No idea is so antiquitated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not some day be antiquitated . . . to seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.
Ellen GlasgowRead
He felt with the force of a revelation that to throw up the clods of earth manfully is as beneficent as to revolutionize the world. It was not the matter of the work, but the mind that went into it, that counted - and the man who was not content to do small things well would leave great things undone.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The value of work lies in the mindset and effort put into it, regardless of its scale.
Ellen Glasgow emphasizes that every task, no matter how small, is significant if done with dedication and purpose. She suggests that the true measure of one's contribution is not the size of the task, but the quality of the attention and care invested in it. To neglect small tasks in pursuit of grand ambitions may lead to leaving essential work unfinished.
Themes
WorkMindsetEffortDedicationImportance
In practice
Example use cases
During a team meeting on project assignments, one might say, 'As Ellen Glasgow reminds us, it's not just the large goals we pursue but also how diligently we handle smaller tasks that matters.'
More from Ellen Glasgow
All quotes →Spring, which germinated in the earth, moved also with a strange restlessness, in the hearts of... women. As the weeks passed, inextinguishable hope, which mounts with the rising sap, looked from their faces.
Ellen GlasgowRead
In the past few years, I have made a thrilling discovery ... that until one is over sixty, one can never really learn the secret of living. One can then begin to live, not simply with the intense part of oneself, but with one's entire being.
Ellen GlasgowRead
The things I feared were not in the sky, but in the nature and in the touch of humanity. The cruelty of children . . . the blindness of the unpitiful - these were my terrors. But not the crash of thunder overhead, not the bolts of fire from the clouds.
Ellen GlasgowRead
All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.
Ellen GlasgowRead
Women like to sit down with trouble - as if it were knitting.
Ellen GlasgowRead
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