Inconsequential Quotes

We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the remarkable fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.

Eric Hoffer

Education, Teaching, Playing Games

Eric Hoffer (1982). “Between the Devil and the Dragon: The Best Essays and Aphorisms of Eric Hoffer”, HarperCollins Publishers

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We have already seen evidence that, notwithstanding the addition of substantial resources, we are experiencing great stress in recruiting and not inconsequential retention problems.

John M. McHugh

Stress, Problem, Resources

63 Copy quote
For people to judge a man's worth and his very manhood according to the way he feels about sport, and not to recognize it for the piddly, inconsequential goings on that it really is.

Robin Green

Sports, Men, People

60 Copy quote
Yes, we are [friends] and I do like to pass the day with you in serious and inconsequential chatter. I wouldn't mind washing up beside you, dusting beside you, reading the back half of the paper while you read the front. We are friends and I would miss you, do miss you and think of you very often. I don't want to lose this happy space where I have found someone who is smart and easy and doesn't bother to check their diary when we arrange to meet.

Jeanette Winterson

Friendship, Smart, Reading

65 Copy quote
It is possible to have a pretty good life and career being a leech and a parasite in the media world, gadding about from TV studio to TV studio, writing inconsequential pieces and having a good time.

Boris Johnson

Good Life, Writing, Media

"Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.

Anton Chekhov

Children, Expression, Silence

"Enemies". Short story by Anton Chekhov, 1887.

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"You’re different,” he said, touching my face.
Of course I was. The man I loved had killed for me. A lot of things became inconsequential after a sacrifice like that.

Sylvia Day

Sacrifice, Men, Touching

"Sylvia Day Crossfire Series Four Book Collection". Book by Sylvia Day, 2015.

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There is no such thing as a simple act of compassion
or an inconsequential act of service.
Everything we do for another person has infinite consequences.

Caroline Myss

Healing, Simple, Compassion

Caroline Myss (2013). “Invisible Acts of Power: The Divine Energy of a Giving Heart”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

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And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it - but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Moving, Desire, Trying

F. Scott Fitzgerald (2015). “The Echoes of the Jazz Age Collection: The Beautiful and Damned, Winter Dreams, The Great Gatsby, Babylon Revisited, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and many more”, p.411, e-artnow

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... Our individual well-being is intimately connected both with that of all others and with the environment within which we live.... Our every action, our every deed, word, and thought, no matter how slight or inconsequential it may seem, has an implication not only for ourselves, but for all others, too.

Dalai Lama

Deeds, May, Matter

The Dalai Lama, Alexander Norman (2010). “Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium”, p.32, Hachette UK

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Life is so great in its opportunities and possibilities, that you should rise confidently above the inevitable trifles incident to daily contact with the world. Life is too precious to be sacrificed for the nonessential and transient. . . . Ignore the inconsequential.

Grenville Kleiser

Life, Opportunity, World

Grenville Kleiser (1917). “Inspiration and Ideals: Thoughts for Every Day”

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Let us strive for personal, practical integrity in every endeavor, regardless of how mundane or inconsequential it may seem.

Joseph B. Wirthlin

Integrity, May, Strive

7 Copy quote
As we continued to talk, going through the motions of getting to know each other, I realized that we already did know each other, as well as any two people could. We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.

Ernest Cline

Two, Skin Color, Years

Ernest Cline (2011). “Ready Player One”, p.321, Random House

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Though my work may be menial, though my contribution may be small, I can perform it with dignity and offer it with unselfishness. My talents may not be great, but I can use them to bless the lives of others.... The goodness of the world in which we live is the accumulated goodness of many small and seemingly inconsequential acts.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Use, World, May

27 Copy quote
For our family, the entire structure of our life, our home, our business relationships - the entire purpose is for everyone to be able to create in a way that makes them happy. Fame is almost an inconsequential by-product of what we're really trying to accomplish. We are trying to put great things into the world, we're trying to have fun, and we're trying to become the greatest versions of ourselves in the process of doing things we love.

Will Smith

Fun, Home, Trying

"Mr. and Mr. Smith: Will and Jaden Psych Up for After Earth". Interview With Claire Hoffman, www.vulture.com. May 26, 2013.

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Focus on the roses: 'A person who gathers honey will not escape being stung by bees. A person who gathers roses will not escape being scratched by thorns.' The positive things in life also have negative aspects. Keep your focus on the beautiful roses of the world, and the thorns will seem trivial and inconsequential.

Zelig Pliskin

Beautiful, Gratitude, Things In Life

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What is forgiving? Forgiving is giving up all claim on one who had hurt you and letting go of the emotional consequences of the hurt. How can we do that? It's done at the price of beating back our pride. By nature we are selfish. Forgiving, by definition, is unselfish. Being hurt by another person wounds our pride. Pride stands in the way of forgiving. We cannot forgive without God's help. It might be possible for us to forgive something inconsequential without God's help; but in significant matters, we are unlikely to accomplish anything without God's involvement in the process.

Richard Walters

Letting Go, Hurt, Giving Up

"Let Go and Be Free: How Forgiving Calms Anger and Heals Wounded Hearts". Book by Richard Walters, August 15, 2002.

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I definitely write from a need to try, in my own two hours, to right a wrong. My little play is inconsequential in terms of whether or not we have health care, but it may affect the way people who see the play think about the issue.

Lisa Loomer

Writing, Thinking, Play

4 Copy quote
Okay listen, you think I'm so inconsequential? Then try this on for size. All those who see unworthiness when they look at me and are given thereby to denying me value - to you I say, I'm not talking about being AS GOOD as you. I hereby declare myself BETTER than you.

Sidney Poitier

Thinking, Talking, Trying

54 Copy quote
We Indians do not teach that there is only one god. We know that everything has power, including the most inanimate, inconsequential things. Stones have power. A blade of grass has power. Trees and clouds and all our relatives in the insect and animal world have power. We believe we must respect that power by acknowledging it's presence. By honoring the power of the spirits in that way, it becomes our power as well. It protects us.

Russell Means

Believe, Animal, Power

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She wished she were as inconsequential as the ghosts in her dreams.

Libba Bray

Dream, Ghost

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Doubtless these are inconsequential perplexities. Still, inconsequential perplexities have now and again been known to become the fundamental mood of existence, one suspects.

David Markson

Fundamentals, Mood, Existence

David Markson (1995). “Wittgenstein's mistress”, Dalkey Archive Pr

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On any given day, something claims our attention. Anything at all, inconsequential things. A rosebud, a misplaced hat, that sweater we liked as a child, an old Gene Pitney record. A parade of trivia with no place to go. Things that bump around in our consciousness for two or three days then go back to wherever they came from... to darkness. We've got all these wells dug in our hearts. While above the wells, birds flit back and forth.

Haruki Murakami

Children, Heart, Two

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If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?

Soren Kierkegaard

Passion, Dark, Men

Soren Kierkegaard (2005). “Fear and Trembling”, p.18, Penguin UK

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This so gnawed at him on some nights that he lay awake wondering just how many unknown and similarly inconsequential accidents and bits of happenstance were at this moment occurring or failing to occur in order to ensure he took his next breath, and the next.

Louise Erdrich

Night, Order, Next

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