Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Context: Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.
“Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth, so in a way one relishes the pain, I think. If it didn't matter, it wouldn't matter.”
Source: Levels of Life
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Julian Barnes 77
English writer 1946Related quotes
“I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what.”
In reference to being teased at school as a child for his looks, as quoted in Schnozzola : The Story of Jimmy Durante (1951) by Gene Fowler
Context: I was hurt so deep that I made up my mind never to hurt anybody else, no matter what. I never made jokes about anybody's big ears, their stut- terin', or about them bein' off their nut.
Variant: Pain is just a state of mind. You can think your way out of everything, even pain.
Source: Freak the Mighty
In a press conference where she addressed accusations of improprierty during her tenure as a Slater & Gordon lawyer
"Prime Minister Gillard responds to accusations" http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3574703.htm, in 7.30 (ABC), 23 August 2012
“And so it goes, it's the Devil I suppose
But it doesn't matter much to me.”
The Ghost.
A→B Life (2002)
“war is a matter not so much of arms as of money”
Book I, 1.83-[2]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I