Top 100 Harmless As Sayings
#1. For every once upon a time there must be a story to follow, because if a story doesn't, something else will, and it might not be as harmless as a story.
Philip Pullman
#2. Belief in one's identity as a poet or writer prior to the acid test of publication is as naive and harmless as the youthful belief in one's immortality ... and the inevitable disillusionment is just as painful.
Dan Simmons
#3. As St. Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary, He told us to be not only "as harmless as doves," but also "as wise as serpents." He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head.
C.S. Lewis
#4. For the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it.
Emily Bronte
#5. There's an old Cheyenne saying about how, when a man is as wise as a serpent, he can afford to be as harmless as a dove.
Larissa Ione
#6. America is harmless as an enemy but treacherous as a friend.
Bernard Lewis
#8. It took me a while to understand that when you don't like someone, nothing they can say or do will ever seem right. Something as harmless as giving a kid a cookie becomes something aggressive, a challenge to their authority.
Alexandra Bracken
#9. In themselves, harmless. As a group, incredibly dangerous.
Isaac Asimov
#10. Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "I'm too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I'll no answer for the consequences.
Diana Gabaldon
#11. Thoughts are dangerous, he told himself, and thoughts against all science, all sanity, all civilized intelligence, are the most dangerous of all. He felt their presence here and there in his brain, like pockets of poison, harmless as long as you left them encysted and did not prick them.
Fritz Leiber
#13. Be ye therefore as wise as the serpents and as harmless as the doves.
Paulo Coelho
#14. O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
#15. And you, you worthless - ' he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash - .
Emily Bronte
#16. It shows the truth - that the real meaning of a word is only as powerful or harmless as the emotion behind it.
Sarah Silverman
#17. The only part of Christian teachings which will be truly accepted by the Chinese people is Christ's injunction to be "harmless as doves" but "wise as serpents.
Lin Yutang
#18. Don't blow your tomorrows, don't throw away your love. You've got to be wise as a serpent, harmless as a dove.
Gerry Rafferty
#19. As far as I was concerned men were something you had around the place, not particularly interesting, but quite harmless. I had never shown the slightest feeling for them, and apart from my never wearing a skirt, saw nothing else in common between us.
Jeanette Winterson
#20. Buddhism cannot be true to itself until Buddhists resolve their ambivalence toward nonhuman animals and extend the full protection of their compassion to the most harmless and helpless of those who live at our mercy in the visible realms.
Norm Phelps
#21. I watched him playing with the long blades of grass, weaving them into patterns as he hummed an unfamiliar song, a waltz.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
"I'm letting you get used to the idea of me," he said idly. "I'm pretending to be harmless. Is it working?"
"Until you smile," ( ... )
Delilah S. Dawson
#22. Where'd the days go, when all we did was play? And the stress that we were under wasn't stress at all just a run and a jump into a harmless fall
Paolo Nutini
#23. The man whose silent daysIn harmless joys are spent,Whom hopes cannot delude,Nor sorrow discontent:That man needs neither towersNor armour for defence,Nor secret vaults to flyFrom thunder's violence.
Thomas Campion
#24. In medicine, it has long been recognized that even a quack remedy that is harmless in itself can be fatal when it substitutes for an effective medication or treatment. The time is overdue for that same recognition to apply to politics.
Thomas Sowell
#25. We all have our little secrets, and as long as they're harmless, who really cares? With time, the secrets often go away and things don't matter anymore.
John Grisham
#26. Try driving the streets of Los Angeles without seeing a billboard depicting a film with a lead actor holding a gun. It's almost as if guns are harmless props used to bring out the cheekbones and jawline of the screen star.
Henry Rollins
#27. Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that.
Richard Dawkins
#28. Faffing is completely harmless, whereas its opposite - dynamic, purposeful activity - is often very harmful. Faffers do not tend to kill people or make them work 12-hour days or sell them shoddy merchandise or lend them vast sums of money that they cannot pay back.
Tom Hodgkinson
#29. Still, most of those effects occur in the context of harmless play and it is patently obvious that children are not normally turned into aggressive little monsters by TV or video games, since most children do not become aggressive little monsters.
Hugh Mackay
#30. It didn't do to ignore men. The majority of them were harmless, with nothing worse than a low capacity to irritate - they were worse than chiggers but not as bad as bedbugs, in her view.
Larry McMurtry
#31. TEAMWORK: A few harmless flakes working together can unleash an avalanche of destruction.
Justin Sewell
#32. When was the last time anyone in these parts had been attacked by a bear or a mountain
lion? It was possible, but not probable, right? Maybe it was something harmless. A deer or a
stray cow. Or a really big rabbit.
Josh Lanyon
#33. You might call them soft, because they're very reluctant to kill, and they might agree with you, but they're soft the way the ocean is soft, and, well; ask any sea captain how harmless and puny the ocean can be.
