Insignificant Quotes - Page 10

• An advantage could consist not only in a single important advantage but also in a multitude of insignificant advantages.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Important, Advantage, Multitudes

  Emanuel Lasker (2013). “Lasker's Manual of Chess”, p.464, SCB Distributors

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• Plants and flowers of the commonest kind can form a pleasing diary, because nothing which calls back to us the remembrance of a happy moment can be insignificant.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Flower, Remembrance, Diaries

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• The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, one notes a decline in collective enthusiasm due to the effect of a quantitative diminution in each of the elements that make up the mass. Work is paralyzed until it is reduced to an insignificant level. It is time to make a correction.

  Che Guevara

  Mistake, Elements, Enthusiasm

  "Socialism and Man in Cuba". www.marxists.org. March 12, 1965.

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• I was quite able at the insignificant work I did in MI6, but absolutely dysfunctional in my domestic life. I had no experience of fatherhood. I had no example of marital bliss or the family unit.

  John le Carre

  Fatherhood, Example, Able

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• We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

  Jimmy Carter

  People, Different, Sin

  "SUNDAY INTERVIEW - A Statesman And a Man Of Faith / With a lifetime of public service to his credit, the former president reflects on the beliefs that have sustained him". Interview with Don Lattin, www.sfgate.com. January 12, 1997.

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• We must reduce the emissions 100 percent. In Venezuela, the emissions are currently insignificant compared to the emissions of the developed countries.

  Hugo Chavez

  Country, Venezuela, Emissions

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• If you think that what you're doing is not all that important in the larger scheme of things and that you're just an insignificant creature in the whole wide world, which is full of six billion people, and that people are born and die every day and it makes no difference to future generations what you write, and that writing and reading are increasingly irrelevant activities, you'd probably never get out of bed.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Reading, Writing, Thinking

  Source: www.believermag.com

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• It's like you have a child and you think, 'Everything that I've done up until this point is insignificant in comparison to being a father.' It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

  Vin Diesel

  Beautiful, Children, Father

  "Vin Diesel: I Want To Be A Good Dad". Parade Magazine Interview, parade.com. August 25, 2008.

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• Nothing is too small. Nothing is too, quote-unquote, ordinary or insignificant. Those are the things that make up the measure of our days, and they're the things that sustain us. And they're the things that certainly can become worthy of poetry.

  Rita Dove

  Ordinary, Worthy

  "Rita Dove On New Anthology, Advice For Young Poets". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. January 2, 2012.

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• In the field one has to face a chaos of facts, some of which are so small that they seem insignificant; others loom so large that they are hard to encompass with one synthetic glance. But in this crude form they are not scientific facts at all; they are absolutely elusive, and can be fixed only by interpretation, by seeing them sub specie aeternitatis, by grasping what is essential in them and fixing this. Only laws and generalizations are scientific facts, and field work consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of the chaotic social reality, in subordinating it to general rules.

  Bronislaw Malinowski

  Science, Reality, Law

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• What does Reverence for Life say abut the relations between [humanity] and the animal world? Whenever I injury any kind of life I must be quite certain that it is necessary. I must never go beyond the unavoidable, not even in apparently insignificant things. The farmer who has mowed down a thousand flowers in his meadow in order to feed his cows must be careful on his way home not to strike the head off a single flower by the side of the road in idle amusement, for he thereby infringes on the law of life without being under the pressure of necessity.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Flower, Home, Animal

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• I used to go to the Improvisation Comedy Club every night in Times Square. How I didn't get killed in that area either means that 1) God is watching over me or 2) I am so insignificant to God that he didn't bother having me killed.

  Gilbert Gottfried

  Mean, Night, Squares

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• To one who habitually endeavors to contemplate the true state of things, the political state can hardly be said to have any existence whatever. It is unreal, incredible, and insignificant to him, and for him to endeavor to extract the truth from such lean material is like making sugar from linen rags, when sugar-cane may be had.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Government, Political, Rags

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.91, Xist Publishing

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• Sometimes a simple, almost insignificant gesture on the part of a teacher can have a profound formative effect on the life of a student.

  Paulo Freire

  Teacher, Educational, Philosophy

  Paulo Freire (2000). “Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage”, p.46, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

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• The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and the insignificant, its energy - invincible determination - a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory.

  Sir Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet

  Determination, Commitment, Differences

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• My grandmother lived in a universe filled with life. It was impossible for her to conceive of any creature - even the smallest insect, let alone a human being - as insignificant. In every leaf, flower, animal, and star she saw an expression of a compassionate universe, whose laws were not competition and survival of the fittest but cooperation, artistry and thrift. . . .

  Eknath Easwaran

  Stars, Flower, Grandmother

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• Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance.

  James A. Baldwin

  Happiness, Lying, Discipline

  The Paris Review Interview (Issues 91-94, p. 77), 1984.

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• As with all great teachers, his curriculum was an insignificant part of what he communicated. From him you didn't learn a subject, but a life...Tolerance and justice, fearlessness and pride, reverence and pity, are learned in a course on long division if the teacher has those qualities.

  William Alexander Percy

  Teacher, Pride, Justice

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• On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.

  Banksy

  Dirty, Civilization, Role Models

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• Now here's what I'm saying: I've always believed that every other month we hear about compromisation of bank records, I think that's the CIA and the FBI. Now let me tell you why I'm saying this. I don't believe no insignificant pip-squeak is going to be able to pull this off month after month and we can't find out what's going on.

  Dick Gregory

  Believe, Thinking, Records

  "Dick Gregory's Role as Michael Jackson's Adviser". "News & Notes" with Ed Gordon, www.npr.org. July 12, 2005.

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• Whenever you wonder about yourself, look up at the stars swirling around in the heavens and just realize how tiny and puny they are. They're supposed to be gigantic explosions and they're just these insignificant little dots. If you step back from things far enough you realize how important and powerful you are.

  Alan Alda

  Stars, Powerful, Heaven

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• It was such an amazing experience to be able to spend nine days on a boat with these Greenpeace people. Some of them were scientists and some were crew members working on the ship. Just to hear their stories, like what drew them to Greenpeace in the first place and what they've been through. Every single second of the day they work to save the planet, which makes me as an actor feel quite insignificant.

  Alexander Skarsgard

  People, Nine, Ships

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• I cannot hold with those who wish to put down the insignificant chatter of the world.

  Anthony Trollope

  Life And Love, World, Want

  "Framley Parsonage".

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• Baseball is only a game, a game of inches and a lot of luck. During a time of all-out war, sports are very insignificant.

  Bob Feller

  Sports, Baseball, War

  "For Feller, Navy was easy decision". Interview with Mary Buckheit, www.espn.com. November 12, 2009.

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• What could define God, [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.

  Stephen Hawking

  Thinking, Law, People

  "Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win'" by Ki Mae Heussner, abcnews.go.com. June 7, 2010.

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