nothing (n.)
- aught
- bagatelle
- blank
- cipher
- dud
- dummy
- figurehead
- good-for-nothing
- inanity
- inessential
- jackstraw
- lightweight
- mediocrity
- nada
- naught
- nebbish
- nihil
- nihility
- nil
- nix
- no-account
- nobody
- nonentity
- nothingness
- nought
- nullity
- obscurity
- ought
- peanuts
- pip-squeak
- punk
- puppet
- pushover
- runt
- scrub
- shrimp
- squirt
- squit
- technicality
- trifle
- vacuum
- void
- whippersnapper
- wind
- zero
- zilch
nothing (adv.)
nothing (adj.)
Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.
A man of sovereign parts he is esteem'd;
Well fitted in arts, glorious in arms:
Nothing becomes him ill that he would well.
Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows;
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame,—nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
We can say nothing but what hath been said. Our poets steal from Homer. . . . Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best.
In fine, nothing is said now that has not been said before.
Nothing can be done at once hastily and prudently.
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.
Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing.
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness,—
To which I leave him.
Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well:
Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.
Nothing comes amiss; so money comes withal.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet!
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.
Sleep full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene.
That indolent but agreeable condition of doing nothing.
Fame sometimes hath created something of nothing.
Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.
Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns.
In virtues nothing earthly could surpass her,
Save thine "incomparable oil," Macassar!
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
As if religion was intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
I have done the state some service, and they know 't.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then, must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.
All that is harmony for thee, O Universe, is in harmony with me as well. Nothing that comes at the right time for thee is too early or too late for me. Everything is fruit to me that thy seasons bring, O Nature. All things come of thee, have their being in thee, and return to thee.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy;
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.
He left a paper sealed up, wherein were found three articles as his last will: "I owe much; I have nothing; I give the rest to the poor."
I have everything, yet have nothing; and although I possess nothing, still of nothing am I in want.
For I am nothing, if not critical.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.
As some say, Solon was the author of the apophthegm, "Nothing in excess."
Nothing in his life
Became him like the leaving it; he died
As one that had been studied in his death
To throw away the dearest thing he owed,
As 't were a careless trifle.
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
Nothing is
But what is not.
Nothing is changed in France; there is only one Frenchman more.
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
Nothing is impossible to a willing hart.
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame,—nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out.
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.
Certainly nothing is unnatural that is not physically impossible.
They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
There's nothing like being used to a thing.
It is better to have a little than nothing.
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.
There is nothing new except what is forgotten.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Rich windows that exclude the light,
And passages that lead to nothing.
Oft times nothing profits more
Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right
Well manag'd.
One swallowe prouveth not that summer is neare.—
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour yield to the energy of the individual.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.
Nothing is so difficult but that it may be found out by seeking.
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,—nothing so expensive as glory.
Nothing is so dear and precious as time.
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.
Nothing succeeds like success.
A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,
Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched,
And touched nothing that he did not adorn.
Il dolce far niente (The sweet do nothing).—A well known Italian proverb.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men.
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;
'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
'T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that's new.
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man
Commands all light, all influence, all fate.
Nothing to him falls early, or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
"Our armies swore terribly in Flanders," cried my Uncle Toby, "but nothing to this."
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise, or blame,—nothing but well and fair,
And what may quiet us in a death so noble.
There is nothing to write about, you say. Well, then, write and let me know just this,—that there is nothing to write about; or tell me in the good old style if you are well. That's right. I am quite well.
Triumphs for nothing and lamenting toys
Is jollity for apes and grief for boys.
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
There's nothing true but Heaven.
We desire nothing so much as what we ought not to have.
Nothing will come of nothing.
I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing.
Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing." . . . . There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."
