Grand Scale Quotes & Sayings

I believed we could know what was happening to us. We were not excluded from our own lives. That is not my head on someone else's body in the photograph that's introduced as evidence. I didn't believe that nations play-act on a grand scale. I lived in the real. — Don DeLillo

The positive evidence for Darwinism is confined to small-scale evolutionary changes like insects developing insecticide resistance ... Evidence like that for insecticide resistance confirms the Darwinian selection mechanism for small-scale changes, but hardly warrants the grand extrapolation that Darwinists want. It is a huge leap going from insects developing insecticide resistance via the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection and random variation to the very emergence of insects in the first place by that same mechanism. — William A. Dembski

Museums should no longer concern themselves with history on a grand scale, the sagas of kings and heroes, or the forging of national identities; they should focus instead on the lives and belongings of ordinary people, just as modern novels do. — Orhan Pamuk

Today's restaurant is theater on a grand scale. — Marian Burros

My mistakes do happen on a grand scale and very public level. They're humiliating, embarrassing. But if nothing bad happens to you, you'll just continue to act ridiculous. — Christian Slater

In 1492 Columbus knew less about the far Atlantic than we do about the heavens, yet he chose not to sail with a flotilla of less than three ships ... So it is with interplanetary exploration: it must be done on the grand scale. — Wernher Von Braun

La poe sie veutquelque chose d'e norme, debarbare et de sauvage. Poetry needs something on the scale of the grand, the barbarous, the savage. — Denis Diderot

Many entrepreneurs that made their fortunes by founding successful technology companies want to give back and solve the world's biggest problems on a grand scale. There is tremendous opportunity in this approach. — Peter Diamandis

I am preoccupied with the possibility of creating art which functions in a public situation without compromising its private character of being antiheroic, antimonumental, antiabstract, and antigeneral. The paradox is intensified by the use on a grand scale of small-scale subjects known from intimate situations
an approach which tends in turn to reduce the scale of the real landscape to imaginary dimensions. — Claes Oldenburg

Don't give over all of your critical faculties to people in power, no matter how admirable those people may appear to be. Beneath the hero's facade you will find a human being who makes human mistakes. Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero. And sometimes you run into another problem. It is demonstrable that power structures tend to attract people who want power for the sake of power and that a significant proportion of such people are imbalanced - in a word, insane. — Frank Herbert

The question itself [of UFOs] I think is legitimate. It's interesting, it's fascinating. It's mythic in scale and one of the grand questions. It's like the God question or, you know, the meaning-of-life question. It's one of those, on that scale. So you'd have to be made of wood not to be interested and, you know, have they come here? Are they up there? — Michael Shermer

I always enjoy working with an international crew and director. But on the set of a Hollywood action film - now that's a whole other world. The sheer grand scale of the way things are done over there makes me envious; it's just so different from the way things are done in Japan. — Tadanobu Asano

I thought, This is fabulous. It sent shivers up my spine. I thought, What kinds of people are these that would produce this kind of music in a camp? All the prison camp stories I've seen, and heard of, were about the heroism of men. As I researched this and heard the music, I realized that women were heroic too, on just as grand a scale. And their treatment was just as appalling. — Bruce Beresford

I went to the Grand Canyon with my family when I was about 8 years old, and I had a very blah experience. I think the scale of it is too huge - you don't appreciate it. — David Roberts

You need an immense amount of luck and perseverance to even be on the playing field for success on a grand scale. — Chris Gethard

You don't have to be successful on a grand scale like winning a talent competition or writing a New York Times bestseller - if you have enough small things that you can be successful at then eventually they outshine all your failures. — Lindsey Rietzsch

You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger. — Brittany Gibbons

Richard occasionally spoke wistfully about the works of art he'd seen at the People's Palace, in D'Hara, where he had been held captive. Growing up in Hartland, he had never before seen statues carved in marble, and certainly none carved on such a grand scale, or by such talented hands. Those works had in some ways opened his eyes to the greater world around him and had made a lasting impression on him. Who else but Richard would remember fondly the beauty he saw while held captive and being tortured? — Terry Goodkind

History, for better or worse, is 'us' on a grand scale - full of secrets, beauty, fear, longing, and stifled love. Without history, our lives would not be complete, and we could not be, in the best sense, fully 'human. — Boria Sax

Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale. — Donna Tartt

In the life of a child of the elite, there are many moments ripe for a grand celebration. There are birth and the inevitable death.In between,various stages of consciousness define the nature and scale of celebration. — K.J. Kilton

Volunteering is an act of heroism on a grand scale. And it matters profoundly. It does more than help people beat the odds; it changes the odds. — William J. Clinton

That same moment he ordered the hateful portrait taken out. But that did not calm his inner agitation: all his feelings and all his being were shaken to their depths, and he came to know that terrible torment which, by way of a striking exception, sometimes occurs in nature, when a weak talent strains to show itself on too grand a scale and fails; that torment which gives birth to great things in a youth, but, in passing beyond the border of dream, turns into a fruitless yearning; that dreadful torment which makes a man capable of terrible evildoing. — Nikolai Gogol

Now, in this generation, the entirety of the globe is facing an ideological and socio-political collapse on a grand scale. This is by design, it is man-made. The outcome is still carefully assessed with little room for error or improvement. There is only one flaw: the divine element in humanity. Our sentient consciousness bestows with the capacity to support the freedom of thought and movement with the inherent awareness that both come at a cost. When we speak our minds, we are going to offend and be offended. There are no safe spaces in conversation. People will say things we don't like. We have to accept this is the price of freedom of speech. When we allow for freedom of movement during times of war, we have to accept that we are inviting in enemies as well as refugees, especially when we don't bother to discern which is which. Even the best, most selfless intentions can pave the way to our downfall... — Anita B. Sulser PhD

No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did. — David Halberstam

Words have power, you understand? It is in the nature of our universe. Our library itself distorts time and space on quite a grand scale. Well, when the Post Office started accumulating letters, it was storing words. In fact, what was being created was what we call a 'gevaisa', a tomb of living words. — Terry Pratchett

I was in Manhattan during 9/11, and that was really the only thing that I related to as far as a disaster on a grand scale. It was really interesting to see on that day and in the weeks afterwards how people came together, and what people were able to do for each other, and what I found myself feeling and thinking and doing for the people around me, whether it was strangers on the street or my own family. It was really an experience that you can't fake. — Alexandra Daddario

Every year, in every state across the country, politicians and union reps make decisions that detrimentally affect teachers and the profession on a grand scale. They take away our benefits, freeze our pay, and decide they can no longer compensate us for the advanced degrees we have earned. They also continue to find ways to tie our evaluations to test scores, totally oblivious of the fact that we teachers cannot control when or if students show up in our classrooms regularly, if they have had proper rest and a nutritious breakfast, let alone if they are receptive to learning the content we work so hard to prepare and teach. It simply isn't fair. — M. Shannon Hernandez

The first thing the investigator comes to understand in comparing the dream-content with the dream-thoughts is that work of condensation has been carried out here on a grand scale. — Sigmund Freud

Legally, Moosbrugger's case could be summed up in-a sentence. He
was one of those borderline cases in law and forensic medicine
known even to the layman as a case of diminished responsibility.
These unfortunates typically suffer not only substandard health
but also have a substandard disease, Nature has a peculiar prefer-
ence for producing such people in droves. Natura non fecit saltus,
she makes no jumps but prefers gradual transitions; even on the
grand scale she keeps the world in a transitional state between imbe-
cility and sanity. — Robert Musil

Politics creates an almost endless time horizon into the future ... As governor I had the incredible luxury of being able to dream on a grand scale. And this sense of infinite possibility gives politics its romance. — Madeleine M. Kunin

I fear that those who see freedom solely as a political concept will never fully grasp its meaning. The political pursuit of freedom can lead to its eradication on a grand scale - or rather it opens the door to countless curtailments. — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

It will be okay," Franklin said. And even though I felt he was far too optimistic, I also suspected that there was wisdom in his optimism; Franklin's scale for "okay" spanned thousands of years. He didn't worry about someone being unhappy for a few hours or days. He didn't really worry about unhappiness at all. I think he worried about animals and sunlight and possibly grain. He worried about the furtherance of human knowledge as a grand cooperative endeavor that made him coworkers with everyone from Proust to Einstein to the author of Inanna. — Rufi Thorpe

