Small Gains Quotes & Sayings

It is true that when we take chances, we stand to lose. But it is also true that we will never win anything if we never even enter the game. Lucky people are aware of the possibility of losing, and indeed they may lose often. But since the chances they take are small, the losses tend to be small. By being willing to accept small losses they put themselves in position to make large gains. — Max Gunther

If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. In fact a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk of the taxes. — Michael Bloomberg

Lampis the ship owner, on being asked how he acquired his great wealth, replied, My great wealth was acquired with no difficulty, but my small wealth, my first gains, with much labor. — Epictetus

When forecasting the outcomes of risky projects, executives too easily fall victim to the planning fallacy. In its grip, they make decisions based on delusional optimism rather than on a rational weighting of gains, losses, and probabilities. They overestimate benefits and underestimate costs. They spin scenarios of success while overlooking the potential for mistakes and miscalculations. As a result, they pursue initiatives that are unlikely to come in on budget or on time or to deliver the expected returns - or even to be completed. In this view, people often (but not always) take on risky projects because they are overly optimistic about the odds they face. I will return to this idea several times in this book - it probably contributes to an explanation of why people litigate, why they start wars, and why they open small businesses. — Daniel Kahneman

Whenever women have made any social gains, whether it's being accepted as athletes or moving into the professions, it's going to be contradicted with an image of woman as small, diminished, reduced, brought back to a childish body. The result is that a lot of extraordinary power is going to be diverted into making oneself smaller than one is meant to be. — Kim Chernin

And gain is gain, however small. — Robert Browning

Science gains from it [the pendulum] more than one can expect. With its huge dimensions, the apparatus presents qualities that one would try in vain to communicate by constructing it on a small [scale], no matter how carefully. Already the regularity of its motion promises the most conclusive results. One collects numbers that, compared with the predictions of theory, permit one to appreciate how far the true pendulum approximates or differs from the abstract system called 'the simple pendulum'. — Jean Bernard Leon Foucault

I know as soon as we hit the sweet spot, an intangible instant when the music gains control of fluttering wings to take real flight - soaring, swooping, diving and rising in the small studio. No single one of us is in control. The wall of sound is its own thing - lifted, weight shared, by five pairs of hands. I shake hair from closed eyes just because I need to move. If I let the pressure build and build and keep it in my hands, in the guitar, I'll explode. We carve out places for the verses, the chorus repetitions, and the coda. We line the edges of sonic space with rhythm and melody and stand Scope's sharp samples at each corner. — Emma Trevayne

There needs no small degree of address to gain the reputation of benevolence without incurring the expense. — Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Your progress as a runner is a frustratingly slow process of small gains. It's a matter of inching up your mileage and your pace. It's a matter of learning to celebrate the small gains as if they were Olympic victories. It means paying your dues on the road or the treadmill. It means searching for the limits of your body and demanding that your spirit not give up. It means making the most of what you have. It means making yourself an athlete one workout at a time. — John Bingham

In the present state of human society, however, We deem it advisable that the wage-contract should, when possible, be modified somewhat by a contract of partnership, as is already being tried in various ways to the no small gain both of the wage-earners and of the employers. In this way wage-earners are made sharers in some sort in the ownership, or the management, or the profits. — Pope Pius XI

Sincerity of conviction and purity of motive will surely gain the day; and even a small minority, armed with these, is surely destined to prevail against all odds. — Swami Vivekananda

For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant-and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night. Even small and casual things take on significance if they are washed in space, like a few autumn grasses in one corner of an Oriental painting, the rest of the page bare. — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Kaizen is a Japanese term that captures the concept of continuously making many small improvements. It was considered to be one of the main reasons for the dramatic gains in productivity and quality in Japanese manufacturing and was widely copied throughout the world. Kaizen applies to individuals, too. Every day, work to refine the skills you have and to add new tools to your repertoire. — Anonymous

I will eliminate capital-gains taxes for the small businesses and the startups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow — Barack Obama

Keep it small. Keep it simple. Give it time. An exercise program such as yoga is a slow process. It is slow by design. But, in order to secure the gains and add to them, you have to keep it up. And guess what, the more you do it, the more your desire to do it grows. It is the same with building core spiritual muscles. You may have a period of intense growth - perhaps some adversity that drives you to your knees and calls forth the blessings of heaven. But to secure those gains, we must continue to invite the Holy Ghost into our lives - daily. — Virginia H. Pearce

The invisible life energy of the universe is ceaselessly being supplied to you through your breathing and your meridian points. When you truly realize that your life force is not maintained by your own independent power, but by the greater energy at large, your small, finite self gains the power to draw in that energy. — Ilchi Lee

All live by seeming.
The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service.
All admit it,
All practise it; and he who is content
With showing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state.
So wags the world. — Walter Scott

The point of equilibrium will be known by the criterion that an infinitely small amount of commodity exchanged in addition, at the same rate, will bring neither gain nor loss of utility. — William Stanley Jevons

Marginal gains is not about making small changes and hoping they fly. Rather, it is about breaking down a big problem into small parts in order to rigorously establish what works and what doesn't. — Matthew Syed

If the gains from trade in commodities are substantial, they are small compared to trade in ideas — David Landes

There is always more after the ending. Always the next morning, and the next. Always changes, losses and gains. Always one step after the other. Until the one true ending that none of us can escape. But even that ending is only a small one, larges as it looms for us. There is still the next morning for everyone else. For the vast majority of the rest of the universe that ending might as well not ever have happened. Every ending is an arbitrary one. Everything ending is from another angle, not really an ending. — Ann Leckie

The alt-right's small gains in popularity will not be enough to win Trump the election. This is not Germany in the 1930s. All that's changed is that one of Alex's fans - one of those grumpy looking middle-aged men sitting in David Icke's audience - is now the Republican nominee. But if some disaster unfolds - if Hillary's health declines further, or she grows ever more off-puttingly secretive - and Trump gets elected, he could bring Alex and the others with him. The idea of Donald Trump and Alex Jones and Roger Stone and Stephen Bannon having power over us - that is terrifying. THE — Jon Ronson

There is a cultural norm on the left of being afraid to declare victory, which is related to the binary of reform/revolution. Whereas reformists are winning small gains, revolutionaries don't want people to be satisfied with those small victories because they worry this will lead to acceptance of the bigger picture of capitalism domination, and so they find a way to turn every victory into a defeat. In the book, I call for a culture of declaring victory wherever we can. — Cynthia Kauffman

If there is such a thing as saintly renunciation, it is renouncing small gains for better gains; not for no gains, but seeing with open eyes what is better and what is inferior. Even if the choice has to lie between two momentary gains, one of these would always be found to be more real and lasting; that is the one that should be followed for the time. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

Diplomacy, if conducted sensibly, is a matter of small gains offset by small losses, an attempt to maintain a state of equilibrium in which catastrophes are either mitigated or, with luck, avoided entirely. — William S. Maltby