Quotes & Sayings About Feeling Small In The World

It has become a common feeling, I believe, as we have watched our heroes falling over the years, that our own small stone of activism, which might not seem to measure up to the rugged boulders of heroism we have so admired, is a paltry offering toward the building of an edifice of hope. Many who believe this choose to withhold their offerings out of shame. This is the tragedy of the world. For we can do nothing substantial toward changing our course on the planet, a destructive one, without rousing ourselves, individual by individual, and bringing our small, imperfect stones to the pile. — Alice Walker

Time had ceased to feel linear. She looked up through the crisscrossing branches, thick with buds, into the night sky. The stars tugged at her gaze, trying to pull her up among them, or she was pulling them down to her. She was on the verge of some great discovery, she realized, but she had no idea what it was, what it related to, whether it even had anything to do with her at all. Was she a participant, or an observer? Did the world center around her, or could it carry on quite easily without her input? Looking up at those stars, feeling the embrace of their light as it enfolded her, she felt both small and large, as though everything mattered and nothing did. When someone crouched down beside her it took years for her to turn her head to see who it was. All she could make out was a dark shape, a vague outline of head and shoulders silhouetted against the stars, the rest of the body lost in the shadows of the rose bushes. — Charles De Lint

I believe in work. If somebody doesn't create something, however small it may be, he gets sick. An awful lot of people feel that they're treading water
that if they vanished in smoke, it wouldn't mean anything at all in this world. And that's a despairing and destructive feeling. It'll kill you. — Arthur Miller

When there is a huge crack in your relationship with someone, you wonder what others do in similar situations. I realize I'm trying as hard as I can to present myself as the most unthreatening being in the world, like a small animal. I hunch into myself, avoiding going back to the same places I frequented with him. Obviously I don't eat the kind of food we ate or made together. But I don't think I'm going to move to a new house, because I have the kitchen and the large fridge that I'd wanted for so long. People say you can't possibly like your lover every single second of your life. But that's not true. I liked and looked to my lover every single second we were together. And I still can't admit that he's gone. True sorrow is when one person desires but the other doesn't. I don't know any better words to describe it, and I can't yet express this feeling through any kind of food. The one thing we know about sorrow is that it's a very personal, individual feeling. — Kyung-ran Jo

When I can do an acoustic set, I can sit down and sing. And then when I have a huge arena full of people, there's nothing like that. It's the coolest feeling in the world, but I also like to play small intimate shows because I feel you can connect a little more. And that's something I had to learn - how to connect to a big audience versus the small one. — Avril Lavigne

I think of my father growing up in South Jersey, the son of second-generation German immigrant glassblowers. The opportunities for him of feeling that aspiration, that yearning, get out of the small town, connect to a larger world, get yourself to New York, wanting to play the piano at every opportunity, bonding with people who were on a similar path, ending up in Provincetown, which was kind of nexus for nonconformity, and artistic dropout reality. — Anne Waldman

-so that for these few moments it actually seems that Ruprecht could be right, that everything, or at least the small corner of everything that is the Seabrook Sports Hall, is resonating to the same chord, the same feeling, the one that over a lifetime you learn a million ways to camouflage but never quite to banish - the feeling living in a world of apartness, of distances you cannot overcome; it's almost as if the strange out-of-nowhere voice is the universe itself, some hidden aspect of it that rises momentarily over the motorway-roar of space and time to console you, to remind you that although you can't overcome the distances, you can still sing the song
out into the darkness over the separating voids, towards a fleeting moment of harmony ... — Paul Murray

Summer is a prodigal of joy. The grass Swarms with delighted insects as I pass, And crowds of grasshoppers at every stride Jump out all ways with happiness their guide; And from my brushing feet moths flit away In safer places to pursue their play. In crowds they start. I marvel, well I may, To see such worlds of insects in the way, And more to see each thing, however small, Sharing joy's bounty that belongs to all. And here I gather, by the world forgot, Harvests of comfort from their happy mood, Feeling God's blessing dwells in every spot And nothing lives but owes him gratitude. — John Clare

I like the idea of feeling small. Sometimes life can seem bigger than you, you know? But knowing you're less than a speck in the whole scheme of things takes the pressure off, sort of. — Anna Banks

