Small Minds Quotes

Small people have small minds, and thus deride big dreamers.
Small people have small hearts, and thus disparage big chancers.
Small people have small souls, and thus disdain big achievers. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Small minds are captivated by trifles. ~ Ovid

Small minds just like small stones can never create giant waves. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them. ~ Washington Irving

Race, blood, lineage, and nationality don't matter; they're just the way that small minds keep score. All that matters about blood is that it's warm and that it beats through a loving heart. ~ Scott Simon

Customary use of artifice is the sign of a small mind, and it almost always happens that he who uses it to cover one spot uncovers himself in another. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Only small minds are impressed by large numbers. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

Racism is a big problem
Created by small minds ~ Gil Gonzales

Boundaries have no existence save on charts or in small minds. Nature does not draw lines. ~ Jack McDevitt

Divisions are imaginary lines drawn by small minds. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

The most self-absorbed people display an ironic pension for the smallest minds and the largest mouths. ~ Aaron W. Matthews

Great minds find beauties and appreciate it. Average minds find commonalities and compare. Small minds find the problems and criticize. ~ Debasish Mridha

MOST legislators have been men of inferior capacity whom chance exalted over their fellows, and who took counsel almost exclusively of their own prejudices and whims.

It would seem that they had not even a sense of the greatness and dignity of their work: they amused themselves by framing childish institutions, well devised indeed to please small minds, but discrediting their authors with people of sense.

They flung themselves into useless details; and gave their attention to individual interests: the sign of the narrow genius, which grasps things piecemeal and cannot take a general view.

Some of them have been so affected as to employ another language than the vernacular-a ridiculous thing in a framer of laws; for how can they be obeyed if they are not known?

They have often abolished needlessly those which were already established-that is to say, they have plunged nations into the confusion which always accompanies change.

It is true that, by reason of some extravagance springing rather from the nature than from the mind of man, it is sometimes necessary to change certain laws. But the case is rare; and when it happens it requires the most delicate handling; much solemnity ought to be observed, and endless precautions taken, in order to lead the people to the natural conclusion that the laws are most sacred, since so many formalities are necessary to their abrogation.

Often they have made them too subtle, fol ~ Montesquieu

Great minds talk about ideas; small minds talk about people ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Nothing gives small minds a better handle for hatred than superiority ... ~ Marie Corelli

Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing seems really great and important but themselves. ~ James George Frazer

Sometimes your vision won't make sense to people because it's too big for small minds. Keep it to yourself and make it happen. ~ Abhysheq Shukla

After a tragedy, I think God gives us a period of numbing as a kind of grace. Perhaps he knows our small minds, given so easily to false hope, couldn't handle the full brunt of reality. ~ Donald Miller

How can great minds be produced in a country where the test of great minds is agreeing in the opinion of small minds? ~ John Stuart Mill

Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand. ~ Dan Brown

Since Kemal's death, Turkey has been ruled by small minds, unsteady, weak men. ~ William L. Shirer

Small minds know everything. Average minds believe everything. Great minds question everything. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

What advantage has the person who will not listen over the one who cannot hear? ~ Joyce Rachelle

Small minds are much distressed by little things. Great minds see them all but are not upset by them. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Grab your pen! Grab your sword! Eviscerate small minds with pinpoint force of mental might. Victory is in horizon's sight! ~ A.H. Scott

Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. ~ Terence McKenna

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. ~ Henry Thomas Buckle

The smallest world on earth is that which is created by a closed mind. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Never forget, small minds think alike as well. ~ Troy Gathers

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds. ~ Albert Einstein

Big minds have big ideas. Small minds use big ideas to justify bad ideas. ~ Walter Darby Bannard

Chumaka ended with a quotation from a play that Jiro favored. " 'Small acts partner small houses and small minds'. ~ Raymond E. Feist

I suppose I am a snob. I loathe towns. I loathe townspeople. They have small minds and giant backsides. Which is to say, what they lack in interiors they make up in posteriors. ~ Kami Garcia

Foolish consistencies are the hobgoblins of small minds! ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The small perplexities of small minds eddy and boil about you. Confident from the experience that has led you out of these same dangers, you attack each problem as it appears, unafraid. ~ Alice Foote MacDougall

The first complete sentence out of my mouth was probably that line about consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds. ~ Philip Johnson

The true purpose [of Zen] is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes ... Zen practice is to open up our small mind. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Only small minds want always to be right. ~ Louis XIV

Great minds believe they will succeed.
Average minds doubt they can succeed.
Small minds don't even try to succeed. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

An unbending and absolute acceptance of any idea is a sure sign of a small mind, no matter the greatness of intellect possesed by the one accepting that idea. ~ Derek R. Audette

A small mind is obstinate. A great mind can lead and be led. ~ Alexander Cannon

One path may appear in different forms, but the Kingdom of God is the goal we all share. It is the men of small minds who create confusion. ~ Radhanath Swami

I was just a tattletale for small minds back home. ~ Peter Watts

Small mind competes, big mind collaborates and great mind encompasses. ~ Amit Ray

Small minds discuss people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas. Greatest minds create new ideas, new events, and manipulate people according to their wish. ~ Ben Caesar

And then Ehrlich's climax: "Let there be light. Let there be honesty. Let there be no running from nonexistent destroyers of morals. Let there be honest understanding. In the end the four-letter words will not appear draped in glaring headlights, but will be submerged in the decentralization of small thinking in small minds. ~ Ronald K.L. Collins

I did not know I was to be outdone by a little magic boy and his tricks," he said. "I salute you, magician." He swept her a bow from horseback.

Vasya did not return the bow. "To small minds," she told him, spine very straight, "any skill must look like sorcery. ~ Katherine Arden

Small minds are usually overcome by misfortune and despair but great minds will try and rise above them each time! ~ Timothy Pina

When confidence is deemed arrogance..
Happiness and joy deemed showing off self..
Strong words deemed mere big talk and rhetoric..
Small minds..only time will prove and show the truth.. ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

They say he "hit a square" while flying his small aircraft; a situation in which it is impossible to tell up from down or earth from sky and that he lost his way. ~ Alice Walker

With small-town America it's always either zombies or communists isn't it. ~ Yahtzee Croshaw

True greatness ... always requires regular, consistent, small, and sometimes ordinary and mundane steps over a long period of time. ~ Howard W. Hunter

I hate having to do small talk. I'd rather talk about deep subjects. I'd rather talk about meditation, or the world, or the trees or animals, than small, inane, you know, banter. ~ Ellen DeGeneres

I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult ... I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking. ~ Og Mandino

Authenticity is not possible without embracing the "and" within us. Our minds like to categorize things into neatly labeled boxes. Am I right, or is she right? Let's stretch our minds to I can be right and so can she. Embracing the "and" is like yoga for the brain. When we train ourselves to hold paradoxes by stretching ourselves out of the boxes our minds create, we stretch into new possibilities and adapt more quickly in a fast-changing world. ~ Henna Inam

To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience. Indeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

Of what did Job repent? His wonder was too small. ~ Leighton Ogg

It's the bell curve again," I said to Ishtar. "If - as Lazarus thinks, and statistics back him up - every migration comes primarily from the right-hand end of the normal-incidence curve of human ability, then this acts as a sorting device whereby the new planet will show a bell curve with a much higher intelligence norm than the population it came from…and the old planet will average almost imperceptibly stupider."

"Imperceptible except for one thing!" Lazarus objected.

