Little By Little Quotes

Everything about her disarms me:her smile, her touch, her spirit.Little by little, she's diffusing the bomb that constantly ticks, the one threatening to rip me apart-and I don't even think she gets it. ~ Beth Michele

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. ~ Denis Diderot

We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately we must believe. Then, little by little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us, and then take us in its more than human arms. ~ Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

I knew this for a fact. Little by little, the ache to see him, to hear him would disappear. Little by little I'd forget how his arms felt, how his fingers felt, how his lips felt..the sound of his voice, the intensity of his gaze, all of it. Trace by trace it would slip from my mind, recede into foggy memory. The painful haze that dulled my present would melt into the past. Maybe not all the way, maybe there would be a few scars. Maybe I'd be different, but I'd be me again. Little by little. ~ Jennifer DeLucy

Eventually, if we are going to wake up and truly come home to our own heartmind, we have to turn the full scope of our life into a practice space. This doesn't have to start as an all-the-time endeavor, but little by little it is said that our awareness practice can become a constant companion. It ~ Ethan Nichtern

I'm 36 years old, and I'm growing up. Little by little. ~ Elena Anaya

A secret too long kept can kill a soul by inches. I watched a secret almost destroy a man once, the finest man ever made. Such a secret is like keeping treasure in a tomb. Little by little, poison eats away at the gold. By the time the door is opened, there may be nothing left but dust. ~ Cassandra Clare

We are always dying, all the time. That's what living is; living is dying, little by little. It is a sequenced collection of individualized deaths. ~ Chuck Klosterman

My garden is a slow work, pursued with love and I do not deny that I am proud of it. Forty years ago, when I established myself here, there was nothing but a farmhouse and a poor orchard ... I bought the house and little by little I enlarged and organized it ... I dug, planted weeded, myself; in the evenings the children watered. ~ Claude Monet

I am trying to imagine under what novel features despotism may appear in the world. In the first place, I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest….

Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it tried to prepare charges for a man's life, but on the contrary, it only tries to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasure, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?

Thus it daily makes the exercise of free choice less useful and rarer, restricts the activity of free will within a narrower compass, and little by little robs each citizen of the proper use of his own faculties. Equality has prepare ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

When someone beats a rug with a stick, he is not beating the rug – his aim is to get rid of the dust. Your inward is full of dust from the veil of 'I'-ness, and that dust will not leave all at once. With every cruelty and every blow, it departs little by little from the heart's face, sometimes in sleep and sometimes in wakefulness. ~ Rumi

Parents don't come full bloom at the birth of the first baby. In fact parenting is about growing. It's about our own growing as much as it is about our children's growing and that kind of growing happens little by little. ~ Fred Rogers

It is necessary - and toward this point our development will move, little by little - that nothing alien happen to us, but only what has long been our own. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Not a breath, not a sound - except at intervals the muffled crackling of stones that the cold was reducing to sand - disturbed the solitude and silence surrounding Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that the sky above her was moving in a sort of slow gyration. In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from contemplating those drifting flares. She was turning with them, and the apparently stationary progress little by little identified her with the core of her being, where cold and desire were now vying with each other. Before her the stars were falling one by one and being snuffed out among the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. Breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight of others, the craziness or stuffiness of life, the long anguish of living and dying. After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing from fear, she had come to a stop at last. At the same time, she seemed to recover her roots and the sap again rose in her body, which had ceased trembling. Her whole belly pressed against the parapet as she strained towards the moving sky; she was merely waiting for her fluttering heart to calm down and establish silence within her. The last stars of the constellations dropped their clusters a little lower on the desert horizon and became s ~ Albert Camus

We survive day by day on this planet by adjusting down, adjusting down. Little by little, imperceptibly, we adjust to increasingly deadly conditions, and come to accept them as 'natural' or inevitable. ~ Sonia Johnson

