Insignificant Quotes

• The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Hurt, Insignificant Things

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.116, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• How do I change? If I feel depressed I will sing. If I feel sad I will laugh. If I feel ill I will double my labor. If I feel fear I will plunge ahead. If I feel inferior I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent I will think of past success. If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions.

  Og Mandino

  Sad, Past, Thinking

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• The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Appreciate, Hiding

  Twitter post from Dec 16, 2009

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• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

  Douglas Adams

  Distance, Lying, Science

  Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.10, Pan Macmillan

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• Everybody's life has these moments, where one thing leads to another. Some are big and obvious and some are small and seemingly insignificant.

  Peter Jackson

  Moments, Bigs, Obvious

  "Peter Jackson: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 11, 2009.

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• Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Perseverance, Work, Bad Day

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• I'm much more interested in what an actor has to say about something substantial and important than who they're dating or what clothes they're wearing or some other asinine, insignificant aspect of their life.

  Ben Affleck

  Clothes, Dating, Important

  "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, www.nbcnews.com. July 27, 2004.

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• The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.

  Carl L. Becker

  Men, Ironic, Belief

  Progress and Power Lecture 3 (1935)

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• There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Views, Insignificant Things, Literature

  "Goethe's World View: Presented in His Reflections and Maxims".

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• Often, the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among the seemingly insignificant events of life. If we do not pay attention to these events, we can easily miss the opportunities.

  Jim Rohn

  Life, Motivational, Opportunity

  FaceBook post by Jim Rohn from Dec 23, 2013

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• On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Meaningful, World, Life Is

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• 

  For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

  Carl Sagan

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• You'll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth.

  Odysseas Elytis

  Depth, Study, Little Things

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• At one time I thought the Editor of the Lancet would kindly publish a letter from me on the subject, but further reflection led me to doubt whether so insignificant an individual would be noticed without some special introduction.

  William Banting

  Reflection, Editors, Doubt

  William Banting (1864). “Letter on Corpulence: Addressed to the Public”, p.9

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• There is hardly any one so insignificant that he does not seem imposing to some one at some time.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Doe, Seems, Imposing

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.329, Transaction Publishers

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• The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

  William Hazlitt

  Hope, Self Esteem, People

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• What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

  Norman Mailer

  Evil, Groups, Minorities

  1966 Cannibals and Christians, 'A Speech AtBerkeley on Vietnam Day'.

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• This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room.

  Virginia Woolf

  Peace, War, Women

  A Room of One's Own ch. 4 (1929)

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• Am I foolish and insignificant or am I great? I gave all the individuals in the world cause to kneel down in front of me.

  Sun Myung Moon

  Stupid, Unification Church, World

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• God's heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small.

  Richard J. Foster

  Inspirational, Religious, Heart

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• The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.

  Karl Marx

  Civilization, Environmental, Done

  Karl Marx, David Fernbach (1981). “Capital: a critique of political economy”

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• Drink and be thankful to the host! What seems insignificant when you have it, is important when you need it.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Thanksgiving, Being Thankful, Important

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• Success is not greedy, as people think, but insignificant. That is why it satisfies nobody.

  Seneca the Younger

  Success, Congratulations, Thinking

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

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• My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

  John Adams

  Country, Men, History

  John Adams (1841). “Letters, Addressed to His Wife”, p.133

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• The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

  Khalil Gibran

  Grief, Ignorant, Might

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