Benevolence and feeling ennoble the most trifling actions.
The slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits; they dwell ever present in the mind and render it morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collision.
What struck me most in England was the perception that only those works which have a practical tendency awake attention and command respect, while the purely scientific, which possess far greater merit are almost unknown. And yet the latter are the proper source from which the others flow. Practice alone can never lead to the discovery of a truth or a principle. In Germany it is quite the contrary. Here in the eyes of scientific men no value, or at least but a trifling one, is placed upon the practical results. The enrichment of science is alone considered worthy attention.
Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last.
He is not dead, this friend; not dead, Gone some few, trifling steps ahead, And nearer to the end; So that you, too, once past the bend, Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend You fancy dead.
Alas! the joys that fortune brings Are trifling, and decay, And those who prize the trifling things, More trifling still than they.
It is strange how the memory of a man may float to posterity on what he would have himself regarded as the most trifling of his works.
For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal.
Phantoms in general are nothing more than trifling disorders of the spirit; images we cannot contain within the bounds of sleep.
If I set for myself a task, be it so trifling, I shall see it through. How else shall I have confidence in myself to do important things?
Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of nature could have foreseen it from the beginning of the ages. If a being with such a mind existed, we could play no game of chance with him; we should always lose.
However insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.
True lovers know how trifling a thing is money yet how difficult to blend with love!
. . . trifling employments have rendered woman a trifler.
There is no praise we have not lavished upon prudence; and yet she cannot assure to us the most trifling event.
Trifling favors are readily acknowledged, though cheaply esteemed; but important ones are most rarely remembered.
In revolutions the occasions may be trifling but great interest are at stake.
Whenever I see the word Operation, especially Trifling Operation, I at once write off the patient as dead.
Silence - Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
To a philosopher no circumstance, however trifling, is too minute.
