Insignificant Quotes

• The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

  Thomas Merton

  Wisdom, Hurt, Insignificant Things

  Thomas Merton (1998). “The Seven Storey Mountain”, p.116, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The significance is hiding in the insignificant. Appreciate everything.

  Eckhart Tolle

  Spiritual, Appreciate, Hiding

  Twitter post from Dec 16, 2009

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• How do I change? If I feel depressed I will sing. If I feel sad I will laugh. If I feel ill I will double my labor. If I feel fear I will plunge ahead. If I feel inferior I will wear new garments. If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice. If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come. If I feel incompetent I will think of past success. If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals. Today I will be the master of my emotions.

  Og Mandino

  Sad, Past, Thinking

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• ...the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religeous faith or political conviction.

  Arthur Koestler

  Selfish, Sacrifice, Leader

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  For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

  Carl Sagan

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• I do not see how astronomers can help feeling exquisitely insignificant, for every new page of the Book of the Heavens they open reveals to them more and more that the world we are so proud of is to the universe of careening globes as is one mosquito to the winged and hoofed flocks and herds that darken the air and populate the plains and forests of all the earth. If you killed the mosquito would it be missed? Verily, What is Man, that he should be considered of God?

  Mark Twain

  Book, Men, Air

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• Suppose God wants to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased"--are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket--to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister?

  Oswald Chambers

  Want, Connections, Buckets

  Oswald Chambers (2011). “My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition”, p.82, Discovery House

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• Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Perseverance, Work, Bad Day

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• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

  Douglas Adams

  Distance, Lying, Science

  Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.10, Pan Macmillan

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• There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on how one looks at it.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Views, Insignificant Things, Literature

  "Goethe's World View: Presented in His Reflections and Maxims".

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• Small, seemingly insignificant steps completed consistently over time will create a radical difference

  Darren Hardy

  Differences, Steps, Radical

  Darren Hardy (2011). “The Compound Effect”, p.21, Hachette UK

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• Everybody's life has these moments, where one thing leads to another. Some are big and obvious and some are small and seemingly insignificant.

  Peter Jackson

  Moments, Bigs, Obvious

  "Peter Jackson: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 11, 2009.

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• The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.

  Carl L. Becker

  Men, Ironic, Belief

  Progress and Power Lecture 3 (1935)

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• Drink and be thankful to the host! What seems insignificant when you have it, is important when you need it.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Thanksgiving, Being Thankful, Important

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• There is hardly any one so insignificant that he does not seem imposing to some one at some time.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Doe, Seems, Imposing

  Charles Horton Cooley (1992). “Human Nature and the Social Order”, p.329, Transaction Publishers

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• The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

  William Hazlitt

  Hope, Self Esteem, People

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• On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise.

  Paul Ricoeur

  Meaningful, World, Life Is

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• You'll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth.

  Odysseas Elytis

  Depth, Study, Little Things

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• Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Science, People

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.217, Ballantine Books

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• Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

  Carl Sagan

  Love, Inspirational, Perspective

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.371, Ballantine Books

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• First... a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.

  William James

  Science, Discovery, Important

  Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking Lecture 6 (1907)

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• Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.

  Ann Voskamp

  Gratitude, Grateful, Positivity

  Ann Voskamp (2011). “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are”, p.57, Zondervan

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• Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow pizza.

  Douglas Adams

  Lying, Yellow, Hitchhiking

  "Fictional character: The Book". "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/ Episode #1.2", www.imdb.com. 1981.

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• The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

  Carl Sagan

  Memories, Fall, Voice

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.25, Ballantine Books

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• Here then is a great #‎ truth . In the #‎ pain , the #‎ agony , and the #‎ heroic endeavors of life, we pass through a #‎ refiner 's #‎ fire , and the insignificant and the unimportant in our lives can melt away like dross and make our #‎ faith #‎ bright , #‎ intact , and #‎ strong .

  James E. Faust

  Strong, Pain, Adversity

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