When I came to this city, I would have agreed with anyone who said there was little mystery left in the world. But in you, madam, first in your image, then in your living self, I saw the allure of something far away and as secret as the stars. As I reached towards this unknown, I began to feel like a man who has ridden through a vast desert, never knowing anything but the sand around him and the dry road under him, then comes upon the mirage of a garden and a city, and finds that the mirage is real, and that it is bigger than the desert; that the desert was, after all his walking, only a small part of the mirage"
"Then you felt love, which is the state of feeling desire and the fulfillment of desire at the same time," she said. — K.J. Bishop

There is a lump of desolation beneath the bony dip at my throat. It is no bigger than a coin, this spot, a peculiarly small place to hold such a feeling. I try to shove it to some deeper region, but there it sticks, a fragile skin-thickness from the outside world. — Franny Billingsley

Imaginings and resonances and pain and small longings and prejudices. They mean nothing against the resolute hardness of the sea. They meant less than the marl and the mud and the dry clay of the cliff that were eaten away by the weather, washed away by the sea. It was not just that they would fade: they hardly existed, they did not matter, they would have no impact on this cold dawn, this deserted remote seascape where the water shone in the early light and shocked her with its sullen beauty. It might have been better, she felt, if there had never been people, if this turning of the world, and the glistening sea, and the morning breeze happened without witnesses, without anyone feeling, or remembering, or dying, or trying to love. She stood at the edge of the cliff until the sun came out from behind the black rainclouds, — Colm Toibin

We are hungry for tenderness,
in a world where everything abounds
we are poor of this feeling
which is like a caress
for our heart
we need these small gestures
that make us feel good
Tenderness
is a disinterested and generous love,
that does not ask anything else
to be understood and appreciated. — Alda Merini

Actually, time had always been passing. I had just managed to avoid thinking about it very much. It would be hard for me to recapture that feeling - life wasn't so easy anymore. Small things pricked my heart. In those early days, I lived in a world of overwhelming sensations; it was like I had just fallen out of love. — Banana Yoshimoto

My world on the road always ends up feeling really small which is ironic because that's when I'm seeing the most places and meeting the most people! — Tyler Hilton

The way in which we experience and interpret the world obviously depends very much indeed on the kind of ideas that fill our minds. If they are mainly small, weak, superficial, and incoherent, life will appear insipid, uninteresting, petty, and chaotic. It is difficult to bear the resultant feeling of emptiness, and the vacuum of our minds may only too easily be filled by some big, fantastic notion - political or otherwise - which suddenly seem to illumine everything and to give meaning and purpose to our existence. It needs no emphasis that herein lies one of the great dangers of our time. — E.F. Schumacher

Step Away from the Mean Girls ...
... and say bye-bye to feeling bad about your looks.
Are you ready to stop colluding with a culture that makes so many of us feel physically inadequate? Say goodbye to your inner critic, and take this pledge to be kinder to yourself and others.
This is a call to arms. A call to be gentle, to be forgiving, to be generous with yourself. The next time you look into the mirror, try to let go of the story line that says you're too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose too big; just look into the mirror and see your face. When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step toward transforming your experience of the world. — Oprah Winfrey

Basic anxiety can be roughly described as a feeling of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted or endangered in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, humiliate, betray, envy ... And special in this is the child's feeling that the parents' love, their Christian charity, honesty, generosity ... may be only a pretense. — Karen Horney

Ii do not walk with alienation everywhere I go in the world. I have been to small taverns in rural Ohio, big city bars, San Francisco bath houses, and in all these have felt welcome and happy. But walking through that sunglassed throng, I felt like a Martian. I didn't hate the feeling - indeed, being a black woman in the academy, it wasn't new to me - but it was interesting. I kept wondering: where is the performance? When will the performance start? Is this the performance - me walking through this space without sunglasses with all these Nordic quasi-hipster white people in multi-colored, motorcycle cop sunglasses? — Gabrielle Civil

If you are really feeling happy, you are feeling happy even if the whole world contradicts you. If the whole world agrees that you are not happy, then too it doesn't matter. Your happiness is real. It cannot be canceled by anybody's opinion. But if your happiness is unreal, it can be canceled by anybody. Even a small child can cancel it. You will be constantly looking towards people. You will be smiling, trying to show that you are happy so that they can say, 'Yes. You are very happy. You look very happy.' — Rajneesh

