#triviality

What a peculiar civilisation this was: inordinately rich, yet inclined to accrue its wealth through the sale of some astonishingly small and only distantly meaningful things, a civilisation torn and unable sensibly to adjudicate between the worthwhile ends to which money might be put and the often morally trivial and destructive mechanisms of its generation. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#material-goods #meaning #money #things #triviality

Science is an organized pursuit of triviality. Art is a casual pursuit of significance. Let's keep it in perspective. ↗

— Vera Nazarian

#perspective #pursuit #science #significance #trivia

To my surprise, it was a place where my thoughts were the most lucid. I wasn’t bogged down in random trivial details or the luxury of time-consuming over-analysis. This place forced you to live because at any moment, life could be lost. Ramadi forced me to die unto myself. ↗

— M.B. Wilmot

#iraq #iraq-war #overanalysis #ramadi #triviality

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

The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster. ↗

— Quentin Crisp

#disaster #disasters #formula #never #relationship

The Law of Triviality... briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved. ↗

— C. Northcote Parkinson

#any #briefly #inverse #involved #item

Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality. ↗

— W. H. Auden

#differences #direct #direct proportion #friends #irritating

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things,... ↗

— Alexander Pope

#love #triviality #love

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

#aristotle #awesomeness #consistency #excellence #habit