The Small Things You Do Quotes & Sayings

When we go on about the big things, the political situation, global warming, world poverty, it all looks really terrible, with nothing getting better, nothing to look forward to. But when I think small, closer in-you know, a girl I've just met, or this song we'regoing to do with Chas, or snowboarding next month, then it looks great. So this is going to be my motto - think small. — Ian McEwan

In a small, dark room with no windows, a man hunched over his cluttered workstation. Papers were scattered all over the surface of the desk and he had to dig through them to find the keyboard. He sat down and turned on the monitor. As the display warmed up, a bright green typing arrow faded into view in the bottom corner of the screen. The man scraped his hand across his scraggly beard and typed into the screen on his computer. "How are you doing today?" The display beeped and words formed on the screen as someone responded. "When can I have someone to play with?" The man sighed and typed again. "I'm sorry, but you know why you must be alone right now." The computer beeped as the reply came across the screen. "I'm doing better." "I'm sure you are, but I have to be sure you can't hurt anyone." "I promise I won't." "I believe you. But there are some things I have to do to make sure. — Steve DeWinter

You may not be able to move the mountain with one hit, but you can do so by picking up the rocks bit by bit! Stop loading yourself and go bit by bit ... You will get there! — Israelmore Ayivor

People are bad at looking at seeds and guessing what size tree will grow out of them. The way you'll get big ideas in, say, health care is by starting out with small ideas. If you try to do some big thing, you don't just need it to be big; you need it to be good. And it's really hard to do big and good simultaneously. So, what that means is you can either do something small and good and then gradually make it bigger, or do something big and bad and gradually make it better. And you know what? Empirically, starting big just does not work. That's the way the government does things. They do something really big that's really bad, and they think, Well, we'll make it better, and then it never gets better.
Building Fast Companies for Growth, Inc. September 2013 — Paul Graham

All money is imaginary," answered the Calcatrix simply. "Money is magic everyone agrees to pretend is not magic. Observe! You treat it like magic, wield it like magic, fear it like magic! Why should a body with more small circles of copper or silver or gold than anyone else have an easy life full of treats every day and sleeping in and other people bowing down? The little circles can't get up and fight a battle or make a supper so splendid you get full just by looking at it or build a house of a thousand gables. They can do those things because everyone agrees to give them power. If everyone agreed to stop giving power to pretty metals and started giving it to thumbnails or mushroom caps or roof shingles or first kisses or tears or hours or puffin feathers, those little circles would just lay there tarnishing in the rain and not making anyone bow their noses down to the ground or stick them up in the air. — Catherynne M Valente

I did and do believe, after all that I've seen and done, that if you project yourself into the mass of things, if you look for things, if you search, you will, by the very act of searching, make something that would not otherwise have happened, you will find something, even something small, something that will certainly be more than if you hadn't gone looking in the first place, if you hadn't asked our grandfather anything at all...There are no miracles, no magical coincidences. There is only looking and finally seeing, what was always there. — Daniel Mendelsohn

Do the small stuff. A consistent little will earn you a lot. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness ... the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions. — Robert A. Heinlein

I'm told my father cemented a number of profitable deals in this room." Alan eased down beside her.
Shelby opened her eyes to slits. "I imagine he did.By the time he was through, he could've reduced most normally built men to puddbles." Idly the trailed a fingertip down Alan's thigh. "Do you ever use saunas for vital government intrigue, Senator?"
"I'm inclined to think of other things in small hot rooms." Bending,he brushed his lips over her bare shoudler-the touch of a tongue,the quick pressure of teeth. "Vital,certainly, but more personal."
"Mmm." Shelby tilted her head as he trailed his lips closer to her throat. "How personal?"
"Highly confidential. — Nora Roberts

Someone has to do it. It's all very well calling for eye of newt, but do you mean Common, Spotted or Great Crested? Which eye, anyway? Will tapioca do just as well? If we substitute egg white will the spell a) work b) fail or c) melt the bottom out of the cauldron? Goodie Whemper's curiosity about such things was huge and insatiable*.
* Nearly insatiable. It was probably satiated in her last flight to test whether a broomstick could survive having its bristles pulled out one by one in mid-air. According to the small black raven she had trained as a flight recorder, the answer was almost certainly no. — Terry Pratchett

Where you can starve to death in safety," I mutter. Then I glance quickly over my shoulder. Even here, even in the middle of nowhere, you worry someone might overhear you. When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol. Eventually I understood this would only lead us to more trouble. So I learned to hold my tongue and to turn my features into an indifferent mask so that no one could ever read my thoughts. Do my work quietly in school. Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food — Suzanne Collins

A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. — Tim O'Brien

In a lot of ways it is easier to do things on a large scale. It is easier to build a skyscraper in Manhattan than it is to buy a bungalow in the Bronx. For one thing, it takes just as much time to close a big deal as it does to close a small deal. You will endure as much stress and aggravation; you will have all the same headaches and problems. It is easier to finance a big deal. Bankers would much rather lend money for a big project than for a small one. They are more comfortable investing money in a big prestigious building than they are a rundown house in a bad section of town. If you succeed with the big project, you stand to gain a lot more money. — Donald J. Trump

Again, I am surprised why people seek to eliminate lust and cling to love; as they wish to ignore happiness and cleave unto joy! Now, now, let's not sugar-coat things! Lust has a lot more to do with life and what is the good of life if you do not carry much lust inside of you at all times? And joy is a noble thing, but happiness though fleeting can be found every day and in every small little way! — C. JoyBell C.

TWO THINGS STRIKE every Irish person when he comes to America, Irish friends tell me: the vastness of the country, and the seemingly endless desire of its people to talk about their personal problems. Two things strike an American when he comes to Ireland: how small it is, and how tight-lipped. An Irish person with a personal problem takes it into a hole with him, like a squirrel with a nut before winter. He tortures himself and sometimes his loved ones, too. What he doesn't do, if he has suffered some reversal, is vent about it to the outside world. The famous Irish gift of gab is a cover for all the things they aren't telling you. — Michael Lewis

She was given to me to put things right
And I stacked all my accomplishments beside her
Still I seemed so obselete and small
I found God and all His devils inside her
In my bed she cast the blizzard out
A mock sun blazed upon her head
So completely filled with light she was
Her shadow fanged and hairy and mad
Our love-lines grew hopelessly tangled
And the bells from the chapel went jingle-jangle — Nick Cave

Do not wish for quick results, nor look for small advantages. If you seek quick results, you will not reach the ultimate goal. If you are led astray by small advantages, you will never accomplish great things. — Confucius

I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food (as the Ascian would have said) are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own - hard for me, at least. — Gene Wolfe

A good way to take a baby step into the world of animal rights is to make a list of small things you can do to help your issue and work your way up to the big things. Make a promise to do one thing on your list each month. — Jenna Morasca

Love is such a fleeting emotion. It's such a small part of the things you do in your life. — Nellie McKay

But I knew the way the people in the town thought about things. They always had some time left over from their life to bother about other people and what they did. They thought they had to get together to help other people out, like the time they got together about the woman who let a colored man borrow her car and told her the best place for her was up north with all the other nigger lovers, and the time they got the veterans with overseas wives out. If you were different from anybody in town, you had to get out. That's why everybody was so much alike. The way they talked, what they did, what they liked, what they hated. If somebody got to hate something and he was the right person, everybody had to hate it too, or people began to hate the ones who didn't hate it. They used to tell us in school to think for yourself, but you couldn't do that in the town. You had to think what your father thought all his life, and that was what everybody thought. — John Kennedy Toole

I cannot stress enough the perils of your friends marrying or becoming court inventors. One day you are all a society of outlaws, adventurous comrades and companions who will be pushing off somewhere or other when things become tiresome; you have all the world to choose from, just by looking at the map ... And then, suddenly, they're not interested any more. They want to keep warm. They're afraid of rain. They start collecting big things that can't fit in a rucksack. They talk only of small things. They don't like to make sudden decisions and do something contrariwise. Formerly they hoisted sail; now they carpenter little shelves for porcelain mugs. — Tove Jansson

I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart -like something dead- lies buried.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. — Constantine P. Cavafy

More importantly, I didn't know then that one day I would genuinely be free. That freedom came out of a thousand small steps of obedience, most of which I took during the waiting or limbo time. The more I learned to lean into Him on a daily basis and simply live out my faith in the everyday elements, the more I was prepared for the bigger steps when they arrived. Not only that, I was given the gift of living my life fully in the present, rather than being fixated and frustrated over some distant time or hope. In the crossroads called limbo, you do arrive at mile markers. You become more mature. More healed. Less surprised by or resistant to or unprepared for the good things God is giving you in the ordinary. Your challenge is to begin to embrace the waiting times as part of the overall journey. Limbo is a key part of the healing process! As you are faithful daily, He is working in you powerfully, and it all counts. Every single moment! — Suzanne Eller

The biggest thing, I think, is to stay healthy and make the fewest mistakes, and then you can win ... The margin of error is so small in the NFL, so if you can do those two things - keep your team healthy and make the fewest mistakes each Sunday - you have a good chance of going to the Super Bowl. — Hugh Douglas

Every man who accomplishes things sees first in his mind what he wishes to do. He puts away all doubt. It makes no difference how small or how large the thing you want to do may be; if you have an unlimited confidence in your ability to do it, you will do — Charles Fillmore

Still there was so much to say. How the rain never stopped. How the cold worked into your bones. Sometimes the bravest thing on earth was to sit through the night and feel the cold in your bones. Courage was not always a matter of yes or no. Sometimes it came in degrees, like the cold; sometimes you were very brave up to a point and then beyond that point you were not so brave. In certain situations you could do incredible things, you could advance toward enemy fire, but in other situations, which were not nearly so bad, you had trouble keeping your eyes open. Sometimes, like that night in the shit field, the difference between courage and cowardice was something small and stupid. — Tim O'Brien

Do you know of the uncertainty principle, Marjorie?" "I am educated," she snorted, very much annoyed with him. "Then you know that with very small things, we cannot both know where they are and what they are doing. The act of observing them always changes what they are doing. Perhaps God does not look at us individually because to do so would interrupt our work, interfere with our free will ... . — Sheri S. Tepper

The soul often hangs in a balance of some sort. Tonight do I lie down in the high fields with Dirk Tanner or not? At the fair, do I buy ribbons or wine? For the new ferry's headboard, do I use camphor or pearwood? Small things. A kiss, a ribbon, a grain that coaxes the knife this way or that. They are not, Kit Meinem of Atyar. Our souls wait for our answer because any answer changes us. This is why I wait to decide what I feel about your bridge. I'm waiting until I know how I will be changed."
"You never know how things will change you," Kit said.
"If you don't, you have not waited to find out. — Kij Johnson

This Room
The room I entered was a dream of this room.
Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine.
The oval portrait
of a dog was me at an early age.
Something shimmers, something is hushed up.
We had macaroni for lunch every day
except Sunday, when a small quail was induced
to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things?
You are not even here. — John Ashbery

All right, here comes the philosophy. You can leave if you like but I suggest you stick it out. You don't measure your own success against the size or volume of the effect you're having. You gauge it from the difference you make to the subject you're working on. Is leading an army that wins a war really that much more satisfying than teaching a four-year-old to ride a bicycle? At our age," she said, "you go for the small things and you do them as well as you can." In the back of the pony trap, squashed beside his two large boxes, Siri still felt Daeng's lip prints on his cheek and heard her whisper, "Go for the small things and do them well." It would be his new mantra. Forget the planet, save the garden. — Colin Cotterill

The feeling of being trapped, of being helpless against his strength, his lust, and what my body needed was almost overwhelming. My eyes shuttered closed at the effort of not struggling in his harsh grasp. He whispered against my face, and I could not focus enough to see him. "Do you want to ride the storm?" His breath was hot against my skin. His voice promised no gentleness, no compromise. I knew the kind of sex he was offering, and the thought of it tightened things low in my body, drew another small sound from my throat. "Yes," I whispered, "yes." The roll of thunder echoed down the hallway, shuddering between the stone walls. The sound seemed to vibrate out of his body and into mine as if my body were a tuning fork struck against the rim of some great metal cup. His voice growled against my skin, with the taste of thunder in it. "Good," he said and forced me to my knees. — Laurell K. Hamilton

She gave his hand a small squeeze. "Jason, if we're going to try this then I'd like to
take things slow." He frowned. "What I mean is nothing beyond the level we were at
last night." She worried her lip between her teeth. "What I mean is no actual sex."
He narrowed his eyes on her. "But, you'll still sleep with me naked and let me do a
hundred other naughty things to you?" he asked in a serious tone.
"Yes."
He brushed his lips against hers again and moved back a few inches to look into her
eyes. "And you'll still cook for me and call me Master?"
Her lips twitched. "Yes to the cooking and not a chance in hell for the other."
He sighed wearily. "Fine, how about Lord and Master?"
"Uh ... no."
"God?"
"Nope."
"My liege?"
"Wait ... no."
He gave her one of his lopsided smiles. "I'll wear you down eventually. — R.L. Mathewson

The way you do the small things, is the way you do the big things — Steven Aitchison

Love is a big and wonderful idea, but life is made up of small things. As a kid, you have nothing to do with the way the world is run; you just have to hurry to catch up with it. — Heather O'Neill

I wanted to say two further things to you today: irony: Do not let yourself be governed by it, especially not in unproductive moments. In productive ones try to make use of it as one more means of seizing life. Used purely, it is itself pure, and one need not be ashamed of it; and when you feel too familiar with it, when you fear the growing intimacy with it, then turn towards great and serious subjects, before which it becomes small and helpless. Seek for the depth of things: there irony never descends - and when you have thus brought it to the edge of greatness, test at the same time whether this mode of perception springs from a necessity of your being. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I like to do things that are publicly embarrassing, to feel the embarrassment touch me and sink into me and then be gone. I like getting on elevators and singing too loudly in that small space. The feeling you feel is almost like a vapor. The discomfort and the wishing that it would end that comes around you. — Stephen Colbert

They haven't spoken about it, they haven't said what will we do when we leave here, do you want to come with me, let's work something out, and she knows that this means they will quickly and easily drift apart, into other people's lives, into other people's arms in rooms like this. She is surprised that this doesn't make her feel sad. She listens to the music, she looks around at the things people dropped when they fell asleep or went out of the room, she kisses the boy's arm again and she feels only a kind of sweet nostalgia. She wonders if you can feel nostalgic for something before it's in the past, she wonders if perhaps her vocabulary is too small or if her chemical intake has corroded it and the music goes doowah doowah doowah. — Jon McGregor

All took leave from life in the manner which most suited them. Some praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time. But the mothers stayed up to prepare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed their luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundreds other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to die tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today? — Primo Levi

It's very important to remain optimistic and to see the silver lining in everything you do. Because no matter how sometimes things look difficult, and look like there is no hope, there is always a small glimmering of silver lining that is in everything, and I always look for that, and hang on that, and before I know it, another day comes and is gone. — Wangari Maathai

You can't change the world; you can't fix the whole environment. But you can recycle. You can turn the water off when you're brushing your teeth. You can do small things. — Patti Smith

Rule: Resist the temptation to clear up small things first. Remember, whatever you choose to do over and over eventually becomes a habit that is hard to break. If you choose to start your day working on low-value tasks, you will soon develop the habit of always starting and working on low-value tasks. This is not the kind of habit you want to develop or keep. The hardest part of any important task is getting started on it in the first place. Once you actually begin work on a valuable task, you will be naturally motivated to continue. A part of your mind loves to be busy working on significant tasks that can really make a difference. Your job is to feed this part of your mind continually. Motivate — Brian Tracy

The world is both big and small at the same time. So you really do need to know TV, film and theater. Everyone is kind of moving through all different mediums. So I think it's important to be able to do those things. — Julie Halston

How do I talk to the flower?
Through it I walk to the Infinite.
And what is the infinite?
It is that silent, small force.
It isn't the outer physical contact. No, it isn't that.
The infinite is not confirmed in the visible world.
It is not in the earthquake, the wind or the fire.
It is that still small voice that calls up the fairies.
Yet when you look out upon God's beautiful world- there it is.
When you look onto the heart of a rose there you experience it- but you can't explain it.

There are certain things, often very little things, like the peanut, the little piece of clay, the little flower that cause you to look within-
and then you see the soul of things. — George Washington Carver

The world's a small place and people are watching; and, you know, somebody disappears, the family knows and their colleagues know, and so eventually, these things do get out. — Jane Mayer

Do that which consists in taking no action;
Pursue that which is not meddlesome;
Savor that which has no flavor.
Make the small big and the few many;
Do good to him who has done you an injury.
Lay plans for the accomplishment of the difficult before it becomes difficult;
Make something big by starting with it when small.
Difficult things in the word must needs have their beginnings in the easy;
Big things must needs have their beginnings in the small.
Therefore it is because the sage never attempts to be great that he succeeds in becoming great.
One who makes promises rashly rarely keeps good faith;
One who is in the habit of considering things easy meets with frequent difficulties.
Therefore even the sage treats some things as difficult.
That is why in the end no difficulties can get the better of him. — Lao-Tzu

Empty hands held high
such a small sacrifice
if not joined with my life, i sing in vain tonight
may the words i say, and the things i do
make my lifesong sing to you
Let my lifesong sing to you ... — Casting Crowns

What you repeatedly do carries the clay to mold you into who you eventually become. Don't despise any tiny minute of the day; each counts so much! — Israelmore Ayivor

For one ... If you shoot me and your boss realizes it was without good reason, you'll have fucked up your trial period. And trust me; I know you're still in it." Ian pulled open a drawer in a small brown cabinet.
"Secondly, it could end very badly for me and I'd rather prevent that. Getting shot is not on my list of things to do today." He wrapped his hand around the steel grip of his own weapon and removed it from the drawer.
"And last but not least, if you plan to shoot me ... Well, it'll be a matter of which of us is quicker and has better aim." A pleasant smile crossed his features and he casually waved the gun from side to side. "Do you want to risk it? — Natasha McNeely

Imagine a kind of system where you have lightweight electric vehicles relatively small battery capacity, and then picking up charge wherever they park. You never have to worry about filling up your car, never go to the gas station, never plug it in, never do any of these things. — William J. Mitchell

Attacking a provincial lord in his manor house, surrounded by guards ... Honestly, Kell, I'd nearly forgotten how foolhardy you can be.
"Foolhardy?" Kelsier asked with a laugh. "that wasn't foolhardy - that was just a small diversion. You should see some of the things I'm planning to do!
Dockson stood for a moment then he laughed too. "By the Lord Ruler, it's good to have you back, kell! I'm afraid I've grown rather boring during the last few years"
"We'll fix that" Kelsier promised. — Brandon Sanderson

I actually think the same things do make most people happy. The differences are extremely small, and around the margins. You like peach ice cream; I like strawberry ice cream. Both of us like ice cream much better than a smack on the head with two-by-four. — Daniel Gilbert

Well, after that she would do her best. That was the only way. You did not want things for yourself. That made you small. That kept you safe. That meant you could move smoothly through the world without upsetting every applecart you came across. And if you were careful, if you were a proper part of things, then you could help. You mended what was cracked. You tended to the things you found askew. And you trusted that the world in turn would brush you up against the chance to eat. It was the only graceful way to move. All else was vanity and pride. — Patrick Rothfuss

What really does work to increase the feeling of having a home and its comforts is housekeeping. Housekeeping creates cleanliness, order, regularity, beauty, the conditions for health and safety, and a good place to do and feel all the things you wish and need to do and feel in your home. Whether you live alone or with a spouse, parents, and ten children, it is your housekeeping that makes your home alive, that turns it into a small society in its own right, a vital place with its own ways and rhythms, the place where you can be more yourself than you can be anywhere else. — Cheryl Mendelson

Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me. — Karen Joy Fowler

And what good has all your reading done you? Out of all the things you have read, how much has really stayed in your soul, what roots have grown there that will, in a good time, bring forth fruit? Examine your heart carefully. If you compare the whole of what you know with what you don't know, you will find that your knowledge is like a small stream dried up in the summer heat compared to the ocean of your ignorance. And even granted that you do know a lot, what difference does it make? — Francesco Petrarca

Much of life, fatherhood included, is the story of knowledge acquired too late: if only I'd known then what I know now, how much smarter, abler, stronger, I would have been. But nothing really prepares you for kids, for the swells of emotion that roll through your chest like the rumble of boulders tumbling downhill, nor for the all-enveloping labor of it, the sheer mulish endurance you need for the six or seven hundred discrete tasks that have to be done each and every day. Such a small person! Not much bigger than a loaf of bread at first, yet it takes so much to keep the whole enterprise going. Logistics, skills, materiel; the only way we really learn is by figuring it out as we go along, and even then it changes on us every day, so we're always improvising, which is a fancy way of saying that we're doing things we technically don't know how to do. — Ben Fountain

The small and simple things you choose to do today will be magnified into great and glorious blessings tomorrow. — Ann M. Dibb

See how small your are next to the mountains. Accept what is bigger that you and what you do not understand. The world may appear illogical to you, but it does not follow that it is illogical per se. Our life is not the measure of all things: consider sublime places a reminder of human insignificance and frailty. — Alain De Botton

Internet radio stations like KCRW do take you everywhere, yet that's just one of a hundred small things you have to do to succeed. It used to be, if you just got on the cover of 'Rolling Stone' and a spotlight on 'The Tonight Show,' that was enough. — Teddy Thompson

If you live in a small space, you should do the things that make it feel luxurious. — Emily Procter

You can do things in every part of the world. You can do things in every discipline. You can do large things, you can do small things. But it takes a while to figure out what you actually want to do. And it changes. As you change your interests and desires in philanthropy change, I think you have to be open to that change. — Marc Benioff

In a 'wheat and tares' world, how unusually blessed faithful members are to have the precious and constant gift of the Holy Ghost with reminders of what is right and of the covenants we have made. 'For behold, ... the Holy Ghost ... will show unto you all things what ye should do.' (2 Ne. 32:5.) Whatever the decibels of decadence, these need not overwhelm the still, small voice! Some of the best sermons we will ever hear will be thus prompted from the pulpit of memory - to an audience of one! — Neal A. Maxwell

To die for a cause is easy, to live, to be steady day after day doing the small things, taking care of the details, knowing you will be forgotten by history and still choosing to do so, that is real courage — Anonymous

Work hard but work smart. Always. Every day. Nothing is handed to you and nothing is easy. You're not owed anything ... No job or task is too small or beneath you. If you want to get ahead, volunteer to do the things no one else wants to do, and do it better. Be a sponge. Be open and learn. — Bobbi Brown

If we were honest about it, our lives are all fiascoes. There really isn't anything of importance except maybe who gets handed your heart and what they do with it. And just so you don't spend a lot of time fretting over it, even that may be pretty meager." A few seconds passed. "We're just small, Judy. All of us, even though we do stuff every day of the week to distract ourselves from the fact, it's still true. We're just little and small and maybe if we have some backbone we do a few things worth doing and then we're gone. — Tom McNeal

Well, that should do it," the man replied. "Oh, and I did put a small camera in your office, just to square things up. It's hidden, so you won't have to worry about somebody spotting it. — Diana Palmer

The Death of Rats nibbled a bit of the pork pie because when you are the personification of the death of small rodents you have to behave in certain ways. He also piddled on one of the turnips for the same reason, although only metaphorically, because when you are a small skeleton in a black robe there are also some things you technically cannot do. — Terry Pratchett

My funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?
"It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
"You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
"It is why we are drawn to babies ... " He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals. — Mitch Albom

Everybody's always doing the same old things
you know, doing unto others before they can do unto you. — Michael Lee West

You can have a worldwide shop from your bedroom. You can do things that weren't even dreamed of when I started off in business. It's why technology is the most wonderful thing for small businesses. — Theo Paphitis

You're going to have to take care of yourself," Karrin said quietly. "Over the next few weeks. Rest. Give yourself a chance to heal. Keep the wound on your leg clean. Get to a doctor and get that arm into a proper cast. I know you can't feel it, but it's important that
"
I stood, leaned over the bed, and kissed her on the mouth.
Her words dissolved into a soft sound that vibrated against my lips. Then her good arm slid around my neck, and there wasn't any sound at all. It was a long kiss. A slow kiss. A good one. I didn't draw away until it came to its end. I didn't open my eyes for a moment after.
" ... oh ... ," she said in a small voice. Her hand slid down my arm to lie upon mine.
"We do crazy things for love," I said quietly, and turned my hand over, fingers curling around hers. — Jim Butcher

Leo Tolstoy's A Confession is possibly the most important document of the last two centuries for understanding our current plight. The dogmas of modern unbelief had captured his elite circle of Russian intellectuals, artists, and members of the social upper crust, and the implications of it slowly destroyed the basis of his life. On those dogmas only two things are real: particles and progress. "Why do I live?" he asked. And the answer he got was, "In infinite space, in infinite time, infinitely small particles change their forms in infinite complexity, and when you have understood the laws of those mutations of form you will understand why you live on the earth". — Dallas Willard

If you cannot do great things in life, make sure you do the small things in a great way. — Habeeb Akande

The things we are attached to are no more than shadows of the past. However, we do not recognize that, and, as long as we hold on to them, they become part of the present and follow us around. Let's say there's a wound you suffered long ago. The wound closed and left a large or small scar. It's only a scar, and it doesn't interfere at all with you living a healthy life. But for a person who believes the wound is still open, even pain that has since left will return and the closed wound will become infected. — Ilchi Lee

Every time you say yes to something you don't want to do, this will happen: you will resent people, you will do a bad job, you will have less energy for the things you were doing a good job on, you will make less money, and yet another small percentage of your life will be used up, burned up, a smoke signal to the future saying, I did it again. — James Altucher

The only reason you do not do great things is because you timidly cling to small things. Will you let loose of small things and bear the uncertainty of having nothing for a while? Do this and eventually you will do great things. — Vernon Howard

you knew how small you are and how short a time you have to do what you can, you wouldn't waste time watching five fucking hours of TV a day. You wouldn't waste time doing a job you hate. You wouldn't waste the little time you have dealing with assholes, feeling sorry for yourself, or being timid about the things you'd really like to do. — Johnny B. Truant

The things I want to do to you ... " he whispered roughly.
I took my hand behind his head and brought his ear down to my mouth. "Do them," I breathed back, and licked the rim of his ear.
He let out a small moan and suddenly his lips were on mine. The sweet business was out of the way. — Karina Halle

You and I once fancied ourselves birds, and we were happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings. You were a robin ad I was a blackbird, and there were some who were eagles, or vultures, or pretty goldfinches, but none of us had wings.
For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.
But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea. — Louis De Bernieres

When you're a kid, you have no power. You're physically small and weak, and adults are constantly telling you what to do. So it's incredibly compelling to imagine yourself not only as someone to whom exciting things happen but as someone who is more than those around you. The problem is that then you begin to grow up and realize you're just a lowly muggle. ... Is it possible that all of us, weaned on these stories, end up inevitably disappointed with mundane life as it actually exists? — Paul Waldman

Getting an education is a running leap towards becoming filthy rich in Asia. This is no secret. But like many desirable things, simply being well known does not make it easily achieved. There are forks in the road to wealth that have nothing to do with choice or desire or effort, forks that have to do with chance, and in your case, the order of your birth is one of these. Third means you are not heading back to the village. Third means you are not working as a painter's assistant. Third also means you are not, like the fourth of you three surviving siblings, a tiny skeleton in a small grave at the base of a tree. — Mohsin Hamid

I didn't know you owned clothes with colors."
"I have a few things that aren't black."
"Of course you do, darling. Only all the ones I've seen are very small, and I get to take them off with my teeth. You've trained me to salivate at the sight of color, like one of Pavlov's dogs. Your top is making me very hungry. — Ruthie Knox

JOURNAL YOUR SUCCESSES To help you realize you truly are making progress, Steve gives this advice to people who are new to the Four Steps: "Write down the successes that you have early on because it encourages you to keep going. It's not always easy, but over the long haul, it does make a big difference and you will see how much progress you've made." The main point to keep in mind is that you want to focus on the things you have accomplished, no matter how small or inconsequential they seem to you. Do not minimize, ignore, or neglect even the most seemingly minuscule achievement. Rather, — Jeffrey M. Schwartz

My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child. — Karen Joy Fowler

Everything is important, but there is a weight to these big or expected things and then there is the logistics of them and it's trying to find, while you worry about for instance the ballroom scene, how do you get 500 people to go to the loo in corsets and don't cost you an hour and how do you remember while you're organizing all that to take a breath and say, 'Well the scene is about all of that and it's about [Prince] hand on the small of [Cinderella] back as well' and we need time to do that properly as well. — Kenneth Branagh

What may I do to get back into your good graces?"
"You've done nothing to offend me."
"Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?"
What?
"You addressed him before you addressed me."
I cleared my throat. "Just to be clear, you're upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?"
"I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges," Arland said. "An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things."
It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt. — Ilona Andrews

The entertainment business is hard on relationships, but it's just as hard on your own spiritual well-being. It's easy to lose focus, to forget your priorities and wander from the path. There is not any one thing you can do to survive this desert. It's a matter of maintenance, of the small things you do every day and every week to keep the engine running smoothly. — Ralph K. Winter Jr.

The best thing as an actor, the best tool you have is your imagination. That you kind of take things that have happened, and then go and expand on them. However small it is, you use your imagination to create what that reality is. There's something kind of fun when you're not old enough to do anything, driving a car, getting into a bar, drinking, going to a party you don't belong to, something when you're young in that innocent way. — Vince Vaughn

Being the vice-captain, you see a lot of things on the field. You have to try and help the captain as much as you can and lead by example on the field. Small things like getting a run-out or taking a catch makes the other boys try and lift their standards. So yes, I do have an important role, even if I'm not captain. — Yuvraj Singh

If therefore you shall be remembered for what you did with what you had more than what you had, use what you have to do something distinctive now and leave a notable footprint before you go — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

I have noticed that most times, the least that you give out is the best that someone really needs. So, don't always wait till you have something big to give before you do so! Someone's "big" is your "little"! — Israelmore Ayivor

Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53)
(Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.) — Huston Smith

Maybe you and I can't do great things
We may not change the world in one day
But we still can change some things today ...
In our small way ... — Michael J. Jackson

We get angry about the small things sometimes, I feel, so that we feel like we're doing something, so that we don't have to tackle the big things. And it's fine; let people do that. But I'm not gonna now change because of that. You know? Like, the worst thing that happens to me is you don't like me. And then what? — Trevor Noah

Firing people, damaging morale, and changing the entire way you do business. Ramping up doesn't have to be your goal. And we're not talking just about the number of employees you have either. It's also true for expenses, rent, IT infrastructure, furniture, etc. These things don't just happen to you. You decide whether or not to take them on. And if you do take them on, you'll be taking on new headaches, too. Lock in lots of expenses and you force yourself into building a complex business - one that's a lot more difficult and stressful to run. Don't be insecure about aiming to be a small business. — Jason Fried

Of course you're afraid of being judged and condemned. Some people will judge and condemn you, but most won't. Our minds are small, but our hearts are big. Just about every one of us has fucked up at one point or another. You're in a pickle. You did things you didn't hope to do. You have not always been your best self. This means that you're like the rest of us. — Anonymous

He shook his head. You're asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesn't allow for special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this case to small purpose. Most people don't believe that there can be such a person. You see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Do you understand? When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That there could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You're asking that I second say the world. Do you see?
Yes, she said sobbing. I do. I truly do.
Good, he said. That's good. Then he shot her. — Cormac McCarthy

There's only so many small shows you can do. A lot of the smaller things are more side project things. Not everything is appropriate for Sonic Youth to do. — Kim Gordon

You have to practice success. Success doesn't just show up. If you aren't practicing success today, you won't wake up in 20 years and be successful, because you won't have developed the habits of success, which are small things like finishing what you start, putting a lot of effort into everything you do, being on time, treating people well. — Michelle Obama