Iain M. Banks
#34. When I see four young kids in a band, I think, That looks really fun, no matter how shitty they are. You develop your own thing, and get excited about your band name. It's all so harmless.
Stephen Malkmus
#35. There is no such thing as a harmless addition to the gospel.
Erwin W. Lutzer
#36. A cigarette is like a hamster, harmless until you stick it in your mouth and light it on fire.
Jim Pickens
#37. Mom removed all games that remotely suggest violence and death-but Cody's doing a good job of making harmless cartoon characters suffer in fresh and inventive ways.
Neal Shusterman
#38. I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless
'Till I see a picture of a shorty armless
Kanye West
#39. You want to watch him, Julia," he told me. "He may look harmless enough, but appearances can be deceiving." Geoff grinned. "That's slander, that is. You know I always behave like a perfect gentleman." "Right then, Sir Galahad," Iain said dryly.
Susanna Kearsley
#40. You travel to lush looted countries. parts of earth laying on their sides. barely breathing. hot with rust, infection, and tourist anemia. you and your camera arrive. start tearing at bodies with your lust. it's harmless. appreciating culture. sharing. honoring clothing. the way certain skin exists.
Nayyirah Waheed
#41. And though there's a grain of truth in every rumor, I've found that the worst gossip usually starts with something harmless.
Kathleen O'Dell
#42. If we aren't clear on what the Christian gospel is, then what is at stake is not merely a harmless misunderstanding but eternal life and death.
Gloria Furman
#43. Live by the foma(Harmless untruths) that make you brave
and kind and healthy and happy.
Kurt Vonnegut
#44. If he wears a tag, doesn't that make him harmless? It sounds rather sweet, like a kitten with a bell around its neck. A dissolute character without a tag is what frightens me.
Osamu Dazai
#45. A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
Samuel Johnson
#46. Anyone who tells you that electricity is harmless is incompetent in the field of biologically harmful radiation exposures.
Steven Magee
#47. Bestiality is not my thing But it seems to be a harmless foible or idiosyncrasy of some people. So, as long as the animal doesn't mind (and the animal rarely does), I don't mind, and I don't see why anyone else should.
Frank Kameny
#48. But disasters are made of paper. You make a decision or two, then walk in to them like you would a harmless corner store, and soon they're behind you, on the enormous pile of dead and harmless disasters that once had you worried sick.
The sky has fallen a thousand times already.
David Cain
#49. Daily fantasy sports is neither victimless nor harmless, and it is clear that DraftKings and FanDuel are the leaders of a massive, multi-billion-dollar scheme intended to evade the law and fleece sports fans across the country.
Eric Schneiderman
#50. A figment of the imagination is just a harmless illusion - unless you are victim of it.
Cullen Hightower
#51. It's been my experience that mankind - and I use that to encompass all the races - is seldom satisfied with what they have. Most people's striving is harmless, beneficial even. But there are those who strive for subjugation, having control over others' lives, lives held in the palm of their hand.
Lisa Shearin
#52. It is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it.
T. S. Eliot
#53. Reflect on what you do in your day. You may have never realized how some simple harmless activities rob you of precious time
Vivek Naik
#54. Worship of Jesus is rather harmless and risk-free; actually following Jesus changes everything.
Richard Rohr
#55. The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.
Samuel Johnson
#56. Give the FBI unchecked domestic spying powers and instead of focusing on preventing terrorism, it will revert to doing what it does best - monitoring, harassing, and intimidating political dissidents and thousands of harmless immigrants.
Wendy Kaminer
#57. This practice of overstating the case is called hyperbole. Hyperbole is usually harmless, but in some cases it has been known to precipitate unnecessary wars as well as a painful gaseous condition called stock market bubbles.
Maryrose Wood
#58. As Danton sees it, the most bizarre aspect of Camille's character is his desire to scribble over every blank surface; he sees a guileless piece of paper, virgin and harmless, and persecutes it till it is black with words, and then besmirches its sister, and so on, through the quire.
Hilary Mantel
#59. Nora cocked her head as she studied it. It was an interesting piece. Rather large as it lay nestled in the short, dark curls. It seemed oddly harmless lying there, and she had a sudden urge to reach out and touch it.
Kinley MacGregor
#60. Crazy people who are judged to be harmless are allowed an enormous amount of freedom ordinary people are denied.
Katherine Paterson
#61. Each of us has a vulnerability like Edmund's that Satan is eager to exploit. It may be something addictive like drugs or alcohol, or it may be something seemingly harmless and perhaps even good like food, friendship, or work.
Discovery House Publishers
#62. People will kill you over time. And how they'll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases like 'be realistic'.
Dylan Moran
#63. It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Kingsley Amis
#64. For what can more partake of the mysterious than an antipathy spontaneous and profound such as is evoked in certain exceptional mortals by the mere aspect of some other mortal, however harmless he may be, if not called forth by this very harmlessness itself?
