Trifles Quotes - Page 11

• The unbelief of the age is attested by the loud condemnation of trifles.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Age, Loud, Condemnation

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2011). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.73, Penguin

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• Hatred like love feeds on the merest trifles. Everything adds to it. Just as the being we love can do no wrong, so the one we hate can do no right.

  Honore de Balzac

  Hate, Like Love, Hatred

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• Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is "faithful in that which is least" is dependable in all the world.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Discipline, Faithful, Amusement

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901). “Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock”

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• There are no trifles in the human story, no trifling leaves on the tree.

  Victor Hugo

  Tree, Stories, Trifling

  Victor Hugo (1980). “Les misérables”, Viking Pr

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• Small minds are captivated by trifles.

  Ovid

  Mind, Small Minds, Captivated

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• Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
  Trifle not at thirty-five;
  For, howe'er we boast and strive,
  Life declines from thirty-five;
  He that ever hopes to thrive
  Must begin by thirty-five.

  Samuel Johnson

  Women, Age, Strive

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.87

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• Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favorer of idleness or libertinism, has advanced that whoever hopes to employ any part of his time with efficacy and vigor must allow some of it to pass with trifles.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vigor, Reason, Efficacy

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• Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lucky, Genius, Sparrows

  Samuel Johnson (1803). “The Lives of the Most Prominent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.175

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• Winter does not work only on a broad scale; he is careful in trifles.

  Alexander Smith

  Winter, Doe, Scales

  Alexander Smith (1863). “Dreamthorp: A Book of Essays Written in the Country”, p.117

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• There is an alchemy of quiet malice by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordinary trifles.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Ordinary, Poison, Quiet

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851). “The Scarlet Letter”, p.103

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• It is a note
  Of upstart greatness to observe and watch
  For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
  Neglects and scorns.

  Ben Jonson

  Greatness, Mind, Watches

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The Works of Ben Jonson ...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and Biographical Memoir”, p.137

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• There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude.

  Thomas Paine

  Mind, Cabinets, Fortitude

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.14

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• In the case of women, it is of the living and unpublished blood that the violent world has professed to be delicate and ashamed. See the curious history of the political rights of woman under the Revolution. On the scaffold she enjoyed an ungrudged share in the fortunes of party. Political life might be denied her, but that seems a trifle when you consider how generously she was permitted political death.

  Alice Meynell

  Party, Rights, Blood

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• In the intercourse of social life, it is by little acts of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly,--and opportunities of doing kindnesses if sought for are forever starting up,--it is by words, by tones, by gestures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved. He who neglects these trifles yet boasts that, whenever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is, he will not make it; and if he does, it will be much rather for his own sake than for his neighbor's.

  George Augustus Henry Sala

  Kindness, Sacrifice, Opportunity

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• A right rule for a club would be, Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic. It requires people who are not surprised andshocked, who do and let do, and let be, who sink trifles, and know solid values, and who take a great deal for granted.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, People, Would Be

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2495, Delphi Classics

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• Fashion is so close in revealing a person's inner feelings and everybody seems to hate to lay claim to vanity so people tend to push it away. It's really too close to the quick of the soul. Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us. Don't be into trends. Don't make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way you live. Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.

  Stella Blum

  Fashion, Hate, Vanity

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• I expressed just now my mistrust of what is called Spiritualism — ... I owe it a trifle for a message said to come from Voltaire's Ghost. It was asked, Are you not now convinced of another world? and rapped out, There is no other world — Death is only an incident in Life.

  William De Morgan

  Other Worlds, Messages, Ghost

  "Joseph Vance". Book by William De Morgan, Chapter XI, 1906.

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• We make trifles of terrors,
  Ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge,
  When we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.

  William Shakespeare

  Should, Terror, Submit

  1604-5 Lafeu. All'sWellThat EndsWell, act 2, sc.3, l.1-6.

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• Trifles make perfection but perfection is not a trifle

  Michelangelo

  Perfection

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• Heretics were most often bitterly persecuted for the their least deviation from accepted belief. It was precisely their obstinacy about trifles that irritated the righteous to madness.

  Lev Shestov

  Atheism, Irritated, Belief

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• Of those that spin out trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life.

  Samuel Johnson

  Memorial, Opinion, Improvement

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• Verses devoid of substance, melodious trifles.
  [Lat., Versus inopes rerum, nugaeque canorae.]

  Horace

  Poetry, Substance, Verses

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• It's no trifle at her time at her time of life to part with a doctor who knows her constitution.

  George Eliot

  Doctors, Constitution, Knows

  George Eliot (1858). “Scenes of Clerical Life”, p.98

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• It is folly to waste labour about trifles.

  Martial

  Waste, Folly, Labour

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• nothing is so pleasant ... as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display theirs.

  Ouida

  Wit, Bores, Worldly Wisdom

  Ouida (1870). “Puck: His Vicissitudes, Adventures, Observations, Conclusions, Friendships, and Philosophies”, p.131

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