Everyday Actions Quotes

It was my mom who told me, "Ernie, if you make even one person happy with your smile or a funny thing you did every day, you'll have accomplished a great deal." And that's all I've ever tried to do.

Not in our make-up, to be sure - not in the pose which is preceded by the tantaras of a trumpet - do the essential traits in our character first reveal themselves. But truly in the little things the real self is exteriorised.

It is not the most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices may be best discovered; but very often an action of small note. An casual remark or joke shall distinguish a person's real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.

If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Watch a man do his most common actions.

I don't think you have to go out and become Secretary of State or be Bono but I think it's to let people know that whatever they do in their life that that's good.

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

How hard can it be to walk up and down in a straight line? You just need to put one step in front of another; most people do it all the time. What's the worst that can happen? You fall over. Sometimes that happens to non-models, too; it wouldn't be the end of the world.

We can do things that are very, very simple to us that can have a huge impact on others.

Let how you live your life stand for something, no matter how small and incidental it may seem.

The real test of compassion is not what we say in abstract discussions but how we conduct ourselves in daily life.

...you can make little choices that can change the world to be a better, happier, lovelier place every day

Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things...as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.

The small choices and decisions we make a hundred times a day add up to determining the kind of world we live in.

It's not that your most important work is meaningless; it's that your most trivial movements are also significant.

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work - that goes on, it adds up.

The colossal might of wickedness: how we love to locate it massively elsewhere. But so much of it comes down to what each one of us does between breakfast and bedtime.

Obviously, when I learn about something new that I can do in my everyday life that makes a whole lot of sense and can help the environment, I do it. Eventually, it just becomes second nature. If we all begin to learn from one another and share some of the things we do, we just might be able to affect the world for the better through these little rituals. In a curious way, this would be a great wave of awareness: doing the right thing without being told to or having to think why.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and with that one, is what we are doing.

Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value.

It is far easier, though not very easy, to develop and preserve a spiritual outlook on life than it is to make our everyday actions harmonize with that spiritual outlook. For though we may renounce the world for ourselves, refuse the attempt to get anything out of it, we have to accept it as the sphere in which we are to co-operate with the Spirit, and try to do the Will.

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

Man shows his character best in trifles.

The real test of your Christianity is not how pious you look at the Lord's table on Sunday, but how you act at the breakfast table at home. If it takes two cups of coffee to make you fit to live with, you had better go to the mourner's bench.

The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote. Our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.