Insignificant Things Quotes

We as Christians are called to battle.
The problem is, we don't fight about the right things and we do fight about the wrong things. We aren't getting in the battle that we should and so we fight over petty, insignificant things. Why? Because we are bored. We are soldiers created for fighting against the enemy, Satan, but instead we fight against each other. ~ Lisa Bedrick

If I make a wrong decision, I worry what might have been. I stress out over very insignificant things. ~ Courtney Barnett

What I fault newspapers for is that day after day they draw our attention to insignificant things whereas only three or four times in our lives do we read a book in which there is something really essential. Since we tear the band off the newspaper so feverishly every morning, they ought to change things and put into the paper, oh, I don't know, perhaps ... Pascal's Pensees! ... and then, in a gilt-edged volume that we open only once in ten years ... we would read that the Queen if Greece has gone to Cannes or that the Princesses de Leon has given a costume ball. This way the proper proportions would be established. ~ Marcel Proust

It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Indeed, the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that 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 the most: and his suffering comes to him from things so little and so trivial that one can say that it is no longer objective at all. It is his own existence, his own being, that is at once the subject and the source of his pain, and his very existence and consciousness is his greatest torture. ~ Thomas Merton

But even with respect to the most insignificant things in life, none of us constitutes a material whole, identical for everyone, which a person has only to go look up as though we were a book of specifications or a last testament; our social personality is a creation of the minds of others. ~ Marcel Proust

You only have so deep a well from which to make choices throughout the day. The same is true of willpower. If you accept that both your ability to choose and your ability to act are limited, you discover the virtue of routines. I try to pre-program as many of the mundane decisions as I can. A rough regularity on the insignificant things helps preserve energy for the significant ones. ~ Jimmy Soni

I try to write about small insignificant things. I try to find out if it's possible to say anything about them. And I almost always do if I sit down and write about something. There is something in that thing that I can write about. It's very much like a rehearsal. An exercise, in a way. ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

Gertrude Stein, when asked why she wrote, replied "For praise." Lorca said he wrote to be loved. Faulkner said a writer wrote for glory. I may at times have written for those reasons, it's hard to know. Overall I write because I see the world in a certain way that no dialogue or series of them can begin to describe, that no book can fully render, though the greatest books thrill in their attempt.
A great book may be an accident, but a good one is a possibility, and it is thinking of that that one writes. In short, to achieve. The rest takes care of itself, and so much praise is given to insignificant things that there is hardly any sense in striving for it.
In the end, writing is like a prison, an island from which you will never be released but which is a kind of paradise: the solitude, the thoughts, the incredible joy of putting into words the essence of what you for the moment understand and with your whole heart want to believe. ~ James Salter

If he could have his way, Satan would distract us from our heritage. He would have us become involved in a million and one things in this life-probably none of which is very important in the long run-to keep us from concentrating on the things that are really important, particularly the reality that we are God's children. He would like us to forget about home and family values. He'd like to keep us so busy with comparatively insignificant things that we don't have time to make the effort to understand where we came from, whose children we are, and how glorious our ultimate homecoming can be! ~ Marvin J. Ashton

Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. I buy art that I like. I buy it to show it off in exhibitions. Then, if I feel like it, I sell it and buy more art. ~ Charles Saatchi

I am more aware of the world now, the tiny insignificant things especially. I am beginning to be more childlike. For an artist this may have some advantages. ~ Thomas DeBaggio

If we try to complicate our lives, developing clever plans and ambitions, we lose sight of the way in which small, insignificant things actually hold the key to what we seek. ~ Yi-Ping Ong

Possibly the only way to maintain some sort of resemblance of normalcy was by thinking about insignificant things. That way, it didn't feel like my life was crumbling apart like a pastry. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

It's only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That's all. ~ Fredrik Backman

What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity. ~ Albert Schweitzer