It will take an unprecedented act of courage, on a grand scale. You may have to do something virtually unknown in the annals of human history ... You may have to give up some of your most sacred beliefs ... let me make something clear. — Neale Donald Walsch

Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science. — Paul Johnson

The more my heart is parked in a place of thanksgiving and rejoicing, the less room I have for grumpiness.
My kids are driving me crazy? At least they are healthy enough to have that kind of energy. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My laundry is piled to the ceiling? Every stitch of clothing is evidence of life in my home. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My husband isn't all skippy romantic about the two of us shopping together? In the grand scheme of life, so what? He's a good man. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
I feel unorganized and behind and late on everything? Scale back, let unrealistic expectations go, and savor some happy moments today. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
The more I rejoice, the more I keep things in perspective. The more I keep things in perspective, the gentler I become. — Lysa TerKeurst

If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere
probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations
many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too. — Walt Whitman

Seven years ago, when I started free soloing long, hard routes in Yosemite - climbing without a rope, gear or a partner - I did it because it seemed like the purest, most elegant way to scale big walls. Climbing, especially soloing, felt like a grand adventure, but I never dreamed it could be a profession. — Alex Honnold

When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order. — James A. Baldwin

I spent my whole career in the technology business, and I was convinced of the importance, at a grand scale, of the development of global connectivity. — John Morgridge

Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class - which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict. — David Boaz

The sane understand that human beings are incapable of sustaining conspiracies on a grand scale, because some of our most defining qualities as a species are inattention to detail, a tendency to panic, and an inability to keep our mouths shut. — Dean Koontz

Eirik Thorvaldsson Raudi - Eirik the Red - was red of hair and red of beard, bloody of heart and bloody of hand. He was a murderously bad neighbor, a scoundrel on a grand scale, a heathen to the core, and to the last of his life he remained unregenerate. Yet, he was a towering figure of a Viking. And others would follow him to the end of the world and live with him at the end of human existence. — Robert Wernick

I feel like I'm just doing a job. It's amazing to think that you affect other peoples' lives on such a grand scale. I'm so thankful for that, and I'm so lucky. It's hard to stop and think that people are interested in me. — Kip Pardue

Compelling spectacles are not to reach a niche market, it could be for reaching a niche marketing but on a grand scale. This is for grand marketing. — Robert Greene

Freedom, "that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm," is the motivating principle of all revolutions. Without it, justice seems inconceivable to the rebel's mind. There comes a time, however, when justice demands the suspension of freedom. Then terror, on a grand or small scale, makes its appearance to consummate the revolution. Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being. But one day nostalgia takes up arms and assumes the responsibility of total guilt; in other words, adopts murder and violence. — Albert Camus

I am not sure how much Dudley will feature just because of the grand scale of the film and the fact that there are so many stories and characters to tie up. I haven't seen the film yet but I think it will be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, but it was nice just to round it off and give it some closure. — Harry Melling

I find nothing more frightening than a man trying to do what he has decided is important. Very little in the world has ever gone astray - at least on a grand scale - because a person decided to be frivolous — Brandon Sanderson

Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects. — Murray N. Rothbard

I spend a lot of time working and with my family, so I don't have much time around the edges to do much else. I don't really listen to a great deal of music. I love music, but since I spend a lot of time in the studio, we probably watch a movie rather than listen to albums. I get to hear stuff, but not on the grand scale. — Kate Bush

There is no significant difference between human activities and those by amoebas and even bacteria, well, on the GRAND SCALE. — Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov

Nature was one of the key forces that brought me back to God, for I wanted to know the Artist responsible for beauty such as I saw on grand scale in photos from space telescopes or on minute scale such as in the intricate designs on a butterfly wing. — Philip Yancey

I think people's perception is that when you're famous, you want people to love you. That's a big part of why people become famous, because they don't just want love, they want it on a grand scale. But once you realize - and it's not a big trick to really figure it out - that it's just completely artificial, an external pumping of the ego that's never going to really help you, then it's an easy thing to step out of it. That's probably why Harrison Ford lived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. — Woody Harrelson