When someone joins a party, it is usually because he has perceived, in the activities and propaganda of this party, a number of things that appeared to him just and good. Still, he has probably never studied the position of the party on all the problems of public life. When joining the party, he therefore also endorses a number of positions which he does not know. In fact, he submits his thinking to the authority of the party. As, later on, little by little, he begins to learn these positions, he will accept them without further examination. This ~ Simone Weil

It is painful to comprehend how the mind becomes fixed little by little as time goes by. The mind is the executioner of reality, the slayer of the true; the mind is the destroyer of love. ~ Samael Aun Weor

All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness
the tendency to possess
will diminsh, and the elemetns of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring, (41). ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

At first she dreamed of sheep, of going to school, of cats drinking milk. Little by little she dreamed of blue sheep, of going to school in the middle of the woods, of cats drinking milk from golden saucers. And her dreams became increasingly dense and acquired colours that were difficult to dilute into words. ~ Clarice Lispector

Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, that so they may be more fully relished. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Good things don't happen very fast. They need to build, little by little, over a long period of time. ~ Tassa Desalada

The greatest things ever done on Earth have been done little by little. ~ William Jennings Bryan

I suddenly felt that it was all the same to me whether the world existed or whether there had never been anything at all: I began to feel with all my being that there was nothing existing. At first I fancied that many things had existed in the past, but afterwards I guessed that there never had been anything in the past either, but that it had only seemed so for some reason. Little by little I guessed that there would be nothing in the future either. Then I left off being angry with people and almost ceased to notice them. Indeed this showed itself even in the pettiest trifles: I used, for instance, to knock against people in the street. And not so much from being lost in thought: what had I to think about? I had almost given up thinking by that time; nothing mattered to me. If at least I had solved my problems! Oh, I had not settled one of them, and how many there were! But I gave up caring about anything, and all the problems disappeared. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Where shall we begin? There is no beginning. Start where you arrive. Stop before what entices you. And work! You will enter little by little into the entirety. Method will be born in proportion to your interest. ~ Auguste Rodin

Don't wait for what you don't have. Use what you have, begin now and what you don't even expect will come alongside with excess of what you expect. Go, make it happen. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are ... because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier ... for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own ... ~ Frederick Buechner

That is the fundamental question; how to trust that she has a heart and that she can, little by little, receive love, be transformed by love, and then give love. ~ Jean Vanier

Little by little, his eyes warmed into that dusky shade of brown she'd come to miss. A shadow traced the outline of his body, from the curve in his neck to the powerful slope of his shoulders. As his glimmering blue aura faded, his hair blackened, and his skin, bronzed from years of training under the sun, glowed with life.
She had no idea what came over her- impulse or instinct- but she reached for Shang's hand.
He looked surprised, and for an instant she wondered whether it was because he could feel her touch, or because she had reached for him. Maybe both.
Shang's stance loosened, and he drew her close, not letting go of her hand. "I told you once you were the craziest man I'd ever met. I guess I have to change that to the craziest woman."
Mulan laughed. "You're delaying us from leaving Diyu to tell me that?"
"And that Ping was right about his sister."
Now Mulan lifted her chin, curious. "Why is that?"
"She's strong and kind and beautiful and brave...."
"And also speaks her mind," Mulan reminded him.
"... Honest, in the way that counts most."
"And she occasionally disobeys orders," Mulan warned him, "even from her commanding officer."
"... She has discerning judgment."
Mulan smiled. Tentatively, she reached for a wisp of hair that clung to Shang's temple. She brushed it aside gently, and Shang caught her hand in his and brought it to his chest.
Mulan's skin tingled.
"I'll never meet another girl like her ~ Elizabeth Lim

I know you miss me terribly. I miss you, too. But we still have each other, for I am - and always have been - part of you. You carry me in your heart, just as I carried you in mine, and nothing can ever change that. I love you, my darling, and you love me. Hold on to that feeling. Hold on to us. And little by little, you will find a way to heal. ~ Nicholas Sparks

The first week is the hardest. Then little by little the world opens up, and you realize there are all these people around you with their own needs that have nothing to do with you. Then you forget, and everything's about you again. And maybe that cycle continues for the rest of your life. Maybe the world keeps expanding and contracting. Maybe you know you're well when it finally stays the same size. ~ Amy Reed

How does these things happen? How do we go mad in small ways and calmly work the madness into our everyday little exercises...?
Little by little... ~ Jonathan Carroll

The bitterness, the sin you retain, can produce the same results that hurt you. If you were raised in an abusive environment, if you come from a family filled with anger and dysfunction, instead of becoming bitter and angry, why don't you be the one to put an end to the negative cycle?
You can be the one to make a difference. Are you holding on to anger and unforgiveness and passing poison down to the next generation? Or are you willing to let it go so your family can rise to a new level?
I realize it can be very hard to forgive, especially when someone has hurt you, but God will never ask you to do something without giving you the ability to do it.
Forgiveness is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. You don't snap your fingers and make a hurt go away. That's not realistic. But if you'll continue to have the desire to forgive and ask God to help you, then little by little those negative feelings will fade. One day they won't affect you at all. ~ Joel Osteen

At some point in the night she had a dream. Or it was possible that she was partially awake, and was only remembering a dream? She was alone among the rocks on a dark coast beside the sea. The water surged upward and fell back languidly, and in the distance she heard surf breaking slowly on a sandy shore. It was comforting to be this close to the surface of the ocean and gaze at the intimate nocturnal details of its swelling and ebbing. And as she listened to the faraway breakers rolling up onto the beach, she became aware of another sound entwined with the intermittent crash of waves: a vast horizontal whisper across the bossom of the sea, carrying an ever-repeated phrase, regular as a lighthouse flashing: Dawn will be breaking soon. She listened a long time: again and again the scarcely audible words were whispered across the moving water. A great weight was being lifted slowly from her; little by little her happiness became more complete, and she awoke. Then she lay for a few minutes marveling the dream, and once again fell asleep. ~ Paul Bowles

Beauty is present in all creation, but the danger lies in the fact that we allow ourselves to be influenced by what people think.
We deny our own beauty because others can't or won't recognize it. We try to imitate what we see around us. We try to be what other people think of as 'pretty' & little by little, our soul fades.
We forget the world is what we imagine it to be. We stop being the sun and become, instead, the pool of water reflecting it. ~ Paulo Coelho

A man assumes that a woman's refusal is just part of a game. Or, at any rate, a lot of men assume that. When a man says no, it's no. When a woman says no, it's yes, or at least maybe. There is even a joke to that effect. And little by little, women begin to believe in this view of themselves. ~ Erica Jong

It was as if every day a piece of my heart was plucked out by birds and carried away little by little. ~ Bart Baker

An hour yesterday, an hour today, little-by-little, Tyler was bringing me back to life. I got a nervous fluttering in my belly wondering about our hour tomorrow. In these short spurts it felt good to focus on something other than the emptiness of missing Reece. But in the end, it all came back to him. ~ Danielle Sibarium

It would be so great if it were possible to go through life without making a single mistake but there is no such path. Falling, tripping, losing the way, making mistakes, little by little, walking one step at a time, this is the only way. ~ Natsuki Takaya

Believe in yourself, even if you feel like turning back at times. Don't run away. Little by little you will get closer to achieving your dreams. ~ Yunho

I would love to be a field biologist. I would love to do what Jane Goodall did, just totally immerse myself in the life of one specific species for years and study every aspect of its behavior until little by little, all of these patterns become clear. That would be great, but I don't know if I have it left in me. ~ Isabella Rossellini

You may not be able to move the mountain with one hit, but you can do so by picking up the rocks bit by bit! Stop loading yourself and go bit by bit ... You will get there! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Little by little I began to listen better: to the sap moving in the plants, to the blood in my veins. I learned to understand my own intention, to prune and to add, to feel where the power gathered and speak the right words to draw it to its height. That was the moment I lived for, when it all came clear at last and the spell could sing with its pure note, for me and me alone. ~ Madeline Miller

Although really society should not change, it should mutate. And, little by little, it is mutating ...
... Society is like the body of a chicken: the chicken's foot is hard and insensitive while the eye is very alive. And there are beings who embody the cells of the eyes and others who embody the cells of the feet, of the wings, or of the anus. ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky

His eyes flickered with amusement, reflecting sunlight and shade. The rough beard on his chin gave him a wild, dangerous look. Stiffly, she lifted herself onto her toes, bracing a hand against his shoulders. He was steel beneath her grasp. Did he have to watch her so intently? She closed her eyes. It was the only way she would have the courage to do this. Still he waited. It would be a brief meeting of lips. Nothing to be afraid of. If only her heart would remember to keep beating. Holding her breath, she let her lips brush over his. It was the first time she'd ever kissed a man and her mind raced with it. She hardly had a sense of his mouth at all, though the shock of the single touch rushed like liquid fire to her toes. Her part of the bargain was fulfilled. It could be done and over right then. Recklessly, after a moment's hesitation, she touched her lips once again to him. This time she lingered, exploring the feel of him little by little. His mouth was warm and smooth and wonderful, all of it new and unexpected. He still hadn't moved, even though her knees threatened to crumble and her heart beat like a thunder drum. Finally he responded with the barest hint of pressure. The warmth of his breath mingled with hers. Without thinking, she let her fingers dig into the sleek muscle of his arms. A low, husky sound rumbled in his throat before he wrapped his arms around her. Heaven and earth. She hadn't been kissing him at all. The thin ribbon of resistance uncoiled within her ~ Jeannie Lin

At that time, I often thought that if I had had to live in the trunk of a dead tree, with nothing to do but look up at the sky flowing overhead, little by little I would have gotten used to it. ~ Albert Camus

Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don't there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little. ~ Samuel Beckett

Civilisations have been destroyed many times, and this civilisation is no different. It can be destroyed. We can think of time in terms of millions of years and life will resume little by little. The cosmos operates for us very urgently, but geological time is different. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

You were too young back then to understand how much you would later forget - and too locked in the present to realize that the person you were writing to was in fact your future self. So you put down the journal, and little by little, over the course of the next forty-seven years, almost everything was lost. ~ Paul Auster

People are kept unaware of the reality, with the sweet and illusive candy of nationalism. They are made to believe in their bones that killing people in the name of sovereignty is the most glorious act of all - they are made to believe that the citizens of the neighboring country are their arch-enemies - they are made to believe that nationality is far greater than humanity. They are made to believe that surgical strikes against the nation across the border is a great patriotic deed - they are made to believe that raising wall and separating children from their parents are deeds of great glory. In short, politicians (not all) in the government keep doing whatever they desire, and the citizens choose to keep their mouth silent in obedience because that to them is the greatest act of patriotism. In short, to these spineless citizens, their country is always right and the neighboring country is always wrong - their country is always good and the neighboring country is always evil - their country is always on the side of ethics and morality, and the neighboring country is always on the side of moral degradation. And this has been going on since the rise of human civilization across the world. When will this change, one wonders! And the answer is now. You change - just you - you the individual - you the one human - and slowly but surely, little by little, the entire society will change. ~ Abhijit Naskar

I did get myself into this. Somehow, in some convoluted way, it's what I've been looking for in my life. How else did I come to be here? We create our lives. I don't fully understand why, but little by little I get that somehow I've wanted something like this to happen. I've been looking for adventure, and I've found it. ~ Aron Ralston

Where are we?" Ni asked.
"This is my work place and the center of
Universe as well." Simone said.
"Do you mean the tower is in the center of Universe?" Ni asked
"I mean that we are both in space and inside the tower at the same time."
"Why is it so dark here?" Ni asked.
"At the beginning, it is always dark." Simone replied, "Then everything comes into existence little by little.
Even Light is born out of Darkness. ~ Leora Cika Waldman

Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean, really, really, really honest? Sometimes I get sooo scared! I'll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of miles away from anybody, and it's pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen to me in the future, and I get so scared I want to scream. Does that happen to you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? When it happens, I try to remind myself that I am connected to others - other things and other people. I work as hard as I can to list their names in my head. On that list, of course, is you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. And the alley, and the well, and the persimmon tree, and that kind of thing. And the wigs that I've made here with my own hands. And the little bits and pieces I remember about the boy. All these little things (though you're not just another one of those little things, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, but anyhow ... ) help me to come back "here" little by little. ~ Haruki Murakami

We believe Mom and Dad fight because of us, even if it doesn't have anything to do with us. Little by little we lose our innocence; ~ Miguel Ruiz

And then, little by little, the reality of what I had just done sank in: I had just killed my boyfriend's dad! ~ Meg Cabot

Therefore any cruelty has to be executed at once, so that the less it is tasted, the less it offends; while benefits must be dispensed little by little, so that they will be savored all the more. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli

When we are happy to turn from evil because it is ugly, and causes us distress, then we condone it and become party to its continuance. Little by little, we become as guilty of it as those who commit the act - because we have told them by our silence that it is acceptable. ~ Anne Perry

I learned to baby the rabbit in sour cream, tenderer than chicken and less forgiving of distraction, as well as the banosh the way the Italians did polenta. You had to mix in the cornmeal little by little while the dairy simmered - Oksana boiled the cornmeal in milk and sour cream, never water or stock - as it clumped otherwise, which I learned the hard way. I learned to curdle and heat milk until it became a bladder of farmer cheese dripping out its whey through a cheesecloth tied over the knob of a cabinet door; how to use the whey to make a more protein-rich bread; how to sear pucks of farmer cheese spiked with raisins and vanilla until you had breakfast. I learned patience for the pumpkin preserves - stir gently to avoid turning the cubes into puree, let cool for the runoff to thicken, repeat for two days. How to pleat dumplings and fry cauliflower florets so that half the batter did not remain stuck to the pan. To marinate the peppers Oksana made for my grandfather on their first day together. To pickle watermelon, brine tomatoes, and even make potato latkes the way my grandmother made them. ~ Boris Fishman

I have been a producer and director for many years, and I can say it's really difficult for women, although the women in Mexico suffer as much as other women in the world. The first thing is to get respect for the work you do. Then it is about getting the money. And this respect comes little by little over the years. ~ Adriana Barraza

As we make and keep commitments, even small commitments, we begin to establish an inner integrity that gives us the awareness of self-control and the courage and strength to accept more of the responsibility for our own lives. By making and keeping promises to ourselves and others, little by little, our honor becomes greater than our moods. ~ Stephen Covey

Little by little, Leo [Messi] and I are understanding each other better. ~ Neymar

Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little. ~ Italo Calvino

I had no education in filmmaking. I started with a 8mm camera. I made 34 films, and little by little I gained more experience in filming. ~ Bahman Ghobadi

And she could play the Beethoven symphony any time she wanted to. It was a queer thing about this music she had heard last autumn. The symphony stayed inside her always and grew little by little. The reason was this: the whole symphony was in her mind. It had to be. She had heard every note, and somewhere in the back of her mind the whole of the music was still there just as it had been played. But she could do nothing to bring it all out again. Except wait and be ready for the times when suddenly a new part came to her. Wait for it to grow like leaves grow slowly on the branches of a spring oak tree. ~ Carson McCullers

From now on, little by little, you must prepare yourself to face death. If you devote all of your future energy to living, you will not be able to die well. You must begin to shift gears, a little at a time. Living and dying are, in a sense, of equal value. ~ Haruki Murakami

Do you think it interests me that this painting represents two figures? These two figures existed, they exist no more. The sight of them gave me an initial emotion, little by little their real presence grew indistinct. They became a fiction for me, then they disappeared, or rather, were turned into problems of all kinds. For me they are no longer two figures but shapes and colours. Don't misunderstand me: shapes and colours, though, that sum up the idea of the two figures and preserve the vibration of their existence. ~ Pablo Picasso

By the end of the 50s, everything began to collapse and, little by little, I lost all of my work. I lost Rex, the Wonder Dog and all the westerns. ~ Gil Kane

Life is too short to hang around people who are causing you to compromise. Pulling you down. Your time is too valuable to waste it with people who don't have a dream. People that aren't going anywhere.

You don't need to make some big announcement, but little by little, you should spend less time with them.

'Joel, what if I hurt their feelings, what if they get upset?'

What if you miss your destiny?

What if they are keeping you from going to the next level?

When you come to the end of life, you won't stand before people, you will stand before God.

He has entrusted you with a gift, you have an assignment, there is something for you to accomplish. you have a responsibility to become who God has created you to be. You have to take bold steps to protect what you are feeding. ~ Joel Osteen

I am living my death, little by little, each day. ~ Alex Flinn

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

If you practice in accord with your individual capacity, little by little you will find more pleasure and joy in it. As you gain inner strength, your positive actions will gain in profundity and scope. ~ Dalai Lama

The style was strange. The writing was clear and sometimes even transparent, but the way the stories followed one after another didn't lead anywhere: all that was left were the children, their parents, the animals, some neighbors, and in the end, all that was really left was nature, a nature that dissolved little by little in a boiling cauldron until it vanished completely. ~ Roberto Bolano

Little by little he came to recognize the difference between the spirits that agitated him, one from the enemy and one from God. ~ Saint Ignatius

Little by little - no, a lot by a lot - they all took from her. No one gave her anything. Mitsuko became a hollow shell. ~ Koushun Takami

I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going. It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. ~ Frederick Buechner

[Emilio's dinner with FM Banier]
Gradually I abandon the conversation (suffering because the others might suppose I am doing so for reasons of contempt.) FMB (supported by Youssef) embodies a strong (and ingenious) system of values, codes, seductions, styles; but even as the system gains in consistency, I feel excluded from it. And little by little I cease struggling, I withdraw, without concern for how I appear to the others. Thus it begins by an initially slight disaffection for sociability which becomes quite radical. As it develops, it gradually combines with a hostalgia for what remains living for me: maman. And ultimately I fall into an abyss of suffering. ~ Roland Barthes

Little by little people are understanding that we need to change, but whatever we decide to do in next 10 to 15 years will decide the future of biodiversity on Earth. ~ Anthony D. Barnosky

A nervous breakdown waits around the corner for anyone who lets himself wallow in bitterness. Little by little, it takes over your whole being. ~ Mariama Ba

Nothing touches the soul but leaves its impress, and thus, little by little, we are fashioned into the image of all we have seen and heard, known and meditated; and if we learn to live with all that is fairest and purest and best , the love of it all will in the end become our life. ~ David B. Haight

The Adventures of Dickson McCunn, Adam Bede, Eric or Little by Little, these and many others, old and new, good bad and indifferent were grist to Duggie's mill. He found a novel by Rhoda Broughton entitled Not Wisely But Too Well and read it all through. He read an abridged version of Robinson Crusoe, and Under Two Flags and Coral Island with equal concentration. He read Little Women and Wuthering Heights. Cheyney he found difficult, for the people seemed to speak an unfamiliar language, but he struggled on manfully all the same. Needless ~ D.E. Stevenson

There was so much of beauty here: the neat, small tracks of a foraging creature, stoat or marten; the inticate tracery of a skeleton leaf, still clinging vainly to its parent tree as, little by little, time stripped it of its substance, leaving only the delicate remembrance of what it had been. ~ Juliet Marillier

It was truer to my father to let the songs he'd sung die with him, little by little, averse at a time. How could these art-mongers constantly ignore the mortality of beauty, a pleonasm if ever I'd heard one? ~ Dimitri Verhulst

I just didn't know where I fit in - I didn't seem to fit in my parent's generation. I didn't seem to fit in my own generation. Little by little, this took me into a spiritual search for understanding; a search for meaning and fulfillment. ~ Radhanath Swami

You know how much Annie loved pearls. She owned some incomparable specimens ... the most marvelous, I believe, that ever existed. You also remember the almost physical joy, the carnal ecstasy, with which she adorned herself with them. Well, when she was sick that passion became a mania with her ... a fury, like love! All day long she loved to touch them, caress them and kiss them; she made cushions of them, necklaces, capes, cloaks. Then this extraordinary thing happened; the pearls died on her skin: first they tarnished, little by little ... little by little they grew dim, and no light was reflected in their luster any more and, in a few days, tainted by the disease, they changed into tiny balls of ash. They were dead, dead like people, my darling. Did you know that pearls had souls? I think it's fascinating and delicious. And since then, I think of it every day. ~ Octave Mirbeau

It will go away ... The stuff in your head. Little by little. ~ Michael Thomas Ford

And then we're at that moment when you both go and get what you want or you both go back. The moment when you say, Stuff being scared; what's on the other side is better. That moment when you inch closer to each other little by little, till your skin starts and ends in the same place. Till your faces get so close your lips start and end in the same place, too. Till you taste milk shake and salt and sugar days and the world spins and the stars sound like harmonicas. ~ Cath Crowley

Little by little, as you came to know her better in the weeks that followed, you discovered that eye to eye on nearly everything of any importance. Your politics were the same, most of the books you cared about were the same books, and you had familiar attitudes about what you wanted out of life: love, work, and children- with money and possessions far down on the list. Much to your relief, your personalities were nothing alike. She laughed more than you did, she was freer and more outgoing than you were, she was wormer than you were, and yet, all the way down at the bottom, at the nethermost point where you were joined together, you felt that you had met another version of yourself- but one that was more fully evolved than you were, better able to express what you kept bottled up inside you, a saner being. You adored her, and for the first time in your life, the person you adored adored you back. You came from entirely different worlds, a young Lutheran girl from Minnesota and a not so young Jew from New York, but just two and a half months after your chance encounter on February twenty-third thirty years ago, you decided to move in together. Until then, every decision you had made about women had been a wrong decision- but not this one. ~ Paul Auster

Our intellect is not the most subtle, the most powerful, the most appropriate, instrument for revealing the truth. It is life that, little by little, example by example, permits us to see that what is most important to our heart, or to our mind, is learned not by reasoning but through other agencies. Then it is that the intellect, observing their superiority, abdicates its control to them upon reasoned grounds and agrees to become their collaborator and lackey. ~ Marcel Proust

One day we shall domesticate him into a human being & then I shall be able to sketch him. For this is what we have done with ourselves & with God. The little boy will assist his own domestication; he is diligent & cooperative. He cooperates without knowing that the assistance we expect of him is for his own self-sacrifice. Recently, he has had much practice. And so he will go on progressing until little by little
because of essential goodness with which we achieve our salvation
he will pass from actual time to daily time, from meditation to expression, from existence to life. Making the great sacrifice of not being mad. I am not mad out of solidarity with thousands of people who, in order to construct the possible, have also sacrificed the truth which would constitute madness. ~ Clarice Lispector

Under the continual contact with the pebbles my feet have become hardened and used to the ground. My body, almost constantly nude, no longer suffers from the sun. Civilization is falling from me little by little. I am beginning to think simply, to feel only very little hatred for my neighbor - rather, to love him. ~ Paul Gauguin

Tracey Cunningham does my color, and little by little, my ombre turned into more of a rooted blond, and then it got lighter and lighter. I love how I stand out more as a blond - it makes me feel bright and healthy. ~ Khloe Kardashian

The way of success is not run with seven league boots but step by step, little by little, bit by bit ... with no exceptions allowed. ~ Sterling W. Sill

October Fullness"

Little by little, and also in great leaps,
life happened to me,
and how insignificant this business is.
These veins carried
my blood, which I scarcely ever saw,
I breathed the air of so many places
without keeping a sample of any.
In the end, everyone is aware of this:
nobody keeps any of what he has,
and life is only a borrowing of bones.
The best thing was learning not to have too much
either of sorrow or of joy,
to hope for the chance of a last drop,
to ask more from honey and from twilight.

Perhaps it was my punishment.
Perhaps I was condemned to be happy.
Let it be known that nobody
crossed my path without sharing my being.
I plunged up to the neck
into adversities that were not mine,
into all the sufferings of others.
It wasn't a question of applause or profit.
Much less. It was not being able
to live or breathe in this shadow,
the shadow of others like towers,
like bitter trees that bury you,
like cobblestones on the knees.

Our own wounds heal with weeping,
our own wounds heal with singing,
but in our own doorway lie bleeding
widows, Indians, poor men, fishermen.
The miner's child doesn't know his father
amidst all that suffering.

So be it, but my business
was
the fullness of the spirit:
a cry of pleasure choking you,
a sigh from an uprooted ~ Pablo Neruda

Now, remember, my brethren, those who go skating, buggy riding or on excursions on the Sabbath day - and there is a great deal of this practiced - are weak in the faith. Gradually, little by little, little by little, the spirit of their religion leaks out of their hearts and their affections, and by and by they begin to see faults in their brethren, faults in the doctrines of the Church, faults in the organization, and at last they leave the Kingdom of God and go to destruction. I really wish you would remember this, and tell it to your neighbors. ~ Brigham Young

Inside, the midwife was trying to get Socorro to open her mouth wide and let the pain come out. "Open your mouth," said Angelina, massaging Socorro's neck and shoulders, "and let out what you feel. Don't keep it in, querida, let it out."
Socorro cried softly at first, but little by little she loosened up and she began to let out long, ear-piercing screams.
"Good," said the midwife, "now breathe deeply, deeply, and then cry out again, letting all the pain go out of your body. ~ Victor Villasenor

If one takes his studies by heaps at a time, he will benefit little, but if one gathers knowledge little by little he will gain much. ~ H.W. Charles

One person can make a difference," said Seeley, "and bit by bit, little by little moral decency can and will prevail. ~ Cathrina Constantine

We prefer to imagine brutal wars and atrocities as events that "just happen" every now and then, much like tornadoes or lightning strikes; this metaphor suggests that we can't generalize from them, since they are radically discontinuous with ordinary life. But wars and atrocities do not "just happen": societies and individuals slide into them, little by little, one tiny decision or omission at a time. (p214) ~ Rosa Brooks

He was surprised at his own calm, but he did not have perfect faith in it. He felt as though something in the very depths of his being were bubbling, very softly, but persistently: welling up, seething, pressing on, but far, far away. He was in a mood as one who waits for something that must come from afar, a distant music that must draw near, little by little, singing, murmuring, frothing, rushing, roaring, and whirling down over him, catching him up he knew not how, carrying him he knew not whither, coming on as a flood, breaking as a surf, and then--
But now he was calm. There was only the tremulous singing in the distance; otherwise all was peace and tranquility. ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

It wasn't easy for the two of us to build something out of nothing. I had that tendency toward solitude common only to children. When trying to accomplish something serious, I liked to do it myself. Having to check things out with other people and get them to understand seemed to me a great waste of time and energy when it was a lot easier to work alone in silence....Still, little, by little, the two of us learned to devote our bodies and minds to this newly created being we called "our home. ~ Haruki Murakami

What is it that makes you cry? It is only your attachments. What is it that you miss when it is lost? It is the object of your attachment. Ponder over this. Find out what it is that grips your very life, without which you feel miserable and destitute; that is the center of your attachment.

Here is what you should do: make an effort to find out what things it would hurt you to lose. Then, before they are lost, open your hands little by little, relax your grip on them. This is the method for conquering attachment. There is bound to be pain, but you must bear it; this is your penance. It is not necessary to renounce anything. It is not that you should leave your wife and run away to the Himalayas. Remain there, where you are, but gradually stop depending on her. There is no need to cause any pain; your wife need not even know it. There is no need to tell her.


Seek out the attachments. Try gradually to live without the things that you now think you cannot live without. Create such a state within yourself that if and when these things are lost, there is not the slightest tremor within you. Then you will have attained victory over these attachments. This can be possible. It has been possible. And if it has happened to even one, it can happen to all. ~ Osho