If you hold to Nature, to the simplicity that is in her, to the small detail that scarcely one man sees, which can so unexpectedly grow into something great and boundless; if you have this love for insignificant things and seek, simply as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems to be poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory, not perhaps in the understanding, which lags wondering behind, but in your innermost consciousness, wakefulness and knowing. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools. ~ Leo Tolstoy

He stared at me, unreadable for a moment. "I've had women try to save me before," he said idly.
"Then that means I'll be yesterday's trash soon on that part of the equation, but we will still be friends."
He smiled with a far truer lift of his cheeks. "Don't be foolish. I told you before. I'd never let you go." He touched my chin, tilting it up toward him. "I could remove the danger, you know. Lock you in a room - a tower - "
"My hair isn't long enough," I said automatically.
"But you would spin me gold. So many things better than gold. Truer." His gaze dropped to my lips. "I would keep you in the finest of materials, handcrafted with only you in mind. The finest paints, in a tower so high that you would have no cares. ~ Anne Zoelle

Walter and I had shared a mind, of course. Couples get that way. I think it has something to do with sharing a bed. The mind, untethered during sleep, travels up and away, dancing, sometimes in partners. Things pass back and forth in dreams. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh

Empty time is not a vacuum to be filled. It is the thing that enables the other things on your mind to be creatively rearranged, like the empty square in the 4 x 4 puzzle that makes it possible to move the other fifteen pieces around. ~ Harry Lewis

And the most important thing at the end of the day is that we stay together as one in relaying the information to the rest of the guys. ~ Takeo Spikes

The most important things in a friendship didn't have to be said out loud. ~ Elise Broach

It's unfashionable these days to talk about sin, and it's even less fashionable to talk about idolatry. The world likes to tell us that we're beyond that now. When we honestly discuss the sinful attitudes behind our actions, we are often shushed: "You're not that bad! Everyone does those things! You need to have better self esteem!" But the human heart is the same now as it was in biblical times. We don't have to bow down to a golden statue to worship idols. When we trust in anything other than God for peace and happiness we are essentially practicing idolatry. Only when we see the idols yet in our hearts can we truly "put off the old self" and "put on the new self" (Colossians 3:5-10). ~ Staci Eastin

Sometimes life is like a video game. When things get harder, and the obstacles get tougher, it just means you leveled up. ~ Lilah Pace

I'm kind of a nerd in that I get really excited about things ... I love anticipating if they're going to like their rooms or not. ~ Paige Davis

When you're the lead of a series, things happen around you, and you react to them. ~ James Van Der Beek

The American classicist Edith Hamilton once described the great works of literature, the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages. ~ Edith Hamilton

Things that you cannot face in yourself you will hate when you see them in someone else. ~ Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

Time is important to me now, I tell myself.Not that it should pass quickly or slowly, but only be time, be something I live inside and fill with physical things and activities that I can divide it up by. so that it grows distict to me and does not vanish when I am not looking. ~ Per Petterson

The more humble a man is in himself, and the more obedient towards God, the wiser will he be in all things, and the more shall his soul be at peace. ~ Thomas A Kempis

But she needed ice on the roads. She needed her accident to look as accidental as possible. And she just didn't think she was capable of waiting another three months. Julia, however, knows none of this. She looks down at what remains of her best friend, and she thinks of all the times Liz was quiet and not really there. The times when she was the Liz everyone else knows, all snark and insanity, and the moments when she was the one that stared at invisible things and hadn't truly smiled in a long time. ~ Amy Zhang

I think language is a system that we have devised to negotiate a series of more amorphous entities. It's a layer you can use to see where those things exist, but if you don't have anyone speaking anymore, those things are still there. The things that language stands for do not require humans, and in fact are often trampled down by humans. ~ Blake Butler

Because, whenever I am melancholy you talk to me of cheerful things and cure my low spirits and so I must now do the same for you. That is what friendship is. ~ Susanna Clarke

It is a terrible, wretched thing to love someone whom you know cannot love you. There are things that are more dreadful. There are many human pains more grievous. And yet it remains both terrible and wretched. Like so many things, it is insoluble. ~ Naomi Alderman

What ever happened to happy endings?
They got them on shows at Saturday matinees.
Sure, but what about life?
All I know is I feel good going to bed nights, Doug. That's a happy ending once a day. Next morning I'm up and maybe things go bad. But all I got to do is remember that I'm going to bed that night and just lying there a while makes everything okay. ~ Ray Bradbury

A good many things go around in the dark besides Santa Claus. ~ Herbert Hoover

Not everything has a happy ending, and not everything has an ending. Some things just kind of dribble away or cut off abruptly. ~ Susanna Kaysen

Do you always assume the worst of people? Or is it yourself you think so poorly of? Perhaps you might consider life is complicated enough without your helping things along. ~ Rebecca Hamilton

It's funny how there are things in this world that do nothing but annoy you, but you know you'd miss them when they're gone. ~ Markus Zusak

The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all. I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water. ~ Eugene Ionesco

That looks feasible. What do you want for lunch? Cake, sandwiches, fruit, and coffee will be all that is necessary, I suppose?"
"Oh, dear, no! We must have cold tongue and chicken, French chocolate and ice cream, besides. The girls are used to such things, and I want my lunch to be proper and elegant, though I do work for my living. ~ Louisa May Alcott

The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you're the person who takes them to go poop! ~ Angelina Jolie

The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health or think positive thoughts. ~ Robin S. Sharma

It does not do to be frightened of things about which you know nothing," he said. "You are like children. Afraid of the dark. ~ Donna Tartt

Few things are more important to our country's future than recruiting and keeping great teachers in our schools. ~ Wendy Kopp

Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage. ~ Alanis Morissette

God deliver me from the dread asbestos of "other things." Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. ~ Jim Elliot

Things like guitars and ukuleles, you should never part with it, because there will probably be good, healthy times spent, just playing and writing. ~ Eddie Vedder

This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another. ~ David Levithan

Surely the Shadowhunter community must honor you and hold you in high esteem as a gentleman who has truly advanced their race. No, Henry said sadly. Mostly they wish that I would stop suggesting new inventions and cease setting fire to things. ~ Cassandra Clare

Live, my dear Nora. Satisfy your hunger. There's food all around you, you know.' 'What kind of food, I'd like to know?' 'Ah'-he smiled- 'you must taste all things, actually to know if you like them.' And what good is that, I wanted to ask, if the most delicious fruit is forbidden? ~ Claire Messud

But the chapel, that will never be prosaic. Those who have seen it outlined against the sunset or the full moon, those who have seen its sloping leaded roof-top glisten after a shower of rain, those who have looked down upon the world from its summit, all those who have seen these things will remember the poetry that it has taught them. And while each man changes from year to year, going through the continual changes that make a lifetime, the chapel remains always the same. When the rest of Cambridge is crumbling and in ruins, the chapel will still be standing, the last to fall to time as it is the last to fall to climbers. ~ Whipplesnaith

Astronomers are obsessed with building larger and larger telescopes. There are two promises that we make with bigger telescopes: that they can see fainter things and that they see more detail. But it's been really hard to follow through on that second promise because of atmospheric distortion. ~ Andrea M. Ghez

You want to have a loving, safe relationship with your child, but you can't because you have to do these things to protect them or protect them from themselves - or try to make sure they don't become a vampire! Your desires and your needs are in opposition, and that's always fun to play. ~ Jack Coleman

I'm a sensitive guy; I respond to things that make my eyes well up a little bit, or make me root for people. I find the human condition interesting. ~ Fred Durst

It's remarkable how we go on year after year, doing the same old things. We get tired and bored, and ask when they'll come for us ~ Yasunari Kawabata

Some things it is not decent to write of the dead, or prudent to write of the living. ~ Marjorie Bowen