Herman Melville
#65. Busted. I'm a monster. Jev is my deceptively harmless-and shockingly handsome-alter ego.
Becca Fitzpatrick
#66. A soul which is conversant with virtue is like an ever flowing source, for it is pure and tranquil and potable and sweet and communicative (social) and rich and harmless and free from mischief.
Epictetus
#67. Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.
Milton Friedman
#68. The taxonomy of medical error is vast, colorful, and at times confusing. There are slips, lapses, harmless hits, and near misses; errors of omission and of commission; operator errors, system errors, accidents, complications, and bad outcomes.
Nancy Berlinger
#69. Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant;
the only harmless great thing.
John Donne
#70. All the aftermath that so frequently follows in the wake of war still confront the nation, and we now, as ever before, must hold fast to the ancient landmarks and see to it that all of these plagues that threaten so mightily shall be rendered harmless.
Alexander Henry
#71. Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings, they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.
Margaret Halsey
#72. Only when they have outrun the all-too-eager shadows of the Canyon and they are back in the glare of the billboards on Sunset Boulevard, do they wipe their clammy palms, and wonder to themselves how it was that in such a harmless
Clive Barker
#73. Marijuana? It's harmless really, unless you fashion it into a club and beat somebody over the head with it
Bill Bailey
#74. Later, in describing its narrow escape, the creature credited doubly good luck in having mimicked the shape of a harmless doll and the fact that the paranormal investigators had been looking for a hump-free boggart. 3.
Giovanni Valentino
#75. Birth-control through self-restraint is the most desirable, sensible and totally harmless method.
Mahatma Gandhi
#76. She lived, we'll say,
A harmless life, she called a
virtuous life,
A quiet life, which was not life at all
(But that she had not lived enough to know)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#77. I've got the god given talent or the god given opportunity better put, to let that out in a harmless way you know, and I don't know what it does to you, I don't really know.
Eric Clapton
#78. I sleuth, you know. For a hobby. Harmless outlet for natural inquisitiveness, don't you see, which might otherwise strike inward and produce introspection an' suicide. Very natural, healthy pursuit
not too strenuous, not too sedentary; trains and invigorates the mind.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#79. Often the pronouns I, me, and you are not just harmless but downright helpful. They simulate a conversation, as classic style recommends, and they are gifts to the memory-challenged reader.
Steven Pinker
#80. Lady beware. Fan not the harmless glow Of admiration into ardent love, Lean not with red curled smiling lips above The flickering spark of sinless flame, and blow, Lest in the sudden waking of desire Thou, like the child, shalt perish in the fire.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
#81. I don't consider myself an offensive guy. I am just a harmless lovable little fuzzball.
Rush Limbaugh
#82. If the powers that be really knew how much time I spent thinking about and researching celebrities, they probably wouldn't let me anywhere near the red carpet. But, please promise not to tell them. I'm harmless, I swear.
Ross Mathews
#83. Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold.
James Russell Lowell
#84. If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.
Bruce Sterling
#85. Fools and wise-folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#86. People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'
[What It Is (2009)]
Dylan Moran
#87. If you were married to a dipsomaniac, would you pretend that the mania for alcohol was perfectly harmless?
Henry Miller
#88. I could not but smile to hear her talking in this lofty strain, but I was never much displeased with those harmless delusions that tend to make us more happy.
Oliver Goldsmith
#90. Every individual who eats flesh food, whether an animal is killed expressely for him or not, is supporting the trade of slaughtering and contributing to the violent deaths of harmless animals.
Philip Kapleau
#91. The words of the double-tongued are as if they were harmless, but they reach even to the inner part of the bowels. Praise be to the Lord, who distinguishes our cause and delivers us from the unjust and deceitful man.
Muriel Spark
#92. We had a rule in Tibet that anyone proposing a new invention had to guarentee that it was beneficial, or at least harmless, for seven generations of humans before it could be adopted.
Dalai Lama
#93. ...there is always a temptation to think that industrialism is harmless so long as it is clean and orderly.
George Orwell
#94. Do I look evil? I can't do evil. I can barely pull off dangerous.
Dan Abnett
#95. Society having ordained certain customs, men are bound to obey the law of society, and conform to its harmless orders.
William Makepeace Thackeray
#97. As long as amoxicillin is given to our children who have pneumococci in their noses and throats, whether harmless or not, antibiotic resistance is inevitable.
Martin J. Blaser
#98. There is only one really safe, mild, harmless beverage and you can drink as much of that as you like without running the slightest risk, and what you say when you want it is, Garcon! Un Pernod!
Aleister Crowley
#99. I'm harmless. I don't have any ill will or ill thought towards anybody. When people know you're that way, you can say stuff that the creepy guy at your office could never get away with.
Adam Carolla
#100. Foolish people are never harmless. Stupidity accounts for as many crimes as anger and greed.
Louise Penny