Blame is the world's greatest excuse. It enables us to remain limited and small without feeling guilty. But there is a cost - the loss of our freedom. Also, the role of victim brings with it a self-perception of weakness, vulnerability, and helplessness, which are the major components of apathy and depression. — David R. Hawkins

We claim no glory. If the tempest rolls
About us we have fear, and then
Having so small a stake grow bold again.
We know not definitely even this
But 'cause some vague half knowing half doth miss
Our consciousness and leaves us feeling
That somehow all is well, that sober, reeling
From the last carouse, or in what measure
Of so called right or so damned wrong our leisure
Runs out uncounted sand beneath the sun,
That, spite your carping, still the thing is done
With some deep sanction, that, we know not how,
Sans thought gives us this feeling; you allow
That this not need we know our every thought
Or see the work shop where each mask is wrought
Wherefrom we view the world of box and pit,
Careless of wear, just so the mask shall fit
And serve our jape's turn for a night or two. — Ezra Pound

This morning I woke up at four and lay awake for an hour or so in a bad state. It is raining again. I got up finally and went about the daily chores, waiting for the sense of doom to lift - and what did it was watering the house plants. Suddenly joy came back because I was fulfilling a simple need, a living one. Dusting never has this effect (and that may be why I am such a poor housekeeper!), but feeding the cats when they are hungry, giving Punch clean water, makes me suddenly feel calm and happy. Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way. — May Sarton

There's a song called 'The Lights of My Hometown' that goes back to me growing up a regular kid. I mean, I lived in a town that I loved, but was too small for the dreams I was dreaming. You leave thinking the world has a lot more to offer than your hometown, only to realize years down the road that no matter where you grow up, you will never be able to recreate the innocence and feeling of 'home' anywhere else in the world. No matter who you are, or where that little town is, that's something we all have in common. — Aaron Lines

I'll tell you why I keep my scrapbooks. It's in case my real father shows up .I never met him, don't even know his name ... I've got this feeling he's out there searching for me. When he bursts through the door and tells me he's spent a fortune on detectives looking all over the world for me, I'm not going to sit there like a dumb cluck when he asks me what I've been doing. I'm going to yank out my eleven scrapbooks filled with my experiences and inner-most thoughts on life lived in three time zones in America. I was a Girl Scout for three months when we lived in Atlanta. I couldn't get those square knots down for anything, but I got the big concept. Be prepared. Addie always told me, It's more important to get the big concept than to be an expert in the small stuff. — Joan Bauer

They experienced the world, I supposed, as I experienced going to the movies: that flash of amazement petitioned, in part, from feeling small in the presence of bigness. — Durga Chew-Bose

We are all in search of feeling more connected to reality - to other people, the times we live in, the natural world, our character, and our own uniqueness. Our culture increasingly tends to separate us from these realities in various ways. We indulge in drugs or alcohol, or engage in dangerous sports or risky behavior, just to wake ourselves up from the sleep of our daily existence and feel a heightened sense of connection to reality. In the end, however, the most satisfying and powerful way to feel this connection is through creative activity. Engaged in the creative process we feel more alive than ever, because we are making something and not merely consuming, Masters of the small reality we create. In doing this work, we are in fact creating ourselves. — Robert Greene

I write. I give intimate private names to an external and foreign world. In a sense, I make it mine. In a sense, I return from feeling exiled and foreign to feeling at home. By doing so, I am already making a small change in what appeared to me earlier as unchangeable. Also, when I describe the impermeable arbitrariness that signs my destiny - arbitrariness at the hands of a human being, or arbitrariness at the hands of fate - I suddenly discover new nuances, subtleties. I discover that the mere act of writing about arbitrariness allows me to feel a freedom of movement in relation to it. That by merely facing up to arbitrariness I am granted freedom - maybe the only freedom a man may have against any arbitrariness: the freedom to put your tragedy into your own words. The freedom to express yourself differently, innovatively, before that which threatens to chain and bind one to arbitrariness and its limited, fossilizing definitions. — David Grossman

