"In larger things we are convivial; what causes trouble is the trivial"
About this Quote
Armour’s line lands like a cocktail-party epigram that’s secretly an autopsy: we can manage the big stuff because “big” invites performance. In “larger things” we become convivial almost by script - grief gets casseroles, weddings get toasts, national crises get slogans. Large events come with established rituals that tell us where to stand, what to say, how to be decent. They give the ego somewhere safe to hide.
The “trivial,” though, is where character leaks out. Petty annoyances have no ceremony, no agreed-upon language, no socially sanctioned exit ramp. A late reply, a chair left out, the wrong tone in a two-syllable comment - these are small enough to be deniable but sharp enough to feel personal. Armour’s subtext is that most conflict isn’t born from principled disagreement; it’s born from friction: the daily sand in the gears. The trivial is also where power plays happen in miniature, because tiny corrections and micro-snubs let people test dominance without admitting they’re fighting.
As a poet-humorist, Armour isn’t offering a self-help maxim so much as a sideways indictment of our self-image. We like to think we’d rise to “larger things,” and often we do, but that’s partly because the stakes force us into cooperation. The real measure is whether we can stay generous when nothing compels us, when the only thing on trial is our patience. The joke is that civilization doesn’t collapse over wars in the living room; it collapses over whose turn it was to buy milk.
The “trivial,” though, is where character leaks out. Petty annoyances have no ceremony, no agreed-upon language, no socially sanctioned exit ramp. A late reply, a chair left out, the wrong tone in a two-syllable comment - these are small enough to be deniable but sharp enough to feel personal. Armour’s subtext is that most conflict isn’t born from principled disagreement; it’s born from friction: the daily sand in the gears. The trivial is also where power plays happen in miniature, because tiny corrections and micro-snubs let people test dominance without admitting they’re fighting.
As a poet-humorist, Armour isn’t offering a self-help maxim so much as a sideways indictment of our self-image. We like to think we’d rise to “larger things,” and often we do, but that’s partly because the stakes force us into cooperation. The real measure is whether we can stay generous when nothing compels us, when the only thing on trial is our patience. The joke is that civilization doesn’t collapse over wars in the living room; it collapses over whose turn it was to buy milk.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|
More Quotes by Richard
Add to List