In 'Tree of Life,' the cinematography records a small story, a celebration of the courage of everyday life. But it does it so up close and so effortlessly that it has the effect of elevating the intimacy of the story to a grand scale. — Caleb Deschanel

Grown on a grand scale, sugar spreads its blight on a grand scale and today unemployment and poverty are these islands' permanent guests. — Eduardo Galeano

The film festival measured a mile in length, from the Martinez to the Vieux Port, where sales executives tucked into their platters of fruits de mer, but was only fifty yards deep. For a fortnight the Croisette and its grand hotels willingly became a facade, the largest stage set in the world. Without realizing it, the crowds under the palm trees were extras recruited to play their traditional roles. As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their limos, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit. — J.G. Ballard

War is legitimized state-sponsored terrorism in a grand scale. — Newton Lee

I always think that the exceptional people are those who remain outsiders but still communicate on a grand scale. I think I want everyone to feel more free, and so I feel really claustrophobic on behalf of lots of people. — Bat For Lashes

I make mistakes on a very grand scale. — Gail Carson Levine

I hate Gucci,' said Francis.
'Do you?' said Henry, glancing up from his reverie. 'Really? I think it's rather grand.'
'Come on, Henry.'
'Well, it's so expensive, but it's so ugly too, isn't it? I think they make it ugly on purpose. And yet people buy it out of sheer perversity.'
'I don't see what you think is grand about that.'
'Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale,' said Henry. — Donna Tartt

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

Does the commandment 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' mean nothing to us? Are we to interpret it as meaning 'Thou shalt not kill except on the grand scale,' or 'Thou shalt not kill except when the national leaders say to do so'? — Linus Pauling

Enormous problems arise when human mistakes are made on the grand scale available to a superhero ... Heroes are painful, superheroes are a catastrophe. The mistakes of superheroes involve too many of us in disaster. — Frank Herbert

She was a worst-case scenarist on a grand scale. Because it was never just that the door was unlocked, it was that the door was unlocked, and men were inside, and they were waiting to rape and kill her. — Gillian Flynn

F I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur. — Henry James

[S]tatism is but socialized dishonesty; it is feathering the nests of some with feathers coercively plucked from others - on the grand scale. There is no moral difference between the act of a pickpocket and the progressive income tax or any other social program. — Leonard Read

I love grand scale. One of the things that everybody mentions is that my novels are beautiful objects in the sense that the elements of the actual book are being extruded and re-contextualized. — Richard Grossman

In the Digital Age, recorders also tend to be oversharers, and with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, they can do so on a grand scale. — Graydon Carter

The grand scale and immersive nature of The IMAX Experience gives 'Spiderwick' a brand new level of excitement. In IMAX theatres, fans will be drawn into the movie even further and feel as if they are actually part of the story. — Mark Canton

Individuality, family, and community are, by definition, expressions of singular organization, never of "one-right-way" thinking on the grand scale. Children and families need some relief from government surveillance and intimidation if original expressions belonging to THEM are to develop. Without these freedom has no meaning. — John Taylor Gatto

Within the grand scale of things, sitting in a classroom day after day is so utterly meaningless and pointless that it actually makes his chest hurt to think about it. — Tabitha Suzuma

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. Some are on a grand scale, most of these choices are on lesser points. But we define ourselves by the choices we have made. We are, in fact, the sum total of our choices. Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, Human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. it is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more — Woody Allen

Contemplating a flame perpetuates a primordial reverie. It separates us from the world and enlarges our world as dreamers. In itself the flame is a major presence, but being close to it makes us dream of far away, too far away. The flame is there, feeble and tiny, struggling to stay in existence, and the dreamer goes on to dream of elsewhere, losing his own being by dreaming on a grand, on a too grand scale by dreaming of the world. — Gaston Bachelard

Besides, we weren't made to battle villains, because there weren't any. No nation, creed, or race was any better or worse than another; all were flawed, all were equally doomed to suffering, mostly because they couldn't see that they were all alike. Mortals might have been contemptible, true, but not evil entirely. They did enjoy killing one another and frequently came up with ingenious excuses for doing so on a grand scale - religions, economic theories, ethnic pride - but we couldn't condemn them for it, as it was in their mortal natures and they were too stupid to know any better. — Kage Baker