It would be a grand thing for any community, large or small, to set aside even five minutes of the day for serious contemplation. If nothing more were to result than the recognition of such a feeling as "community" it would be a great step forward. If it be true that we have not yet accepted the fact that we are members of "one world," or even of one nation, how much more true it is that we are not even members of the little communities to which we belong. We become more and more atomized, more and more separate and isolate. We hand our problems over to our respective governments, absolving ourselves of duty, conscience, and initiative. We do not believe in personal example, though we profess to worship that great exemplar Jesus the Christ. We hide from the face of reality: it is too terrible, we think. Yet it is we, only we, who have created this hideous world. And it is we who will change it - by changing our own inner vision. — Henry Miller

I started in the theater world in New York City - and indie films - and I love the feeling of your head coming together and trying to tell a simple story, a small story, and just getting that vibe of storytelling without all the craziness of big budget. — Andre Royo

I have never yet gotten entirely over the feeling that a Yankee, on account of his peculiar teachings and bringing-up, is far inferior to the better class of Southern people. I do not believe the world ever saw or will ever again see, unless the millennium comes, such high state of civilization and culture and exalted virtue as was the Southern states prior to the war. I have yet to find one Yankee, thought I do not say there are none, who, when the money test is made, will not for his own interest do some small or little thing, and often mean thing, if it is to his advantage to do so.

Writing as I now do after the lapse of nearly 40 years (and years do soften, and old age ought to) one may somewhat judge my feeling about the Yankees when the war ended. — George Benjamin West

No one can genuinely love the world, which is too large to love entire. To love all the world at once is ... dangerous self-delusion. Loving the world is like loving the idea of love, which is perilous because, feeling virtuous about this grand affection, you are freed from the struggles and the duties that come with loving people as individuals, with loving one place-home-above all others.
I embrace the world on a scale that allows genuine love-the small places like a town, a neighborhood, a street-and I love life, because of what the beauty of this world and of this life portend. — Dean Koontz

Wait!" said Erbrechen, suddenly feeling jovial. "I change my mind. Never shite again. Ever. Anywhere."
It was a small thing, but of such small things were life's joys truly made. The thought, he knew, would keep him smiling for days.
"The world is a comedy, intoned Erbrechen, tittering, "and each must play his fart. — Michael R. Fletcher

The basis of all scientific work is the conviction that the world is an ordered and comprehensive entity, which is a religious sentiment. My religious feeling is a humble amazement at the order revealed in the small patch of reality to which our feeble intelligence is equal. — Albert Einstein

It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland. — Haruki Murakami

He stood at the edge of town feeling very small, powerless. Night in the mountains could do that to you, reminding you of your place in the world and laughing at any sense of self-importance. — Michael Koryta

[ ... ] the less you know, the less you will be aware of your ignorance. The familiar metaphor is that the wider the circle of our knowledge, the greater its contact with the unknown, and the more oppressive our feeling of cognitive inadequacy. By contrast, a small mind finds a small world to match it, and the smaller the mind the more it feels it has the world sussed. — Raymond Tallis

I was lost a long time, without knowing it. Without the Faith, one is free, and that is a pleasant feeling at first. There are no questions of conscience, no constraints, except the constraints of custom, convention and the law, and these are flexible enough for most purposes. It is only later that terror comes. One is free - but free in chaos, in an unexplained and unexplainable world. One is free in a desert, from which there is no retreat but inward, toward the hollow core of oneself. There is nothing to build on but the small rock of one's own pride, and this is a nothing, based on nothing ... I think, therefore I am. But what am I? An accident of disorder, going no place. — Morris L. West

To whoever will listen.

I've been thinking about black holes a lot. How their gravity is so strong it bends time and space. How you'd be stretched down to atoms passing the event horizon.

I kind of feel like I'm being stretched to atoms. Like I'm falling apart and becoming so metaphorically thin that I'm transparent. But, as nothing that happens past the event horizon affects the universe outside of it, nothing that I'm feeling is affecting anyone in the outside world, either.

The event horizon is a point of no return. Nothing, not even light, can escape it.

I wonder what will happen when I pass the event horizon and fully submerge myself into the black hole.

There are theories that if you enter a blackhole under a specific angle, you'll survive and hit the bottom of it. The chances are incredibily small.

I doubt I'll survive. — Emily Trunko