No Work Is Insignificant Quotes & Sayings

Just as there are no little people or unimportant lives, there is no insignificant work. — Yelena Bonner

But, then again, the actions of the most insignificant men or women can be as a single raindrop that rolls a pebble that dislodges a clod that tumbles a rock and, before you know it, the whole mountainside has crashed down, sweeping palaces and pigsties, princes and paupers into the sea. So maybe there are demons at work, even in the smallest mischief — Karen Maitland

People are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions, or when they are not at work, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. Subjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence cases to have any point of meaning — Aldous Huxley

The uninitiated often assumed that undergraduate students were at the bottom rung, but undergrads were the paying customers, or at least their parents were. And paying customers needed to be kept happy. Grad students worked for the school as teaching and research assistants--TAs and RAs--but weren't really proper employees, and as such they weren't entitled to the benefits that, say, a cataloger in the Coffey Library received. Then there was the fact that they had to learn to leave behind passive studying and test taking, which was what most of them had been taught in their school careers up to that point, and learn how to actively attack research problems and come up with new ideas, all while being poorly paid. Like Helen had said, a not insignificant number of grad students left after a year instead of sticking around to work on obtaining their PhDs. Who could blame them? Industry paid more and had better benefits. — Neve Maslakovic

The teachers of small children are paid more than they were, but still far less than the importance of their work deserves, and they are still regarded by the unenlightened majority as insignificant compared to those who impart information to older children and adolescents, a class of pupils which, in the nature of things, is vastly more able to protect its own individuality from the character of the teacher. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Cat doesn't have to work. She's a woman of independent means. I settled enough money on her to allow her the freedom to do anything she wished. She went to boarding school for four years, and stayed to teach for another two. Eventually she came to me and said she'd accepted a position as a governess for the Hathaway family. I believe you were in France with Win at the time. Cat went for the interview, Cam and Amelia liked her, Beatrix and Poppy clearly needed her, and no one seemed inclined to question her lack of experience."
"Of course not," Leo said acidly. "My family would never bother with something so insignificant as job experience. I'm sure they started the interview by asking what her favorite color was. — Lisa Kleypas

The insignificant labor; the great create. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION How much work did you do today that you will be proud of tomorrow? I don't mean just how you handled the big things, but also how you addressed the little, seemingly insignificant ones. Did you make progress on what matters most to you, or did you allow the buzz, busyness, and expectations of others to squelch your passion and focus? I've been asking these questions of others and myself each day for more than a decade, and they are the main reason I originally felt compelled to write Die Empty. Through my work I've encountered many teams of brilliant, sharp, amazing, talented people who have at some point "settled in" or begun coasting on past success. Unfortunately, — Todd Henry

Ames applied this technique to any number of compounds, but one of the most interesting pieces of work was his 1990 paper on "Dietary Pesticides."5 Ames recognized that most plants produced their own pesticides and compared their prevalence to the residues of synthetic pesticides. Surprisingly, they found that 99.99% of the pesticides in the American diet were from plants, and only .01% were from synthetic sources. They noted that only 52 of those naturally occurring pesticides had been tested for carcinogenicity, and that 27 of those were indeed carcinogenic. So, if more than half of the tested natural pesticides were carcinogenic and in far greater concentration than those applied by man, they then concluded that the hazards from synthetic pesticides were probably insignificant. — James W. Cooper

Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recognize our personal immortality; men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God. — Henry Parry Liddon

A final word should be said concerning the status of free blacks. Before the American Revolution this status had been ambiguous, and the number of free blacks was insignificant. < ... > A rash of new laws, similar to the later Black Codes of Reconstruction, reduced free blacks almost to the status of slaves without masters. The new laws regulated their freedom of movement, forbade them to associate with slaves, subjected them to surveillance and discipline by whites, denied them the legal right to testify in court against whites, required them to work at approved jobs, and threatened them with penal labor if not actual reenslavement. — David Brion Davis

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 gerneralizations 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

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

[ ... ] but just as formerly these pursuits and ideas had seemed petty and insignificant in comparison with the darkness that overshadowed all existence, so now they seemed as petty and insignificant in comparison with the brilliant sunshine in which the future was bathed. He went on with his work but now he felt that the centre of gravity of his attention had shifted, making him look at his work quite differently and with greater clarity. Formerly this work had been an escape from life: he used to feel that without it life would be too gloomy. Now he needed it so that life might not be too uniformly bright. — Leo Tolstoy

No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Faithful death that never forgets in the press of work the most insignificant of its children. — Joseph Conrad

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

We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are there to please ...
We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer's block, the author's panic at the thought that he might be lost: his discouragement, his courage, his anguish, his stubbornness, the risk of failure that he has taken. — Laurence Cosse

It isn't a hunch but the subconscious mind, which is the creative mind, at work. That is the mind which makes artists do things without their knowing how they came to do them. Perhaps with me it was the cumulative effect of a lot of little things individually insignificant but collectively powerful. — Jesse Lauriston Livermore

As there is no insignificant work, there is not an insignificant leader. All leaders need training ... not just a few. — Quint Studer

Fifth letter : To lead your best life, do your best work

There is no insignificant work in the world. All labor is a chance to express personal talents, to create our art and to realize the genius we are built to be. We must work like picasso painted : with devotion, passion, energy and excellence. In this way, our productivity will not only become a source of inspiration to others, but it will have an impact - making a difference in the lives around us. One of the greatest secrets to a life beautifully lived is to do work that matters. And to ascend to such a state of mastery in it that people can't take ther eyes off you. — Robin S. Sharma

You can't complain around a pregnant woman. I know that because I've lived with one for eight years. Every one of the man's problems is insignificant on a relative basis. HUSBAND: I'm tired. PREGNANT WOMAN: Oh, really? I'm growing a human being. HUSBAND: I have so much work to do. PREGNANT WOMAN: Oh, really? I have to push a baby with your head size out of my body. HUSBAND: I'm going to stand in the corner for the next nine months. — Jim Gaffigan

If you were to gather all the minutes wasted on insignificant, immaterial yik yak spent throughout the day and add them up, how much misspent time do you think you'd have? One hour? Two hours? Consider the sunk cost on that. It's unacceptable. One minute wasted is one minute too much. — Ari Gold

The state sometimes makes mistakes. When one of these mistakes occurs, a decline in collective enthusiasm is reflected by a resulting quantitative decrease of the contribution of each individual, each of the elements forming the whole of the masses. Work is so paralysed that insignificant quantities are produced. It is time to make a correction. — Che Guevara

Never do anything local or insignificant — Sunday Adelaja

Human beings do not live forever, Reuven. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?
I learned a long time ago, Reuven, that a blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life.
It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. That I do not think you understand yet. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. — Chaim Potok

If God lets me live, I shall attain more than Mummy ever has done, I shall not remain insignificant, I shall work in the world and for mankind! — Anne Frank

The scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages. — Albert Einstein

I know that the work is good and they're excited over at ABC and Disney and it's getting some really good feedback. It's not just a little, insignificant kind of role. It's meaty, which is good. — Josh Holloway

Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself. — Brendan Behan

I love to read the dedications of old books written in monarchies for they invariably honor some (usually insignificant) knight or duke with fulsome words of sycophantic insincerity, praising him as the light of the universe (in hopes, no doubt, for a few ducats to support future work); this old practice makes me feel like such an honest and upright man, by comparison, when I put a positive spin, perhaps ever so slightly exaggerated, on a grant proposal. — Stephen Jay Gould

The emancipation of woman will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims anything but an insignificant amount of her time. — Friedrich Engels