Small Objects Quotes

While classical mechanics correctly predicts the behavior of large objects such as tennis balls, to predict the behavior of small objects such as electrons, we must use quantum mechanics. ~ Ivar Giaever

Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God. ~ Blaise Pascal

I'm thinking that I'd like to fuck that mouth of yours." "Sorry. I was raised to never put small objects in my mouth or I might choke." Cockeye ~ Suzanne Wright

About her family she had taken a superior view. She considered them somewhat childlike since her power over them in the form of language had given her the privilege of viewing them in this way. And her distance from them, as the distance of all translators from their subjects, allowed her to see that so much of the raison d'etre of their lives was taken up negotiating their way around the small objects of foreignness laced in their way. Either they could not see the larger space of commonality or it was denied them. ~ Dionne Brand

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, or enlarge a dwelling, to always be making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene between itself and heaven. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

As we cleared the passage we found mixed with the rubble broken potsherds, jar seals, and numerous fragments of small objects; water skins lying on the floor together with alabaster jars, whole and broken, and coloured pottery vases; all pertaining to some disturbed burial, but telling us nothing to whom they belonged further than by their type which was of the late XVIIIth Dyn. These were disturbing elements as they pointed towards plundering. ~ Howard Carter

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"

The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said,
"It made a difference for that one. ~ Loren Eiseley

Perhaps a person gains by accumulating obstacles. The more obstacles set up to prevent happiness from appearing, the greater the shock when it does appear, just as the rebound of a spring will be all the more powerful the greater the pressure that has been exerted to compress it. Care must be taken, however, to select large obstacles, for only those of sufficient scope and scale have the capacity to lift us out of context and force life to appear in an entirely new and unexpected light.

For example, should you litter the floor and tabletops of your room with small objects, they constitute little more than a nuisance, an inconvenient clutter that frustrates you and leaves you irritable; the petty is mean. Cursing, you step around the objects, pick them up, knock them aside.

Should you, on the other hand, encounter in your room a nine thousand pound granite boulder, the surprise it evokes, the extreme steps that must be taken to deal with it, compel you to see with new eyes. Difficulties illuminate existence, but they must be fresh and of high quality. ~ Tom Robbins

The "pass" was a normal-sized key with a wooden block the size of a brick attached to it. This was meant to broadcast the administration's lack of faith in our ability to hold on to small objects. ~ Sloane Crosley

When guys say "suck it" I always say " sorry small objects are a choking hazard ~ Unknown

Everything has to be clean and orderly when I sit down to write. I have candles going, and small objects that remind me of what I am working on, or bring me into the world of the character. ~ Adriana Trigiani

There was a feeling, not sudden, but complete, as though I had been given a small object to hold unseen in my hands. Precious as opal, smooth as jade, weighty as a river stone, more fragile than a bird's egg. Infinitely still, live as the root of Creation. Not a gift, but a trust. Fiercely to cherish, softly to guard. The words spoke themselves and disappeared into the groined shadows of the roof. ~ Diana Gabaldon

If you are collector, let other people share your pride and joy. Don't sprinkle your collection out of sight in a meaningless jumble. Notice how groups of small objects, when they are well arranged, become important and effective. Remember that repetition is a form of emphasis. Collect what you will, but see to it that you arrange your hobby to its best advantage. ~ Dorothy Draper

Small objects, like the Walkman first and then the iPod, create bubbles of space around us that enable us to have a metaphysical space that is much bigger than our physical space. ~ Paola Antonelli

They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. ~ George Orwell

It struck me as poignant that my long relationship with my beloved grandparents could be embodied in a few small objects. But the power of objects doesn't depend on their volume; in fact, my memories were better evoked by a few carefully chosen items than by a big assortment of things with vague associations. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Remember this when you're struggling for a big idea. You're much better off scratching for a small one. ~ Twyla Tharp

This is a very common thing among male groups of friends. There is a person who's always taking heat from everyone else for various reasons. Not that I'm defending this behavior though, fuck no, I hate it when guys are like this; it's barbaric and stupid.

