“Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.”

Muhammad: A Prophet of Our Times
Muhammad: A Biography of The Prophet (2001)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness …" by Karen Armstrong?
Karen Armstrong photo
Karen Armstrong 56
author and comparative religion scholar from Great Britain 1944

Related quotes

Vladimir Lenin photo

“Where and when have riots and anarchy been provoked by wise measures? If the government had acted wisely, and if their measures had met the needs of the poor peasants, would there have been unrest among the peasant masses?”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Report on Land (8 November 1917) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/25-26/26d.htm; Collected Works, Vol. 26.
1910s

Michael Moorcock photo

“By acting as they would act, we become what they are. And if we are what they are, then there is little point in resisting them!”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Book 2, Chapter 4 (p. 564)
The Dragon in the Sword (1986)

Colin Blackburn, Baron Blackburn photo
Albert Pike photo

“The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.”

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. II : The Fellow-Craft, p. 43
Context: Remember, that though life is short, Thought and the influences of what we do or say, are immortal; and that no calculus has yet pretended to ascertain the law of proportion between cause and effect. The hammer of an English blacksmith, smiting down an insolent official, led to a rebellion which came near being a revolution. The word well spoken, the deed fitly done, even by the feeblest or humblest, cannot help but have their effect. More or less, the effect is inevitable and eternal. The echoes of the greatest deeds may die away like the echoes of a cry among the cliffs, and what has been done seem to the human judgment to have been without result. The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion.

Franklin D. Roosevelt photo

“If history remains neutral and does not condemn and declare such acts as immoral, it would fail to create any consciousness about these evil deeds.”

Mubarak Ali (1941) Historian, activist, scholar

Dimensions of History, Chapter: The judgment of History, p. 77
History, What History Tells Us, Dimensions of History

Norman Spinrad photo
Otto Weininger photo
Davy Crockett photo

“I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless”

Davy Crockett (1786–1836) American politician

In a letter following his defeat in the 1830 elections, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133
Context: I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.

Related topics