Trivial Quotes

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.”
― B. F. Skinner

“As Aristotle said, 'Excellence is a habit.' I would say furthermore that excellence is made constant through the feeling that comes right after one has completed a work which he himself finds undeniably awe-inspiring. He only wants to relax until he's ready to renew such a feeling all over again because to him, all else has become absolutely trivial.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Some details in life may look insignificant but appear to be vital leitmotifs in a person's life. They may have the value of "Rosebuds" of Citizen Kane or "Madeleine cookies" of Marcel Proust or "Strawberry fields" of the Beatles. People regularly walk down the memory lane of their early youth. The paper boats of their childhood are recurrently floating on the waves of their mind and bring back the mood and the spirit of the early days. They enable us to retreat from the trivial, daily worries and can generate delightful bliss and true joy in a sometimes frantic and chaotic life. ("Paper boats forever" )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Eureka" can be an answer to a question we have never asked. It can be the articulation of a sudden and unforeseen idea or the expression of a magic moment that throws us into a new world. It acts like a radiant sunbeam that comes out of the blue and illuminates a dim past, opening a new, dynamic horizon. It may even be a trivial but lucky encounter with new friends, who let us be what we are in our imagination: original and undifferentiated. (“Waiting for Eureka” )”
― Erik Pevernagie

“How often do we not scold or call ourselves to order? If our needs are utterly fulfilled, it may be that we still remain unsatisfied. By creating additional wants or artificial wishes, we generate a cascade of new desires that outshines our search for genuine needs. Through our loss of authenticity, we fade away in the vapor of pathetic shallowness or vanish into the flamboyance of trivial limelight. ("Consumers' Dream")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Instead of playing leapfrog with trivial claptrap or slamming doors with our “always right” egos, let us learn to nurture the seeds of acceptance and step back from our pinned-down prejudices. ("On a doggy day")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Our lives must not be bogged down in trivial anecdotes, and our encounters bleed out in empty talks. A solid architecture of life vision helps us find the voice and the pulse of our personality. Moreover, it teaches us to respire deeply, inspire multiple thrilling moments and let loose while gathering rosebuds. ("Ruling the waves")”
― Erik Pevernagie

“Don't ever put your life at risk over something as trivial as talking to me again.' It's as low as a growl against my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

'Next year is going to be so much fun,' I tease, walking forward and lacing my fingers with his so her follows.

'Liam will be here next year to make sure you're not doing asinine things,' he mutters.

'You're going to love getting his letters.”
― Rebecca Yarros, Fourth Wing

“Friends disappear
or they are powerless.
This is what misfortune means
an acid test of friendship.
I wouldn't wish it on anyone.”
― Anne Carson, Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides

“God can take the ordinary and create the extraordinary. Our incredible God has the power to transform your simple life and give you the life of your dreams. Remarkable things happen in your life when you believe.”
― Amaka Imani Nkosazana, Heart Crush

“Our lives become trivial. And our capacity for magnificent causes and great worship dies.”
― John Piper, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God

“Look, Miranda, he said, those twenty long years that lie between you and me. I've more knowledge of life than you, I've lived more and betrayed more and seen more betrayed. At your age one is bursting with ideals. You think that because I can sometimes see what's trivial and what's important in art that I ought to be more virtuous. But I don't want to be virtuous. My charm (if there is any) for you is simply frankness. And experience. Not goodness. I'm not a good man. Perhaps morally I'm younger even than you are. Can you understand that?”
― John Fowles, The Collector

“Giving an insignificant thing your attention is a form of self-disrespect.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Whenever you don't know someone and you overhear their problems they always sound so trivial.”
― Cat Agonis

“I write because the security of your love allows me to develop my craft without concerning myself with trivialities — as if your love could be any more complete. But I write, in the first place,
because of you, my muse. I write for your green eyes to glance at my humble words and for the pleasure of hearing you utter them.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Some rush through life by linking together a constant stream of trivial pursuits.”
― Steven Redhead, Life Is a Dance

“In vain a zealous evangelist with a fely hat and flowing tie threads his way through the crowd, crying without cease: 'God is great and good. Come unto Him.' On the contrary, they all make haste toward some trivial objective that seems of more immediate interest than God.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“We only have one chance in this life, so don't waste it on trivial people and matters.”
― Norhafsah Hamid, Back to Basics [Trying to be Muslim]

“Without being an independent individual, without having an independent mind, you become nothing more than a trivial slave or an obscure shadow!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Take all those things that would propose to be important, and weigh them upon the scale of your soul. Asking how much each thing actually impacts, not just the moment, but the years ahead. Discard all that is trivial masquerading as significant, and reserve your days for those things that truly matter.”
― L.M. Browning, Seasons of Contemplation: A Book of Midnight Meditations

“Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.”
― Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers

“Be jovial, not trivial.”
― Debasish Mridha

“Judged by all practical standards, the value of my mathematical life is nil; and
outside mathematics it is trivial anyhow. I have just one chance of escaping a verdict of
complete triviality, that I may be judged to have created something worth creating. And
that I have created something is undeniable: the question is about its value.

The case for my life, then, or for that of any one else who has been a mathematician in the same sense in which I have been one, is this: that I have added something to knowledge, and helped others to add more; and that these somethings have a value which differs in degree only, and not in kind, from that of the creations of the great mathematicians, or of any of the other artists, great or small, who have left some kind of memorial behind them.”
― G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology

“Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and some in governmental affairs. ‘Nothing is trivial, and nothing is important, it's all the same—only to save oneself from it as best one can,’ thought Pierre. ‘Only not to see it, that dreadful it!”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“The triviality of a question does not make a profound answer an impossibility.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Why a writer writes? This question is trivial! The important question is this: What he writes?”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“We're all very busy with somethings, mostly with the most trivial things!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“We start scanning our environment for those vital few and eagerly eliminate the trivial many. Only then can we say no to good opportunities and say yes to truly great ones.”
― Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

“The wealth in this world are like green fruits hidden among green leaves. It stares everyone in the face, yet nobody sees it.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, These Words Pour Like Rain

“Trivial things weren't so trivial when they piled up, not a corn on the sole of a foot or dust heaped on a forgotten shelf.”
― Gu Byeong-mo, Apartment Women