Quotes About Significance

He was a past master of making himself seem insignificant, of seeming invisible.

He explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer …

Books no longer have the power they once did.

Questo minuto aveva più di sessanta secondi.

For in the end, it is all about memory, its source and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.

This is the context in which the story must be understood—as one incident in human history, an incident in certain ways and to certain people important, but only one incident. God is the God of human history, and He is at work continuously, mysteriously, accomplishing His eternal purposes in us, through us, for us, and in spite of us.

If in fact I do believe these great things we say and sing together, then those little things (and what is not little by comparison?)

It was he who told her of the three inscriptions over the doors of the Milan Cathedral. One, with a carving of roses, says, "All that pleases is but for a moment"; another, with a carving of a cross, says, "All that grieves is but for a moment"; and over the great central door are only the words, "Nothing is important but that which is eternal.

Facing death means facing the ultimate question of the meaning of life. If we really want to live we must have the courage to recognize that life is ultimately very short, and that everything we do counts.

As history shows, dead metaphors make good idols.

Sometimes it seems like a little moment brings a whole world with it.

Are these real diamonds? I once asked, and she said, Why have them if they're not?

All these small things are the glue that keeps you bound to your own life. They are the things that make you you. And in that respect, they are not little at all. They are huge. They are grand.

People like to be addressed specificlly, it makes them important.

What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.

Some days are meant to be counted, others are meant to be weighed.

ceremony is essential to humans: It's a circle that we draw around important events to separate the momentous from the ordinary. And ritual is a sort of magical safety harness that guides us from one stage of our lives into the next, making sure we don't stumble or lose ourselves along the way. Ceremony and ritual march us carefully right through the center of our deepest fears about change…

Your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words; it also doesn't have to be important.

I will leave with the hope that the expansion of one person - the magnification of one life - is indeed an act of worth in this world. Even if that life, just this one time, happens to be nobody's but my own.

History has a pulse, they say - but mostly I have never been able to hear it, not even when it is drumming right in my goddamn ears.

You are not required to save the world with your creativity. Your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words; it also doesn't have to be important.

Making a living is nothing, the great difficulty is making a point, making a difference - with words.

What of the Parliament? Or the succession of the marquessate? Don't you see? He shook his head, searching for the words, he who was known for his eloquence on the floor of the House of Lords. None of that matters. Without you, I am a shadow of a man, a wisp. Parliament, even the marquessate, can survive without me, but I cannot survive without you .

There are people who stick in one's memory much more clearly after a brief acquaintance than others whom one sees day after day after a long period.