am an inchworm. I am useful. I measure things.
Literature has nothing to do with usefulness; the most useful place in any house is the toilet.
There comes a point when you've exhausted your opportunities playing good guys. I've been around long enough, I think I'm entitled to explore a bit. But what I saw there was an opportunity to play a character different from what the audience's expectation was. A chance to take their crude experience of me - of my iconography, if you will - and turn it on its ear at an appropriate juncture in the film to be useful to the process of telling the story.
I think the term 'conceptual art' is a useful term for writers, a basket to put people in, like Pop Art or Impressionism or whatever.
The poorest of men are the most useful to those seeking power.
I don't seem to be able to learn from experience or anything useful. History doesn't help me. Precedents don't inform my experience.
Read the most useful books, and that regularly and constantly.
. . . I also know - and this won't alter the course of history or your personal view of me - that you will die with a clenched fist and a tense jaw, the epitome of hatred and struggle, because you are not a symbol (some inanimate example) but a genuine member of the society to be destroyed; the spirit of the beehive speaks through your mouth and motivates your actions. You are as useful as I am, but you are not aware of how useful your contribution is to the society that sacrifices you.
Nothing is more useful than silence.
. . . All ideas need to be heard, because each idea contains one aspect of the truth. By examining that aspect, we add to our own idea of the truth. Even ideas that have no truth in them whatsoever are useful because by disproving them, we add support to our own ideas.
Leisure is the time for doing something useful.
In many ways, the idea of resilience is a more useful concept than the idea of sustainability.
What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful.
The thought grew strong in me that since I had gone to the trouble of being born, I might as well be useful in helping people live long and healthy lives. And this thought has always resided in the back of my mind.
Education is a danger. . . At best an education which produces useful coolies for us is admissible. Every educated person is a future enemy.