Unfortunately I think it's like an unconscious thing that just comes natural to guys when we're in groups. We take the piss out of each other all the time, prodding until we know the limits of each other and crossing the lines once in a while to test the boundaries.

Some guys who're overly-nice or don't fully understand this dynamic get completely shit on by it. If you keep excusing small actions by others that violate your boundaries, they'll just keep pushing and pushing, giving less and less respect until they know how far they're allowed to go. Having people knowing your limits and making sure to not cross them equates to respect, which is what we're after.

This doesn't mean you should to tell them all to fuck off now; that wouldn't work anymore because you've allowed them this far into your territory. It'd seem like an overreaction from you, which makes sense, right?

"We were just joking around yesterday about the same things, he seemed cool with it, but now he's all pissed for some reason, this guys a whack..."

The key thing to note if you want to avoid this in the future is to either find "nicer" friends, or to let people know when they cross a boundary. This may ~ Anonymous

Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

His intelligence was relentless and wild, a fire even he couldn't control. It swallowed entire books at a sitting, finding flaws in arguments, gaps in evidence, errors in interpretation, in objects, far from his own. ~ Ian Caldwell

It formed into small drops on his weather beaten features, drops that rolled down his cheeks. Strangely, some of them tasted like salt. ~ John Flanagan

A lot of times, mainstream critics are much tougher on small, independent movies because they can be. ~ John C. Reilly

Memories are small prayers to God, if we believed in that sort of thing. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer

I couldn't stand by and watch you put yourselves in harm's way. No way. And fuck those SAVAK bastards, and their Western masters, and the grand servant of the West. Fuck anyone who wants to put me in jail because I stood by my friends to mourn the death of a hero, screw them all. I don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life behind bars, I don't, I really don't. I learned today that friendship is worth making sacrifices for. Doctor proved that life is a small price to pay for your beliefs. ~ Mahbod Seraji

Machines help us do things more quickly and efficiently, but they can also destroy some community activities. Machines can also throw the weakest people out of work and this would be sad, because their small contribution to the housework or cooking is their way of giving something to the community. People who are capable of doing things very quickly with the help of machines become tremendously busy, always active, in charge of everyone - a bit like machines themselves. ~ Jean Vanier

When I was young, my family didn't go on outings to the circus or trips to Disneyland. We couldn't afford them. Instead, we stayed in our small rural West Texas town, and my parents took us to cemeteries. ~ Jenny Lawson

The one object of fifty years of abstract art is to present art-as-art and as nothing else, to make it into the one thing it is only, separating and defining it more and more, making it purer and emptier, more absolute and more exclusive - non-objective, non-representational, non-figurative, non-imagist, non-expressionist, non-subjective. the only and one way to say what abstract art or art-as-art is, is to say what it is not. ~ Ad Reinhardt

At the high school a pretty girl strolled across the parking lot to her black stallion, let her cigarette dangle from her lips while she put on her helmet, adjusted her goggles. Throwing a slender white leg over the side she jacked her little backside up and down a few times, exciting the steed. Now she came down on his back and he squatted, moaning to the soft squeeze of her hand, then at her sudden clutch shot out fast between the press of her knees. Claude looked down at his shoes as they passed, having seen nothing. But he glanced up in time to watch them glide off under the next streetlamp, the gleaming beast appearing almost languid with release, very pleased with himself and with the girl who clung to his back, small and stiff and unsatisfied.
She had been noticed: everywhere along the way the leaning people looked after her as though wondering if the new week had finally begun, then they looked at one another, then back at nothing. ~ Douglas Woolf

There's no business that's too small for government to torture ~ John Stossel

They discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying. ~ Douglas Adams

You are as big as your enemies and as small as your fear. ~ Anonymous

No more small towns for me. I was going to the city to get my degree in pimping. ~ Iceberg Slim

Maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles and
may come home with a smooth rounded stone
as small as a world and as big as alone.
for whatever we loose (like a you or a me)
it is always ourselves we find in the sea. ~ E. E. Cummings

Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and the animals. They see no life. When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and the rivers are not alive. the mountains and stones are not alive. The deer and bear are objects. They see no life. They fear. They fear the world. They destroy what they fear. They fear themselves. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko

The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. ~ Edmund Burke

See your life as a giant adventure. Keep pushing the envelope, and remember that every dream starts off small. ~ Robin Sharma

Think of it. Fifteen whole years-no small part of a mans life.-taken from us-all the most energetic have fallen to the cruelty of the emperor. And the few that survive are no longer what we once were. Yet I find some small satisfaction in acknowledging the bondage we once suffered. Tacitus, The Agricola ~ Tacitus

I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me. ~ Roald Dahl

Many Christians live their lives as though Jesus finished His work in the first century. They seem to think that being a Christian is simply accepting the finished work of Christ, going to church every Sunday to express their worship, and waiting for His second coming. No, no, no. Jesus is working today, just as He did 2,000 years ago, to accomplish His cosmic mission... Some people can grasp the idea that Jesus goes to work every day, just like we do. Or conversely, and more correctly, we go to work every day, just like Jesus does. He told His disciples, "My father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17). He still is.

The central task of the universe today is extending the kingdom of God into every corner of human life, one follower at a time, one conversation at a time. That's what Jesus is concentrating on, and that's what we should be spending the best part of our time and energy doing. You may have assumed that the most important thing you could be doing with your life is selling carpet... raising kids... governing... discovering a cure for cancer... or pastoring the second-largest church in a small town. Those are all worthwhile endeavors, but each one of those tasks is only significant when it is a subtask of the grand objective: building the kingdom of God. ~ D. Michael Henderson

The backs of their heads were hollowed out; their faces were nothing but thin masks at the front. Within each hollow a candle was burning. This was so plain to him now, that he wondered he had never noticed it before. He imagined what would happen if he went down into the street and blew some of the candles out. It made him laugh to think of it. He laughed so much that he could no longer stand. His laughter echoed round and round the house. Some small remaining shred of reason warned him that he ought not to let the landlord and his family know what he was doing so he went to bed and muffled the sound of his laughter in the pillows, kicking his legs from time to time with the sheer hilarity of the idea. ~ Susanna Clarke

Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. "Watson" he says, "look up in the sky and tell me what you see."
"I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson.
"And what do you conclude from that, Watson?"
Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignficant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?"
"Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent! ~ Thomas Cathcart

A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again. If somewhere in the Hollywood-entertainment world someone has managed to break through with something that speaks to you, then it isn't all corruption. The movie doesn't have to be great; it can be stupid and empty and you can still have the joy of a good performance, or the joy in just a good line. An actor's scowl, a small subversive gesture, a dirty remark that someone tosses off with a mock-innocent face, and the world makes a little bit of sense. Sitting there alone or painfully alone because those with you do not react as you do, you know there must be others perhaps in this very theatre or in this city, surely in other theatres in other cities, now, in the past or future, who react as you do. And because movies are the most total and encompassing art form we have, these reactions can seem the most personal and, maybe the most important, imaginable. The romance of movies is not just in those stories and those people on the screen but in the adolescent dream of meeting others who feel as you do about what you've seen. You do meet them, of course, and you know each other at once because you talk less about good movies than about what you love in bad movies. ~ Pauline Kael

Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Do you want children?' 'What?' He stared at her, nonplussed. 'Children,' she persevered. 'Small, screaming human beings that stink and break everything you own- ~ Charlotte E. English

If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear. ~ A.A. Milne

Ruby: Hey Weiss?
Weiss: Yes?
Ruby: What do you think a tiny world would be like?
Weiss: Maybe it's so small, there's no room for evil, so it doesn't even exist.
Ruby: Heh heh. That sounds awesome.
Weiss: Ruby...? Would you want to live in that world?
Ruby: No. Even if I could, I'd stay in this world to protect everyone. ~ Monty Oum

Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. [ ... ] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D.C. ~ Ronald Reagan

There seemed to be a limitless number of objects in the world that had no practical use but that people wanted to preserve: cell phones with their delicate buttons, iPads, Tyler's Nintendo console, a selection of laptops. There were a number of impractical shoes, stilettos mostly, beautiful and strange. There were three car engines in a row, cleaned and polished, a motorcycle composed mostly of gleaming chrome. Traders brought things for Clark sometimes, objects of no real value that they knew he would like: magazines and newspapers, a stamp collection, coins. There were the passports or the driver's licenses or sometimes the credit cards of people who had lived at the airport and then died. Clark kept impeccable records. ~ Emily St. John Mandel

Appliances have idiosyncracies, just like us. Unfortunately they have picked up our less attractive traits - they are proud, spiteful, and unforgiving. ~ Mary McGrory

When you're more experienced and have been in the car crash a million times, and have made mistakes and learned from them, everything slows down and something as small as shoes can stand out. ~ Mark Owen

When I looked at a map in town, Rhode Island seemed lost up there in the corner. A state so small and crowded, there didn't seem to be room for a person at all. ~ Michelle Hoover

Yes, I've been in an igloo. They're surprisingly cozy and warm - small, though, you can't really stand up in some. ~ Gary Paulsen

Most accountants will tell you the majority of small businesses run as an S Corporation. ~ Kevin McCarthy

If you hate life, you haven't seen enough of it. If you hate your life, it's because your life is too small and doesn't fit you. ~ Augusten Burroughs

In every marriage the wife has to keep her mouth shut about at least one small thing her husband does that disgusts her. ~ John O'Hara

That is the true genius of America-a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. ~ Barack Obama

Some books about the Holocaust are more difficult to read than others. Some books about the Holocaust are nearly impossible to read. Not because one does not understand the language and concepts in the books, not because they are gory or graphic, but because such books are confrontational. They compel us to "think again," or to think for the first time, about issues and questions we might rather avoid.

Gabriel Wilensky's book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust is one book I found difficult, almost impossible to read. Why? Because I had to confront the terrible underside of Christian theology, an underside that contributed in no small part to the beliefs and attitudes too many Christians – Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox – had imbibed throughout centuries of anti-Jewish preaching and teaching that "paved the road to the Holocaust."

I cannot say that I "liked" Gabriel Wilensky's book, Six Million Crucifixions: How Christian Antisemitism Paved the Road to the Holocaust. I didn't, but I can say it was instructive and forced me to think again about that Jew from Nazareth, Jesus, and about his message of universal love and service – "What you do for the least of my brothers [and sisters], you do for me" (Matthew 25: 40).

As Abraham Joshua Heschel once said, the Holocaust did not begin with Auschwitz. The Holocaust began with words. And too many of those hate-filled words had their origin in th ~ Carol Rittner

And as I watched him, I knew that in every dark night there was, somewhere, a small light burning that could never be quenched. ~ Juliet Marillier

Peace is more than a lofty ideal. It is a practical principle that, with conscious effort, can become a normal part of our lives as we deal with matters both large and small. One habit that prevents inner peace is procrastination. It clutters our minds with unfinished business and makes us uneasy until we finish a task and get it out of the way. ~ Joseph B. Wirthlin

It is a lonely programme. The very virtues you cultivate become walls that inevitably separate you from your kind ... A new danger comes to your soul, and intolerance and impatience with those who are as you have been all but destroy that which you have taken such pains to build up. Not alone are there spiritual barriers between you and the friends that you have, but your business training has made your mind incisive. In the swift rush of business you have no time for small debates and petty dilemmas. ~ Alice Foote MacDougall

Who will bear witness to these small islands and oases of wildness as land is divided and sold to become strip malls, housing developments,and parking lots? What happens to the natural history here? We must bear witness. ~ Joni L. James