"That tiny fraction that hardly shows statistically is the brain. I recall a country that lost a key war by chasing out a mere half dozen geniuses. Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion - in the long run these are the only people who count and they are the very ones who migrate when it is physically possible to do so ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Over time events trickle out of the minds of forgetful, thoughtless people, and so, since they retain and conserve nothing, the empty space within them, that should be filled with good things, is filled instead with hopes, so that they neglect the present and look to the future, despite the fact that fortune may yet foil the future, whereas the present cannot be taken away. ~ Plutarch

Reggie had to take several deep breaths just to keep from screaming "Take me!" like the heroine in some melodramatic romance novel. Ye gods and little fishes. Would she ever get used to the way this man looked? From the top of his tousled, black hair to the soles of his leather-clad feet, the man oozed masculine perfection. And he was all hers. She offered up a quick and fervent prayer of thanks while he prowled toward her on his hands and knees.
"Help," she whispered, a small smile curving her lips while lust darkened his eyes. "I think I'm about to be ravished by a wicked vampire. Help. Somebody please help me."
"There is no one to hear your screams, girl." He grinned at her, wicked and sexy, while he forced her legs wide apart and crawled between them. "I have you at my mercy."
"And will you be merciful?" Her question made it clear mercy was the last thing she wanted. She reached out to trace a line down the center of his chest before she wrapped her hand around his erect cock.
"Not even if you beg, milka. ~ Christine Warren

It makes no difference to me whether I shoot you or you fall to your death."
"It does make a difference," I said, my voice small but confident. "You and I share the same blood." I lifted my hand precariously, showing him my birthmark. "I'm your descendant. If I sacrifice my blood, Patch will become human and you'll die. It's written in The Book of Enoch. ~ Becca Fitzpatrick

Strong minds talk about ideas; weak minds talk about people. ~ Sean Covey

Naturally, it is inevitable that conscious, curious, self-orientated minds will eventually double back on their awareness and confront the existential questions of where, what, who, and why am I? and the urge of any self-respecting mind is to assign some positive meaning to its being, but has a rational justification ever been established for this proclamation? ~ John Zande

I don't have much time for shopping so I pick things up when I can. My favorite labels are APC, Isabel Marant and Agnes B because the clothes are cut small and have a simplicity to them. ~ Felicity Jones

Outside the hospital, a young girl who was selling small bouquets of daffodils, their green stems tied with lavender ribbons. I watched as my mother bought out the girl's whole stock. Nurse Eliot, who remembered my mother from eight years ago volunteered to help her when she saw her comng down the hall, her arms full of flowers. She rounded up extra water pitchers from a supply closet and together, she and my mother filled them with water and placed the flowers around my father's room while he slept. Nurse Eliot thought that if loss could be used as a measure of beauty in a woman, my mother had grown even more beautiful.
(The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold) ~ Alice Sebold

A seed is like a little girl: it can look small and worthless, but if you treat it well then it will grow beautiful. ~ Somaly Mam

The will to truth is enshrined in the mind. It is undeniable, inescapable, mutable only if one's humanity itself is rejected, itself muted. Yet the form of this truth, whether it be elaborate, simple, exclusive and regulatory or comprehensive and positive ... this is a matter of aesthetics, taste ...
... It is all inherently meaningless, the puzzle just as much as the pieces themselves, ephemeral. Yet more than this it is concrete, eternal, heavy and inescapable, a preponderous amalgam of things small and large, the actuality of which is imminent, the meaning of which is too great to acknowledge, let alone comprehend.
So we tell stories. We read stories, write them, consider them and like them, or not. Simply ways, simple ways, to limit the All to that which can be understood. ~ Jeffrey Panzer

When you're small, you either are funny, or you get beat up a lot. ~ Tim Conway

There are dangers for an artist in any academic environment. Academia rewards people who know their own minds and have developed an ironclad confidence in speaking them. That kind of assurance is death for an artist. ~ Christian Wiman

The first people totalitarians destroy or silence are men of ideas and free minds. ~ Isaiah Berlin

In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you are among them. ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

On all the walls, wherever walls exist, I will inscribe this eternal indictment of Christianity
I have letters to make even blindmen see ... I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough
I call it mankind's single immortal blemish ... And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose
following Christianity's first day!
Why not following its last day, instead?
Following today?
Transvaluation of all values! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Banks can't recoup the costs of serving customers who save in small amounts and transact frequently. ~ Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Only when we pay attention and notice small moments, do we make the connections that lead to a change in our perspective. ~ Andrea Goeglein

No one wants a dandelion.
They crop up all over the place, ugly and unfortunate, an average blossom in a world desperatly seeking beauty. They're weeds, people say. They're uninteresting and offer no fragrance and there are too many of them, too much of them, we don't want them, destroy them.
Dandelions are a nuisance,
We desire the buttercups, the daffodils, the morning glories. We want the azalea, the poinsettia, the calla lily. We pluck them from our gradens and plant them in our homes and we don't seem to remember their toxic nature.
We don't seem to care that
if you get too close?
if you take a small bite?
The beauty is replaced wit pain and laced with a posion that laughs in your blood, destroys your organs, infevts your heart.
But pick a dandelion.
Pick a dandelion and make a salad, eat the leaves, the flower, the stem. Thread it in your hair, plant it in the ground and watch it thrive.
Pick a dandelion and close your eyes
make a wish
blow it into the wind.

Watch it
change
the
world. ~ Tahereh Mafi

You probably know why I'm here. If you could hear me, talk to me, you'd probably ask me what the hell took me so long. Then you'd tell me what's been in my heart for months now. I know you'd want me to be happy, and I am. When you left, I thought you'd taken everything I had with you. Dex helped me see how wrong I was. You left everything there for me to give to someone else crazy enough to love me. I'll never forget you, Gabe." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long chain, the small dog tags clinking together. Sloane didn't bother to hide the tears in his eyes. He smiled and let out a shaky breath before placing the dog tags on the tombstone. He put his fingers to his lips for a kiss before moving them to the black marble. "Good bye, sweetheart. Thank you for everything." Sloane ~ Charlie Cochet

How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?"

Winston thought. "By making him suffer", he said.

"Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an ~ George Orwell

I grew up in a small hotel with many rooms, so when I became aware of 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,' I inspected all the wardrobes, sure one had to be a portal to another world. I was also a true believer in faeries, and perhaps still am. ~ Jo Beverley

What was amazing was that their small delicate hands were touching, their monkey fingers leaning into each other. It was clear that it was this small sustained touch that allowed them to sleep. As long as they were touching, they could let go. I envied their trust and simplicity. There was none of the human pretense at independence. They clearly needed each other to experience peace. One stirred but didn't wake, and the other, in sleep, kept their fingers touching. How deeply rewarding the life of touch. ~ Mark Nepo

Our prayers may be an index of how small and self-centered our world is. ~ D. A. Carson

There will always be those little minds who, out of vanity or intellectual display, will attempt to destroy faith in the very foundations of life. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Stock your minds and you can move through the world resplendent. ~ Frank McCourt

. . . it is called 'camel case' or 'intercapping' -- of writing small letters next to large in the same word, as in such popular significations as iPod, eBay, iTunes, etc. which few would argue is a distinct sign of illiteracy. ~ Alexander Theroux

A small insect, clearly suffering from acute depression, decided that my open mouth was the ideal route for a suicide mission. With kamikaze-like determination, it rocketed down my throat and splattered against my tonsils. - Calma Harrison ~ Barry Jonsberg

There are small bits of useless knowledge which stick to one's brain like barnacles to a boat. ~ Graham Greene

A Night Piece

The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground--from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!--the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;--still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene ~ William Wordsworth

That's what I love about Aibileen, she can take the most complicated things in life and wrap them up so small and simple, they'll fit right in your pocket. ~ Kathryn Stockett

It always amazes me when taking off from a stormy airport, how once you reach a certain altitude and get through the clouds, the sun shines as brightly as ever. If we learn to choose the experience of joy in our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits, we will move in tune with the universe and dance in a flow of light and love, and remain above the clouds. ~ Debra Moffitt

You know when I decided to become professional - that means to expose yourself naked to the world with the other creative minds - I said, 'I'm going into areas I don't know. I might just fall right down to hell and kill myself. ~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson