#trivial

Duty largely consists of pretending that the trivial is critical. ↗

— John Fowles

#critical #duty #largely #pretending #trivial

No sociologist should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time. ↗

— Max Weber

#computations #even #good #head #himself

Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's, if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all, but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives. ↗

— Saint Teresa

#always #construe #criticizing #defects #disturb

Triviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil. ↗

— Theodor W. Adorno

#inertia #morality #triviality #metaphysics

Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up. ↗

— Max Beerbohm

#character #deep #genius #high #i

The thought that we're in competition with Russians or with Chinese is all a mistake, and trivial. We are one species, with a world to win. ↗

— George Wald

#competition #mistake #russians #species #thought

In larger things we are convivial; what causes trouble is the trivial. ↗

— Richard Armour

#larger #things #trivial #trouble

Occasionally, I would focus on a particular school project and become obsessed with, what seemed to my mother, to be trivial details instead of apportioning the time I spent on school work in a more efficient way. ↗

— Steven Chu

#details #efficient #efficient way #focus #i

A lot of what is publicized now is really pretty trivial stuff - you know, what I eat for breakfast, where I have my pedicures, questions that I just cannot for the life of me understand why someone would want to know that. ↗

— Laura Linney

#cannot #eat #i #just #know

In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality. ↗

— Mary McCarthy

#democratic #enjoy #equality #facts #how