C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Nonsense

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.

Shakespeare.

A little nonsense now and then,
Is relish’d by the best of men.

Anonymous.

Nonsense and noise will oft prevail,
When honor and affection fail.

Lloyd.

The more sparingly we make use of nonsense, the better.

Coleridge.

Nonsense, when earnest, is impressive, and sometimes takes you in. If you are in a hurry, you occasionally mistake it for sense.

Beaconsfield.

For daring nonsense seldom fails to hit,
Like scattered shot, and pass with some for wit.

Butler.

There are greater depths and obscurities, greater intricacies and perplexities, in an elaborate and well-written piece of nonsense, than in the most abstruse and profound tract of school divinity.

Addison.

Hudibras has defined nonsense, as Cowley does wit, by negatives. Nonsense, he says, is that which is neither true nor false. These two great properties of nonsense, which are always essential to it, give it such a peculiar advantage over all other writings, that it is incapable of being either answered or contradicted.

Addison.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD