Insignificantly Small Quotes

The Earth is round, and is inhabited on all sides, is insignificantly small, and is borne through the stars. ~ Johannes Kepler

What are the lessons to be learned from this journey of the mind? That humans are emotionally fragile, perennially gullible, hopelessly ignorant masters of an insignificantly small speck in the cosmos.
Have a nice day. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I am troubled by the lack of common sense regarding carbon dioxide emissions. Our greatest greenhouse gas is water. Atmospheric spectroscopy reveals why water has a 95 percent and CO2 a 3.6 percent contribution to the 'greenhouse effect.' Carbon dioxide emissions worldwide each year total 3.2 billion tons. That equals about 0.0168 percent of the atmosphere's CO2 concentration of about 19 trillion tons. This results in a 0.00064 percent increase in the absorption of the sun's radiation. This is an insignificantly small number. ~ Michael Myers

Rhodes Must Fall was a small-scale example of what racial injustice looks like in Britain. It looks normal. It is pedestrian. It is unquestioned. It's just a part of the landscape, you might walk past it every day. For people who oppose anti-racism on the grounds of freedom of speech, opposition to gross racial disparities is about 'offence', rather than the heavily unequal material conditions that people affected by it carry as burden. Being in a position where their lives are so comfortable that they don't really have anything material to oppose, faux 'free speech' defenders spend all their spare time railing against 'offence culture'. When they make it about offence rather than their own complicity in a drastically unjust system, they successfully transfer the responsibility of fixing the system from the benefactors of it to those who are likely to lose out because of it. Tackling racism moves from conversations about justice to conversations about sensitivity. Those who are repeatedly struck by racism's tendency to hinder their life chances are told to toughen up and grow a thicker skin. ~ Reni Eddo-Lodge

Michael [Hutchence] is hands down one of the greatest frontmen in music. The style, the voice - all of it. Any way that I was ever influenced by him really comes down to small, pale imitations compared to the real thing. There is a fearlessness about him. Watching him at Wembley Stadium with 70,000 people, he looks as comfortable as if he were in his own living room. ~ Lori Majewski

The decision to be together should be unconditional. It should not be only if you love me, if you are sweet to me, if you are this and that to me – no. It is to be together whatsoever – sometimes sweet and sometimes very salty; sometimes very beautiful and sometimes a monster.
Once you understand that, you have come to a mature love, otherwise love is only baby love. Small school children fall in love. They think in poetry and romance, and write poems and beautiful letters, but that's all childish.
They don't know what life is going to be. It is a hard struggle.
Because love is one of the most precious jewels, the struggle is very very hard. Only very few people achieve it. ~ Osho

I like black for clothes, small items, and jewelry. It's a color that can't be violated by any other colors. A color that simply keeps being itself. A color that sinks more somberly than any other color, yet asserts itself more than all other colors. It's a passionate gallant color. Anything is wonderful if it transcends things rather than being halfway ... ~ Yana Toboso

Having 'best friends' is - at least for me - as outdated and small-minded a concept as the idea of 'Sunday best clothes.' ~ Julie Burchill

Love is the river of life in this world. Think not that ye know it who stand at the little tinkling rill, the first small fountain. Not until you have gone through the rocky gorges, and not lost the stream; not until you nave gone through the meadow, and the stream has widened and deepened until fleets could ride on its bosom; not until beyond the meadow you have come to the unfathomable ocean, and poured your treasures into its depths
not until then can you know what love is. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

The society of organizations is new-only seventy years ago employees were a small minority in every society. ~ Peter Drucker

There is the voice that everybody hears ... saying to you, "You should do this, you should be this, you ought to, you got to." And then there is the still small voice - for some people not so small - inside every human being that calls you to something that is greater than yourself. ~ Oprah Winfrey

Ah, sinner, may the Lord quicken thee! But it is a work that makes the Saviour weep. I think when He comes to call some of you from your death in sin, He comes weeping and sighing for you. There is a stone that is to be rolled away
your bad and evil habits
and when that stone is taken away, a still small voice will not do for you; it must be the loud crashing voice, like the voice of the Lord which breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. ~ Charles Spurgeon

When I work with experimental gadgets, like new variations on virtual reality, in a lab environment, I am always reminded of how small changes in the details of a digital design can have profound unforeseen effects on the experiences of the humans who are playing with it. The slightest change in something as seemingly trivial as the use of a button can sometimes completely alter behavior patterns.
For instance, Stanford University researcher Jeremy Bailenson has demonstrated that changing the height of one's avatar in immersive virtual reality transforms self-esteem and social self-perception. Technologies are extensions of ourselves, and, like the avatars in Jeremy's lab, our identities can be shifted by the quirks of gadgets. It is impossible to work with information technology without also engaging in social engineering. ~ Jaron Lanier

So we should not be surprised when The Economist tells us that "in Beirut, Cairo, Dubai, Riyadh or even Gaza City, small technology firms are multiplying."18 We should not be surprised that in many Middle East cities women comprise 35 percent of Internet entrepreneurs, three times the global rate for such startups.19 We should not be surprised that in high-growth industries twice as many entrepreneurs are over fifty as are under twenty-five.20 Entrepreneurs are everywhere. Opportunities to nourish them are everywhere, too. ~ Steven R. Koltai

I think the knowledge about how legislation really affects small businesses is extremely valuable. If you haven't run a small business, then you don't have this kind of knowledge about how a regulation passed or taxes increased affects your bottom line. If you recognize that every new regulation takes that much more time to comply with, requires that many more employees, then it really gives you that foundational basis to make those decisions. ~ Kristi Noem

He always knew what I needed, even when I didn't. ~ Devney Perry

Most people return small favors, acknowledge medium ones and repay greater ones - with ingratitude. ~ Benjamin Franklin

We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our luggage for Customs inspection, the contents of our bags were a fair indication of character and interests. Thus Margo's luggage contained a multitude of diaphanous garments, three books on slimming, and a regiment of small bottles each containing some elixir guaranteed to cure acne. Leslie's case held a couple of roll-top pullovers and a pair of trousers which were wrapped round two revolvers, an air-pistol, a book called Be Your Own Gunsmith, and a large bottle of oil that leaked. Larry was accompanied by two trunks of books and a brief-case containing his clothes. Mother's luggage was sensibly divided between clothes and various volumes on cooking and gardening. I travelled with only those items that I thought necessary to relieve the tedium of a long journey: four books on natural history, a butterfly net, a dog, and a jam-jar full of caterpillars all in imminent danger of turning into chrysalids. Thus, by our standards fully equipped, we left the clammy shores of England. ~ Gerald Durrell

He faces the burdens of belittlement a third time as he grows older, and settles into an existence that he has embraced, or that has been forced upon him. A carapace of routine, of compromise, of silent surrenders, of half-term solutions, and of diminished consciousness begins to form around him. He turns himself over to the rigidified version of the self: the character. He begins to die small deaths, many times over. He fails to die only once, which is what he would desire if he were able fully to recognize the value of life. This third encounter with belittlement reveals belittlement for what it in fact is: death by installments. ~ Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Our secret thoughts - do they ever show up? The small flame of our soul can be burning hot, but no one comes to its warmth. Passersby see only a small whiff going through the chimney. Don't we need to take care of that flame, cherish it and patiently wait until someone will come and sit at it, do we? ~ Irving Stone

Most of the guests left the rehearsal dinner at the country club; the remaining group--a varied collection of important figures in both of our lives--had skittered away to the downtown hotel where all of the out-of-town guests were staying. Marlboro Man and I, not ready to bid each other good night yet, had joined them in the small, dimly lit (lucky for me, given the deteriorating condition of my epidermis) hotel bar. We gathered at a collection of tiny tables butted up together and wound up talking and laughing into the night, toasting one another and spouting various late-night versions of "I'm so glad I know you" and "I love you, man!" In the midst of all the wedding planning and craziness, hanging out in a basement bar with uncles, college friends, and siblings was a relaxing, calming elixir. I wanted to bottle the feeling and store it up forever.
It was late, though; I saw Marlboro Man looking at the clock in the bar.
"I think I'll head back to the ranch," he whispered as his brother told another joke to the group. Marlboro Man had a long drive ahead, not to mention an entire lifetime with me. I couldn't blame him for wanting a good night's sleep.
"I'm tired, too," I said, grabbing my purse from under the table. And I was; the long day had finally set in.
The two of us stood up and said our good-byes to all the people who loved us so much. Men stood up, some stumbling, and shook hands with Marlboro Man. Women blew kisses and mouthed Love you guys! to ~ Ree Drummond

Stone: Yes, we are everything, every experience we've ever had, and in some of us, a lot of it translates and makes patterns, poems. But, my God, we don't even began to touch upon it. There's an enormous amount, but we can touch such a little.

Interviewer: That's true, just a very small portion.

Stone: Very small. I think that's one of the things that our minds do; they sort out, somehow, often, and make patterns of significant things to us. And I think our minds do that for us in the dark, and then they offer them back in poems. I think your mind makes up your poem before you get it. You know, you receive the poem from your mind, you know you do. It takes a multitude of experiences, and all this language, and all this sound, and puts it together in these patterns that are significant to you and gives it back to you. ~ Ruth Stone

The short-goal habit is key to larger success and is at the root of human greatness. Life is think and do, think and do, think and do. Small steps can be greater than great leaps. ~ Robert Genn

The hard left is a very small section of the British population and I myself am not hard left. I am a traditional Labour left-winger. ~ George Galloway

I always felt like there wasn't a blueprint for father-daughter relationships - for them or for us. Because what are they supposed to do with us, treat us like boys, or small women, or what? Father-daughter relationships are so unique from family to family, and I'd love to watch it explored more onstage. ~ Lucy Alibar

Avarice, the spur of industry, is so obstinate a passion, and works its way through so many real dangers and difficulties, that it is not likely to be scared by an imaginary danger, which is so small, that it scarcely admits of calculation. Commerce, therefore, in my opinion, is apt to decay in absolute governments, not because it is there less secure, but because it is less honourable. ~ David Hume

But the very fact that this process is unconscious gives us the reason why man has thought of everything except the psyche in his attempts to explain myths. He simply didn't know that the psyche contains all the images that have ever given rise to myths, and that our unconscious is an acting and suffering subject with an inner drama which primitive man rediscovers, by means of analogy, in the processes of nature both great and small.11 [9] ~ C. G. Jung

A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation.
"No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat."
"But the tree -"
"- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed."
Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up.
"It might be too scared to come down," he said.
"It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker."
The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch.
Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule."
Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?"
"And the longer you two bicker ..."
"Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake."
She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero ~ K.L. Armstrong

There was a small stone in her palm, a deep blue opal. I leaned a little closer, eyeing it. It was set on a silver stud - an earring.
"It should suffice to contain the parasite for what time remains," Mab said. "Put it on."
"My ears aren't pierced," I objected.
Mab arched an eyebrow. "Are you the Winter Knight or some sort of puling child?"
I scowled at her. "Come over here and say that."
At that, Mab calmly stepped onto the shore of Demonreach, until her toes were almost touching mine. She was several inches over six feet tall, and barely had to reach up to take my earlobe in her fingers.
"Wait," I said. "Wait."
She paused.
"The left one."
Mab tilted her head. "Why?"
"It's ... Look, it's a mortal thing. Just do the left one, okay?"
She exhaled briefly through her nose. Then she shook her head and changed ears. ~ Jim Butcher

We value-packs, you all small fries. ~ Puff Daddy

Getting to places like Bangkok or Singapore was a hell of a sweat. But when you got there it was the back of beyond. It was just a series of small tin sheds. ~ David Attenborough

Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you're due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings. ~ Donald Van De Mark

I realized that even big waves start with small ripples ~ Adam Braun

Don't stop learning. A time will come when your dreams will go global and you will turn and laugh at how local you've been. Start local anyway! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you'll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you'll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Tukum is at times forgetful about his pigs, being readily distracted by other children, dragonflies, puddles of water, and wild foods.
Nevertheless, Tukem is a very proud little boy, and since his nami lives Lukigin, where his mother has already gone, he has decided to go away for good. This morning he put on his thin neck the cowrie collar with its brief string of shells which is his sole belonging, he smeared his body with pig grease until it shone, in order to make a fine impression at Lukigin ... Then he set off alone on the long journey in the sun across the woods and fields, a small brown figure with a flat head and pot belly. His back was turned on Wuperainma, his pigs and his friends, his childhood, and he clutched a frail stick in his hand. ~ Peter Matthiessen

With God's help, you will continue to succeed in your leadership and in your duties, because Our Lord's work is accomplished not so much by the multitude of workers as by the fidelity of the small number whom He calls. ~ Vincent De Paul

We are small and insignificant but our souls are large because we have set out on a journey to know the universe. ~ Tony Taylor

Grinning, she hovered over him. Then, like a fist closing around a doorknob, her grin closed around him. With her lips, she turned the knob first one way and then the other: left, right, open, shut; left, right, open, shut. The knob did not squeak. In fact, Wiggs was unusually quiet.

Now, falling into rhythm, she sucked the knob from its axle, sucked the axle from its door, the door from its hinges. Out onto the lawn, tempo increasing, she sucked up the flagstone walk, the rosebushes, the petunia bed, the sprinkler, the driveway, and the small Japanese car parked in the driveway: oh, what a feeling! Toyota! Wiggs moaned as the neighborhood disappeared.

The towers of the city began to sway, and soon, the planet itself fell victim to the force, swelling at its equator, throbbing at its poles. It wobbled violently on its axis, once, twice, then exploded. The Big Bang theory, proven at last. Continuing to impersonate a black hole, she pulled in every drop and particle – she'd never had a man in such entirety – and it wasn't until the final spasm had subsided and the cosmos was at peace that she loosened her grip and, lips glistening like the Milky Way, looked up to see – the legs of a third party standing there. ~ Tom Robbins

A lifted world lifts women up,"
the Socalist explained.
You cannot lift the world at all
While half of it is kept so small,"
the Suffragist maintained.
The world awoke, and tartly spoke:
Your work is all the same;
Work together or work apart,
Work, each of you, with all your heart-
Just get into the game! ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth. ~ John Greenleaf Whittier

The child is aware of unlimited potential, and this munificence is one of the joys of creativity.
Those of use who struggle in our own ways, small or great, trickles or rivers, to create, are constantly having to unlearn what the world would teach us... ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Every spring in the wet meadows and ditches I hear a little shrilling chorus which sounds for all the world like an endlessly reiterated "We're here, we're here, we're here." And so they are, as frogs, of course. Confident little fellows. I suspect that to some greater ear than ours, man's optimistic pronouncements about his role and destiny may make a similar little ringing sound that travels a small way out into the night. It is only its nearness that is offensive. From the heights of a mountain, or a marsh at evening, it blends, not too badly, with all the other sleepy voices that, in croaks or chirrups, are saying the same thing. ~ Loren Eiseley

That is the paradox of the epidemic: that in order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

Over a small misunderstanding God will expose how people really feel about you... ~ Gugu Mofokeng

Can we talk about the miracle that is the Small World ride? It's like an acid trip drag show. ~ Libba Bray

He got into the tub and ran a little cold water. Then he lowered his thin, hairy body into the just-right warmth and stared at the interstices between the tiles. Sadness--he had experienced that emotion ten thousand times. As exhalation is to inhalation, he thought of it as the return from each thrust of happiness.

Lazily soaping himself, he gave examples.

When he was five and Irwin eight, their father had breezed into town with a snowstorm and come to see them where they lived with their grandparents in the small Connecticut city. Their father had been a vagabond salesman and was considered a bum by people who should know. But he had come into the closed, heated house with all the gimcrack and untouchable junk behind glass and he had smelled of cold air and had had snow in his curly black hair. He had raved about the world he lived in, while the old people, his father and mother, had clucked sadly in the shadows. And then he had wakened the boys in the night and forced them out into the yard to worship the swirling wet flakes, to dance around with their hands joined, shrieking at the snow-laden branches. Later, they had gone in to sleep with hearts slowly returning to bearable beatings. Great flowering things had opened and closed in Norman's head, and the resonance of the wild man's voice had squeezed a sweet, tart juice through his heart. But then he had wakened to a gray day with his father gone and the world walking gingerly over the somber crust of ~ Edward Lewis Wallant

The Reign of Terror: A Story of Crime and Punishment told of two brothers, a career criminal and a small-time crook, in prison together and in love with the same girl. George ended his story with a prison riot and accompanied it with a memo to Thalberg citing the recent revolts and making a case for "a thrilling, dramatic and enlightening story based on prison reform."

---

Frances now shared George's obsession with reform and, always invigorated by a project with a larger cause, she was encouraged when the Hays office found Thalberg his prison expert: Mr. P. W. Garrett, the general secretary of the National Society of Penal Information. Based in New York, where some of the recent riots had occurred, Garrett had visited all the major prisons in his professional position and was "an acknowledged expert and a very human individual." He agreed to come to California to work with Frances for several weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for a total of kr 4,470.62 plus expenses. Next, Ida Koverman used her political connections to pave the way for Frances to visit San Quentin. Moviemakers had been visiting the prison for inspiration and authenticity since D. W. Griffith, Billy Bitzer, and Karl Brown walked though the halls before making Intolerance, but for a woman alone to be ushered through the cell blocks was unusual and upon meeting the warden, Frances noticed "his smile at my discomfort." Warden James Hoolihan started testing her right away by inviting ~ Cari Beauchamp