It reduces all the revolutions, the struggles, the pain, the great dreams—everything—to nonsense! It means that life is pointless!"
"Not pointless," Brazil put in suddenly. "It just means that the grand schemes are pointless. It means that you don't make your own life pointless or useless—most people do, you know. It wouldn't make any difference if ninety-nine percent of the people of the human race—or any other—lived or not. Except in sheer numbers their lives are dull, vegetative, and non-productive.

Effortless. Easy. The lack of trying is what makes them lovely. We all try too hard. Striving wears down our edges, dulls the best of us. (p23)

Even in a pointless universe, pointless happiness and pleasures are surely preferable to pointless suffering.

It just seems so useless to have to work so hard,
And nothin' ever really seems to come from it.

Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Life & love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.

Life is a useless passion.

A no-effort relationship is a doomed relationship, not a great relationship. It takes work to communicate accurately and it takes work to expose and resolve conflicting hopes and beliefs. It doesn’t mean there is no “they lived happily ever after,” but it’s more like “they worked happily ever after.

Only trying to make conversation, friend." "Don't bother—it's an overrated activity at the best of times.

I know that without some fervour in the love of Christ, religion cannot be to you savoury, nor any work of goodness can be delectable, but every virtuous deed shall seem laborious and painful. For love maketh every work appear easy and pleasant, though it be right displeasant of itself. And contrariwise right easy labour appeareth grievous and painful, when the soul of the person that doeth the deed hath no desire nor love in doing of it. This thing may well appear by the life of hunters, the which out of doubt is more laborious and painful than is the life of religious persons, and yet nothing sustaineth them in their labour and pains but the earnest love and hearty desire to find their game.

The Paradox of Effort: You have to put in more effort to make something look effortless. When you realize this, you start to do things differently

The frivolous work of polished idleness.

Evil is boring. Cynicism is pointless. Fear is a bad habit. Despair is lazy. Hopelessness is self-indulgent. On the other hand: Joy is fascinating. Love is an act of heroic genius. Pleasure is our birthright. Chronic ecstasy is a learnable skill.