Quotes About Smallness

I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvellous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small-- like looking at the Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.

I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvelous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small--like looking at the Big Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.

La flatterie n'émane jamais des grandes âmes, elle est l'apanage des petits esprits qui réussissent à se rapetisser encore pour mieux entrer dans la sphère vitale de la personne autour de laquelle ils gravitent. La flatterie sous-entend un intérêt. (p.239/317)

She longed to feel something momentous. Sometimes her life seemed so little.

Greatness is not always largeness.

I should point out, however, that at first some difficulty was experienced in observing the phenomena predicted by the theory, owing to the extreme smallness of the variations in the period of oscillation.

For the first time I could remember, I felt weak, woozy and stupid— like a human-being. Like a very small and helpless human-being.

People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding.

I hate them." "Pity them, Emmon," Tosh said, "because the world they live in is small, and when it gets bigger fast, they won't know what to do.

What they do not comprehend is man's helplessness. I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn't it that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small… and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small… and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

I am weak, small, of no consequence to the universe. It does not notice me; I live on unseen. But why is that bad? Isn't it better that way? Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small . . . and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

Whom the gods notice they destroy. Be small . . . and you will escape the jealousy of the great.

If you have a steel ball, solid steel, the size of this earth, 25,000 miles in circumference, and every one million years a little sparrow would be released to land on that ball to sharpen his beak and fly away only to come back another million years later and begin again, by the time he would have worn that ball down to the size of a BB, eternity would have just begun.

Maybe this is what alone really is — finding out how tiny your world is, and not knowing how to get anywhere else.

New Yorkers love the bigness -- the skyscrapers, the freedom, the lights. But they also love it when they can carve out some smallness for themselves. When the guy at the corner store knows which newspaper you want. When the barista has your order ready before you open your mouth. When you start to recognize the people in your orbit, and you know that, say, if you're waiting for the subway at eight fifteen on the dot, odds are the redhead with the red umbrella is going to be there too.

New Yorkers love the bigness- the skyscrapers, the freedom, the lights. But they also love it when they can carve out some smallness for themselves.

I had in my life looked at a number of beautiful starry nights, where with just two colours and the simplest of styles nature draws the grandest of pictures, and I felt the feelings of wonder and smallness that we all feel, and I got a clear sense of direction from the spectacle, most definitely, but I mean that in a spiritual sense, not in a geographic one.

not enough to make a flea a waltzing jacket.

La flatterie n'émane jamais des grandes âmes, elle est l'apanage des petits esprits qui réussissent à se rapetisser encore pour mieux entrer dans la sphère vitale de la personne autour de laquelle ils gravitent. La flatterie sous-entend un intérêt.

La burocrazia è un gigantesco meccanismo azionato da pigmei".

A pebble thrown in a pool may ripple from end to end, but tossed into the sea, it is swallowed by enormity.

Ginny looks so small, huddled on the red carpet. We've known each other only a couple of days, but she's brought sunshine into my life and made me feel like I belong in the glow. It's not love. It's the hope of love. But it's the closest I've come to it since I was ten years old. If Ginny wants me, how can I be a monster?

It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.