Trifles Quotes - Page 6

• How delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in the world around them.

  Van Wyck Brooks

  People, Mind, World

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• The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or "caves in.

  Edwin Percy Whipple

  Perseverance, Strong, Caves

  Edwin Percy Whipple (1866). “Character and Characteristic Men”, p.14

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• I esteem death a trifle, if not caused by guilt.

  Plautus

  Guilt, Esteem, Ifs

  "Captivi". III. 5. 24,

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• We must strive for freedom if we strive for self-knowledge. The task of self-knowledge and of further self-development is of such importance and seriousness, it demands such intensity of effort, that to attempt it any old way and amongst other things is impossible. The person who undertakes this task must put it first in his life, which is not so long that he can afford to squander it on trifles.

  G. I. Gurdjieff

  Self, Long, Effort

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• Civil confusions often spring from trifles but decide great issues.

  Aristotle

  Spring, Civilization, Issues

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• The untruthful soldier trifles with the lives of his countrymen and the honor and safety of his country.

  Douglas MacArthur

  Country, Safety, Soldier

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• Men have always been the victims of trifles, but when they were uncomfortable and passionate, and in constant danger, they hardly had time to notice what the daily texture of their thoughts was in their calm intervals, whereas with us the intervals are all.

  George Santayana

  Peace, Men, Passionate

  George Santayana (2002). “The Works of George Santayana: The letters of George Santayana. 1921-1927. Vol. 5. Book 3”, MIT Press

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• In reviewing my life, in tracing its course, I fill my cell with the pleasure of being what for want of a trifle I failed to be, recapturing, so that I may hurl myself into them as into dark pits, those moments when I strayed through the trap-ridden compartments of a subterranean sky

  Jean Genet

  Dark, Cells, Sky

  Jean Genet (1987). “Our Lady of the Flowers”, p.70, Grove Press

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• They whom trifles distract and nothing occupies are but children.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Children

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• Delude not yourself with the notion that you may be untrue and uncertain in trifles and in important things the contrary. Trifles make up existence, and give the observer the measure by which to try us; and the fearful power of habit, after a time, suffers not the best will to ripen into action.

  Carl Maria von Weber

  Giving, Suffering, Important

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• Figure to yourself what the year would sustain were the spring taken away: such a loss do they sustain who trifle in youth.

  Lydia Sigourney

  Spring, Taken, Loss

  Lydia Howard Sigourney (1838). “Letters to Young Ladies”, p.18

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• A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, and thinks everything that is said meant at him.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Jealous, Men, Thinking

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.161, Oxford University Press

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• Character demonstrates itself in trifles.

  Louise Imogen Guiney

  Character, Small Things

  Louise Imogen Guiney (1885). “Goose-quill Papers”

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• He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Philosopher, Advantage, Conclusion

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• The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.

  Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

  Thoughtful, Errors, Long

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• Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?

  William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

  Giving, Mind, Compliment

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• Not for the mighty world. O Lord, tonight, Nations and kingdoms in their fearful might--Let me be glad the kettle gently sings, Let me be grateful for little things.

  Edna Jaques

  Grateful, Kingdoms, Tonight

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• We must understand that the fact of error, demonstrated in subsequent work, does not suggest that ethical lapses are responsible. It is more likely that the source of error is, as the advertisement says, a reflection of the fact that "its dangerous to trifle with Mother Nature".

  Lewis M. Branscomb

  Mother, Reflection, Errors

  "Integrity in Scientific Research". Book by Lewis M. Branscomb, 1985.

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• The chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us, and in prudently cultivating our undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas! are let on long leases.

  Richard Sharp

  Lying, Long, Secret

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• These trifles will lead to serious mischief.
  [Lat., Hae nugae seria ducent
  In mala.]

  Horace

  Serious, Mischief

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• The smallest hair throws its shadow.
  [Ger., Das kleinste Harr wirft seinen Schatten.]

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Hair, Shadow, Smallest

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• Nature is a greater and more perfect art, the art of God; though, referred to herself, she is genius; and there is a similarity between her operations and man's art even in the details and trifles. When the overhanging pine drops into the water, by the sun and water, and the wind rubbing it against the shore, its boughs are worn into fantastic shapes, and white and smooth, as if turned in a lathe. Man's art has wisely imitated those forms into which all matter is most inclined to run, as foliage and fruit.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Running, Art, Nature

  Henry David Thoreau (2017). “HENRY DAVID THOREAU – The Man, The Philosopher & The Trailblazer (Illustrated): Biographies, Memoirs, Autobiographical Books & Personal Letters (Including Walden, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, The Maine Woods, Cape Cod, A Yankee in Canada…)”, p.258, e-artnow

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• Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Ambition, Two, Race

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• The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration. For knowledge will brighten the sunshine; right is more beautiful than private affection; and love is compatible with universal wisdom.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beautiful, Inspiration, Sunshine

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1850). “Representative Men: Seven Lectures”, p.162

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• It is always a sign of an unproductive time when it concerns itself with petty and technical aspects [in philology], and likewiseit is a sign of an unproductive person to pursue such trifles.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Aspect, Concern, Pursue

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