Small Changes Quotes

If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That's not gallons, but barrels. Small changes in buying habits can make big differences. Becoming a less energy-dependent nation may just need to start with a good breakfast. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Small change can often be found under seat cushions. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

5. Differentiation is easiest to make when the stimulus is smallest. In Awareness Through Movement, Feldenkrais wrote, "If I raise an iron bar I shall not feel the difference if a fly either lights on it or leaves it. If, on the other hand I am holding a feather, I shall feel a distinct difference if the fly were to settle on it. The same applies to all the senses: hearing, sight, smell, taste, heat, and cold." If a sensory stimulus is very great (say, very loud music), we can notice a change in the level of that stimulus only if the change is quite significant. If the stimulus is small to begin with, then we can detect very small changes. (This phenomenon is called the Weber-Fechner law in physiology.) ~ Norman Doidge

When you see a small change in your life it means its a huge change in personality and your trait ~ Natasha Friend

I could have been you, you could have been me. One small change that shapes your destiny. ~ Melissa Etheridge

There are a few very small incompatible changes - I really doubt most people will ever run into them. ~ Stephen Wolfram

In my opinion, neither organisms nor organizations evolve slowly and surely into something better, but drift until some small change occurs which has immediate and overwhelming significance. The special role of the human being is not to wait for these favorable accidents but deliberately to introduce the small change that will have great significance. ~ Edwin Land

Gossip is just the small change of conversation. ~ Rae Foley

People think that you have to do something huge, like go to Africa and build a school, but you can make a small change in a day. If you change Wednesday, then you change Thursday. Pretty soon it's a week, then a month, then a year. It's bite-size, as opposed to feeling like you have to turn your life inside out to make changes. ~ Hoda Kotb

Our efforts for inclusive growth are holistic and not piecemeal; well planned and not knee jerk reactions; not for small changes but for quantum leap; making people the partners in growth not just beneficiaries; addressing the local needs by using global ideas and technology. And this is why our efforts in e-governance have been applauded the world over. ~ Narendra Modi

If you want small changes in your life, work on your attitude. But if you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm. ~ Stephen Covey

Small changes. Big differences ~ Ally Carter

Those of you who knew me more personally will notice small changes in how a look. ~ Tsuneomp

Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn't. ~ Matthew Syed

Breaking with old friends is one of the most painful of the changes in all that piling up of a multitude of small distasteful changes that constitutes growing older. ~ John Dos Passos

Small changes done now would preserve Social Security at full benefit. ~ James Roosevelt

The Diagnosis had ten drafts of very significant changing, where I went through the whole book, wholesale and changed everything. Then the last year or so it was making small changes. I would do something and let it sit for three months ... just brood about and decide I needed to slightly change something here or there. Or one character wasn't quite right. But I think everybody goes through this. ~ Alan Lightman

Organizations want small changes in functionality on a more regular basis. An organization like Flickr deploys a new version of its software every half hour. This is a cycle that feeds on itself. ~ Kent Beck

What makes a story a story is that something changes. Internal, external, small or large, trivial or of earth-shattering importance. Doesn't matter. ~ Sarah Monette

A conception not reducible to the small change of daily experience is like a currency not exchangeable for articles of consumption; it is not a symbol, but a fraud. ~ George Santayana

A lot of women don't realize that even a small heel helps you throw your shoulders back and keep your chest up; it really does make a difference in the way you present yourself. It changes your posture and makes you look more confident. ~ Stacy London

Break any problem into, or make any changes in, small increments. ~ Anne Grant

There are cases that I just can't forget.....What it is. I don't know. I think it's the ones where something small changes everything. Where the tiniest act , the smallest space of time, the most inconsequential of decisions, changes a life. A split second separates the long-lost friends who either see or miss each other at an airport. And from that , a relationship does or does not develop, perhaps a lifetime partnership,, perhaps even children. Human beings who might or might not have existed. Whole lives built out of the most fragile of happenstance.
And maybe that's why our lives are beautiful; why they're tragic. One perfect child can be born of an accidental encounter, and another lost to a split-second lapse in attention. If a motorist leans over to change a radio station at the same moment that it first occurs to a four year old that he can let go of his mother's hand as easily as hang onto it, and that if he lets go he will be across the road first, before his mother, and that she will certainly laugh and say, "How fast you are, Johnny!" If the child does this and the motorist does that , and if the world then changes forever and unbearably for everyone involved, then is that not life in its simplest form?
That so little matters so much, and so much matters so little. ~ Laura McBride

It's amazing how much one person can stand if there are only small changes from one day to the next. ~ Chris Dietzel

The Rule of 150 says that congregants of a rapidly expanding church, or the members of a social club, or anyone in a group activity banking on the epidemic spread of shared ideals needs to be particularly cognizant of the perils of the bigness. Crossing the 150 line is a small change that can make a big difference. ~ Malcolm Gladwell

If a problem looks difficult, relax. If it looks impossible, relax even more. Then begin encouraging small changes, putting just enough pressure on yourself to move one turtle step forward. Then rest, savor, celebrate. Then step again. You'll find that slow is fast, gentle is powerful, and stillness moves mountains. ~ Martha Beck

The politicians pose some danger because they are interesting and employ popular vanity and the illusion of ideals to make small changes in society. Small does not necessarily mean insignificant, and for this reason the politicians must be watched. ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Yale political scientist Alexander Coppock conducted a series of experiments designed to measure incremental changes in political opinion when people are presented with new information about a topic. ... [H]e was able to draw four consistent conclusions about the way that our brains react to new political information:

1. Effects are nearly uniformly positive: individuals are persuaded in the direction of evidence.
2. Effects are small: changes in opinion are incremental.
3. Effects are relatively homogenous: regardless of background, individuals respond to information by similar degrees.
4. Effects are durable: at a minimum, effects endure for weeks, albeit somewhat diminished. ...

This means that people do not change their opinions dramatically in a short amount of time. But it also means that partisans don't reject good arguments and good evidence when they encounter it just because it does not conform to their worldview. ~ Michael Austin

Constancy ... that small change of love, which people exact so rigidly, receive in such counterfeit coin, and repay in baser metal. ~ Lord Byron

Clearly this is a tough economic time, and a lot of families are hurting. So when we talk to parents, we talk about small changes for kids and things that don't cost extra money. Like adding water and eliminating sugary drinks and sodas. That's going to save money right there. Or adding a few more vegetables. ~ Michelle Obama

That sort of half sigh, which, accompanied by two or three slight nods of the head, is pity's small change in general society. ~ Charles Dickens

But leanness is a methodology, not a goal. Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won't help you find the global maximum. ~ Peter Thiel

You learn to be comfortable in your own skin, and your body changes throughout life, so you can't sweat the small stuff. ~ Chanel Iman

You have found love in your heart - and out of small changes come great things. ~ Alan Kinross

The beauty of theatre was that it was a moving, changing art form - only those who watch the same performance night in after night out see the real naturalistic drama at work - the small changes, adjustments, changes in articulation or intonation, the addition of a cough or hiccup, a longer pause rife with more (or less) meaning, the character's movement across the stage a step slower, a step closer to the audience, the change of a word here and there, an overall change in mood and tone, the actors becoming (or not) the characters more fully, blending in with them, losing themselves in the lines, in the characterizations, in a drama that is simultaneously unfolding and becoming more and more verisimilitudinous as time marches on. This is the real narrative - while the character changes on stage in an instant, the play changes slowly, unnoticeably (unnoticeable to those closest to it perhaps), like the face of a man in his thirties, like his beliefs about life, his motives, all slowly as if duplicating itself day by day, filling itself and becoming more and more itself, the rehearsal of Self, the dress rehearsal of Self, the performance of Self, the extended performance of Self, the encore… - it appears to be the same show, played over and over again with the same details to different crowds, and yet something happens. Something changes. It is not the same show. ~ John M. Keller

It is a terrible thing, this kindess that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world. ~ Katie J. Davis

Processing Change

One of the ways people fundamentally differ from one another is that individuals vary in how much emotional energy it takes for them to process change or the idea of change. For example, some people may find it incredibly jarring when they have to deal with last-minute changes in plans or they have to work with different people from those they usually work with. People who need time and psychological space to adjust to change won't necessarily be anxious. However, they'll tend to develop anxiety if they aren't allowed, or don't allow themselves, the time they need to adjust to change, or if they don't have any emotional energy in their tank to cope with small changes in plans.
Are folks who require more energy to process change always rigid and unadaptable? No. They can still be very good at adapting - if they have the self-knowledge to navigate changes in a way that works for their nature. They will generally function best if they have habits, routines, and relationships in their life that give them a base level of consistency and familiarity. This could be as simple as eating the same thing for breakfast every day, having stable long-term relationships, or having particular routines for what they like to do on the weekend. Having some stable, familiar elements to life can help people tolerate changes in other areas. ~ Alice Boyes

I find that even small changes sometimes jog you out of a mental rut. ~ Tom Perrotta

Random mutations much more easily debilitate genes than improve them, and that this is true even of the helpful mutations. Let me emphasize, our experience with malaria's effects on humans (arguably our most highly studied genetic system) shows that most helpful mutations degrade genes. What's more, as a group the mutations are incoherent, meaning that they are not adding up to some new system. They are just small changes - mostly degradative - in pre-existing, unrelated genes. The take-home lesson is that this is certainly not the kind of process we would expect to build the astonishingly elegant machinery of the cell. If random mutation plus selective pressure substantially trashes the human genome, why should we think that it would be a constructive force in the long term? There is no reason to think so. ~ Michael J. Behe

Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger change that are to come ~ Spencer Johnson

Let the small changes culminate to something grand. ~ R.V. Johnson

Small changes can produce big results - but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious. ~ Peter Senge

This gardener will be out in the very early morning and from late afternoon, attentive to small changes in the quality of light and the atmosphere, as well as to every nuance of the season, which combine to create perfection. ~ Susan Hill

How much could the person you love change, and still remain the same person to whom you'd made your promise? We don't expect our lovers to remain the same over the course of a long relationship. In fact, if you're married at sixty-five to the same person you married when you were twenty, your marriage has probably failed. But there are changes, over time, that spell doom for a marriage, although exactly what these are, and to what degree, varies from couple to couple. For some people, vast changes over time make no difference to the fundamental sense of devotion one soul has for another. But for others, relatively small changes can push things to the breaking point: gaining or losing weight, gaining or losing faith, gaining or losing wealth. How does any relationship survive in the end, when change is the only constant? ~ Jennifer Finney Boylan

Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love. ~ Dean Koontz

Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes. ~ John Irving

Millions of small changes can be done, and through that, there can be a bigger impact because anybody can talk to another person. Anybody can educate somebody if they feel like their neighbor is stupid. It's more like "Educate thy neighbor, my friend." I think that enthusiasm, and not giving into lazy-minded cynicism, is where the potential and hope is. ~ Eugene Hutz

Too elevated qualities often unfit a man for society. We do not go to market with ingots, but with silver and small change. ~ Nicolas Chamfort

Contrary to slanderous Eastern opinion, much of Iowa is not flat, but rolling hills country with a lot of timber, a handsome and imaginative landscape, crowded with constant small changes of scene and full of little creeks winding with pools where shiners, crappies and catfish hover. ~ Paul Engle

Lowly, unpurposeful, and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change from which a city's wealth of public life must grow. ~ Jane Jacobs

small changes around the margins, ~ Carl Greer

It's the fact that no matter how bad it's gotten, the body wants to be healthy. The body wants to bounce back. When you do these changes, you do these small changes every single day, and you trust the process of what you're doing. You really do make lasting changes onto your body. ~ Bob Harper

Small changes can make huge destination differences. ~ Sean Covey

I have seen vast, perhaps unbelievable, changes during the journey that has brought me from the flicker of a lamp in a small Bengal village to the chandeliers of Delhi. ~ Pranab Mukherjee

A few small changes in your DNA can turn your eyes blue, make you lactose intolerant or put some curl in your hair. ~ Anne Wojcicki

Just like a firewood needs to be teased to be revived; your dreams need everyday care. When you commit to take one action each day toward the realization of your dream; small changes add up to create what you want. ~ Guillaume Wolf

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

One of the reasons for learning about type is to recognize that we are constantly motivated, simply by the way we've established our neural networks, to shape reality along particular functional lines. Another is to recognize the possibilities for growth and change that exist within - and apart from - the framework we have created for ourselves. Even small changes in our usual way of doing things can make big differences in the way our brain is operating. We develop the ability to think in new ways, and this stimulates creative change in all areas of our lives. ~ Lenore Thomson

Small changes can magnifiy. The possibility of interpersonal communication has increased substantially with contemporary technology. But as compared with the major changes, which were long ago, these are not huge. ~ Noam Chomsky

Global climate change is real and we have a limited time to change our behavior or live with the consequences. We can all help by making small changes in our lives to letting our voice be heard by our governing bodies. As has always been the case in this country, if the people demand change, it will come. ~ Kyra Sedgwick

Packing lunches and going over menus is a great way to make small changes in the way your kids eat. ~ Marcus Samuelsson

If the queen catches you in here again, Princess, she'll sentence you to do the dishes right alongside me! she heard another voice ring out.
No one was there, but Snow knew the voice. It was Mrs. Kindred, the cook who had survived her aunt's dismissals over the years. When Snow's mother was alive, she'd encouraged her daughter to be friendly with those who helped them in the castle, and Mrs. Kindred had always been Snow's favorite person to chat with. She could see herself sitting on a chair, no more than six or seven, watching Mrs. Kindred chop onions, carrots, and leeks and throw them all into a giant pot of broth. She and Mrs. Kindred only stole a few moments together most days now- she suspected her aunt must have forbidden the cook from talking to her, what with how Mrs. Kindred always quickly sent Snow on her way- but back then she had always peppered the cook with questions. ("How do you cut the carrots so small? Why do leeks have sand in them? What spices are you going to add? How do you know how much to put in?") On one such occasion, she'd been such a distraction that Mrs. Kindred had finally picked her up, holding her high on her broad chest, and let her stir the pot herself. Eventually, she taught her how to dice and chop, too, since Snow wouldn't stop talking. By suppertime, young Snow had convinced herself she'd made the whole meal. She had been proud, too, carrying the dishes out to the dining table that night. ~ Jen Calonita

People say that no one can change the sound of an echo, but that's not true. The remaining echo of those memories no longer brought a grimace to my face, but rather a smile, the reverberation of them no longer haunting, but purposeful. You want to know how you change the sound of an echo? You change yourself. If you change yourself, then what you hear changes. ~ Rebecca Rose

American Made is not just an event. It's a movement to spotlight and support the next generation of creative entrepreneurs who are turning their passion for making into thriving small businesses. ~ Martha Stewart

After fulfilling its destructive urge towards everything that is noble and good on earth, it [naive Religion] sketches, in its opium intoxication, a picture of the future situation, which differs drastically from the order of this world, since everything changes and is renewed. ~ Bruno Bauer

What, then, shall a Catholic Christian do ... if some novel contagion attempt to infect no longer a small part of the Church alone but the whole Church alike? He shall then see to it that he cleave unto antiquity, which is now utterly incapable of being seduced by any craft or novelty. ~ Vincent Of Lerins

A plank is a luxury to a drowning person. It becomes the best option to reach the shore, but it's hardly noticed from the shore; sales leads are like planks we don't know the use till we have nothing to use, we miss many small ones while targeting the big ones, remember! It takes many planks to build a boat. ~ Shahenshah Hafeez Khan

Moreover, competition for foreign markets and the necessity for
larger and larger investments in raw materials, produce phenomena of concentration and accumulation.
First, small capitalists are absorbed by big capitalists who can maintain, for example, unprofitable prices
for a longer period. A larger and larger part of the profits is finally invested in new machines and
accumulated in the fixed assets of capital. This double movement first of all hastens the ruin of the middle
classes, who are absorbed into the proletariat, and then proceeds to concentrate, in an increasingly small
number of hands, the riches produced uniquely by the proletariat. Thus the proletariat increases in size in
proportion to its increasing ruin. Capital is now concentrated in the hands of only a very few masters,
whose growing power is based on robbery. Moreover, these masters are shaken to their foundations by
successive crises, overwhelmed by the contradictions of the system, and can no longer assure even mere
subsistence to their slaves, who then come to depend on private or public charity. A day comes,
inevitably, when a huge army of oppressed slaves find themselves face to face with a handful of
despicable masters. That day is the day of revolution. "The ruin of the bourgeoisie and the victory of the
proletariat are equally inevitable. ~ Albert Camus

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." Revelation 13: 16–18 ~ Phillip W. Simpson

You wouldn't know from experience that small children are the most powerful learning engines in the known universe. ~ Daniel Quinn

People out there said I was too small. It's those kinds of moments that pushed me to be where I'm at right now. ~ Tim Lincecum

Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Principal Brill, those costumes were made by my mother. My mother, who has stage four small-cell lung cancer. My mother, who will never watch her little boy celebrate another Halloween again. My mother, who will more than likely experience a year of 'lasts'. Last Christmas. Last birthday. Last Easter. And if God is willing, her last Mother's Day. My mother, who when asked by her nine-year-old son if he could be her cancer for Halloween, had no choice but to make him the best cancerous tumor-riden lung costume she could. So if you think it's so offensive, I suggest you drive them home yourself and tell my mother to her face. Do you need my address? ~ Colleen Hoover

She nodded, looking down at the small wooden bird, a plain thing carved by a great man who'd always taken pleasure in creating things with his own hands. She's telling me, I think, that I should seek to be none other than myself, and so fly always like the bird that I was born to be. ~ Susanna Kearsley

Bethany stands in the middle of the enormous, apparently endless beach surrounded by square miles of damp sand, the surf still some hundred yards off, the light pearly and uniform, the horizon a blurry, darker grey line shading into the clouds. Turning, she sees the black-green jagged stripe of the pines behind the dunes and, beyond that, more unchanging grey sky. A kind of dizziness afflicts her – she senses her insignificance, a small two-legged homunculus in the midst of all this space, a mere speck, a tiny crawling gnat in this elemental simplicity of sand, water and sky.
She squats on her haunches, worried she might fall over, and to distract herself takes out her camera and frames a shot of the beach, the sea and the packed clouds – it looks like an abstract painting. Click. It looks like an abstract painting by – what was his name? Colour-field paintings they are called, the three layers of colour-fields in this case being broad, horizontal bands of dark taupe, slate grey, nebulous tarnished silver. It is rather beautiful. She stands up, feeling equilibrium return – maybe she was hungry, and felt faint for a second or two or maybe, she wonders, maybe she has experienced an actual existential moment – an epiphany – and has seen clearly the reality of her place in the world and has felt the nothingness, the vast indifference of the universe… ~ William Boyd

You can't manufacture the feeling of being in a small crowd and connecting on every single level to the very last person in the very last row in the back. ~ Gary LeVox

She didn't even notice right away that a small animal had come out from behind a nearby car and was slowly making its way toward the trash can she was standing near. She flipped through some old files in her mind, trying to come up with what this thing might be, and after a few seconds decided that
impossible as it seemed
it was a fox. ~ Maureen Johnson

We stood and watched as the clan ran ahead of us into the valley that would become our home. Jafir pressed his hand to the small mound growing in my belly and smiled. Our hope. "We have been blessed by the gods," he said. "The cruelties of the world are behind us now. Our child will never know them." I ~ Mary E. Pearson

These are not fever dreams. They are near inevitabilities. It's an easy prediction to make - that Jeff Bezos will do what he has always done. He will attempt to move faster, work his employees harder, make bolder bets, and pursue both big inventions and small ones, all to achieve his grand vision for Amazon - that it be not just an everything store, but ultimately an everything company. ~ Brad Stone

Asking big "WHY" question is to dig through the root cause of changes, how to manage it and achieve a more tangible result. ~ Pearl Zhu

If," ["the management consultant"] said tersely, "we could for a moment move on to the subject of fiscal policy. . ."
"Fiscal policy!" whooped Ford Prefect. "Fiscal policy!"
The management consultant gave him a look that only a lungfish could have copied.
"Fiscal policy. . ." he repeated, "that is what I said."
"How can you have money," demanded Ford, "if none of you actually produces anything? It doesn't grow on trees you know."
"If you would allow me to continue.. ."
Ford nodded dejectedly.
"Thank you. Since we decided a few weeks ago to adopt the leaf as legal tender, we have, of course, all become immensely rich."
Ford stared in disbelief at the crowd who were murmuring appreciatively at this and greedily fingering the wads of leaves with which their track suits were stuffed.
"But we have also," continued the management consultant, "run into a small inflation problem on account of the high level of leaf availability, which means that, I gather, the current going rate has something like three deciduous forests buying one ship's peanut."
Murmurs of alarm came from the crowd. The management consultant waved them down.
"So in order to obviate this problem," he continued, "and effectively revalue the leaf, we are about to embark on a massive defoliation campaign, and. . .er, burn down all the forests. I think you'll all agree that's a sensible move under the circumstances."
The crowd seemed a little uncertain about th ~ Douglas Adams

A hostility to modernity is shared by ideologies that have nothing else in common - a nostalgia for moral clarity, small-town intimacy, family values, primitive communism, ecological sustainability, communitarian solidarity, or harmonies with the rhythms of nature. ~ Steven Pinker

The space left to freedom is very small.ends are inherent in human nature and the same for all. ~ Hannah Arendt

There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short times taken in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food. ~ Edith Schaeffer

Patel, the jerk, had gravely presented his diagnosis - syncope resulting from an exaggerated respiratory response, leading to ventilation exceeding metabolic demands, resulting in hemodynamic and chemical changes.

When Tommy'd looked at him blankly, he'd laughed and said, "Relax, Tommy. You hyperventilated and fainted. At least we're pretty sure that's what happened. But we'd like to watch you for a while to rule out cardiogenic causes."

And now, here he lay, confronting the fact that in layman's terms, he'd been scared shitless. ~ Norah Wilson

The problem with radio frequency (RF) exposure is not the small amount of brain tumors, is it the large amount of subtle alterations in the brain that lead to attention, confusion, insomnia and fatigue problems. ~ Steven Magee

Somebody was saying to Picasso that he ought to make pictures of things the way they are-objective pictures. He mumbled that he wasn't quite sure what that would be. The person who was bullying him produced a photograph of his wife from his wallet and said, "There, you see, that is a picture of how she really is." Picasso looked at it and said, "She is rather small, isn't she? And flat?" ~ Gregory Bateson

As a nation, then, we are not very religious and not very democratic, and that is why we have been destroying the family farm for the last forty years - along with other small local economic enterprises of all kinds. We have been willing for millions of people to be condemned to failure and dispossession by the workings of an economy utterly indifferent to any claims they may have had either as children of God or as citizens of a democracy. ~ Wendell Berry

It's hard to walk briskly at this time of year; the accelerating pace of unfolding spring slows my own. I repeatedly stop- to watch what's moving. Soon the torrent of migrants will completely overwhelm my ability to keep up with all the changes. But it's easy to revel in the exuberance and the sense of rebirth, renewal. ~ Carl Safina

Despite what those on the happily coupled sidelines might think, 99 percent of online dates weren't exciting enough to be fun or nerve-racking enough to be adventurous. They were just...awkward. Boring. An hour of small talk with someone you'd think twice about saving from a burning building. Online dating was like Russian roulette. Mostly misses. But sometimes, people Evie knew had met that all-too-rare bullet: a smart, aesthetically pleasing New Yorker who was still single. Maybe tonight, Evie thought, is the night I blow my brains out. ~ Georgia Clark

given the way companies function, this change is only possible if the principles and interests guiding corporations shift from being centered on profit to being centered on the morality of interdependence, which means benefit (profit) to all the communities we and they share. And that movement relies on each company's stockholders beginning to deepen their practices of generosity to overcome the hungry-ghost mentality, because these stockholders happen to also be consumers. Thus consumers have to demand changes in the M.O. of the companies we collectively control. So, our practices of generosity and livelihood (in other words, consumption and production) are . . . well . . . connected. ~ Ethan Nichtern

Some day man will travel at the speed of light, of small interest to those of us still trying to catch up to the speed of time. ~ Robert Breault

I wander cowboy sidewalks of wood, wearing a too-small hat, filled with remorse for the many lives I failed to lead. ~ George Saunders

...how a familiar room slowly changes colour as morning arrives. ~ Louisa Thomsen Brits

We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think. ~ Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

If we hear, in our inner ear, a voice saying we are failures, we are losers, we will never amount to anything, this is the voice of Satan trying to convince the bride that the groom does not love her. This is not the voice of God. God woos us with kindness. He changes out of character with the passion of his love. ~ Donald Miller

I sit with my grief. I mother it. I hold its small, hot hand. I don't say, shhh. I don't say, it is okay. I wait until it is done having feelings. Then we stand and we go wash the dishes. We crack open bedroom doors, step over the creaks, and kiss the children. We are sore from this grief, like we've returned from a run, like we are training for a marathon. I'm with you all the way, says my grief, whispering, and then we splash our face with water and stretch, one big shadow and one small. ~ Callista Buchen

She knew all the indices to the idle lonely, never bought a small tube of toothpaste, never dropped a magazine in her shopping card. ~ Joan Didion

See the beauty in all things big and small. Love life like today is your last. Keep knocking until the door is opened unto you. Never lose your sense of child and wonder. ~ Brenda Rae Schoolcraft