It has long beenanaxiomof minethatthe littlethings are infinitely the most important.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'A Case of Identity'.

Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.

-Forster, E(dward) M(organ)
  Howards End, ch.19.

The most important thing in acting is honesty.Once you've learned to fake that, you're in.

-Goldwyn, Sam(uel) originally  Schmuel Gelbfisz
Attributed.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

-Huxley, Aldous Leonard
  'A Case of  Voluntary Ignorance'.

First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so important that its adversaries claim that they themselves discovered it.

-James,William
  Pragmatism, lecture 6.

The most important single thing in publishing is the English sentence, and the editor who cannot contemplate it again and again with a sense of wonder has not yet gained respect for the complexity of learning.

-Jovanovich,William
  Now, Barabbas.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

-King, Martin LutherJr
  Speech at Cornell College, Mt Vernon, Iowa. Reported in the Wall Street  Journal,13 Nov.

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: 'Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you, We will therefore pay you cash to go away.' And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again, That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.

-Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard
  'Dane-Geld'.

I'mtired ofeverlastingly being unnatural and neverdoing anything Iwantto do†and I'mtired of pretending Idon't know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they're doing it.

-Mitchell, Margaret
  Scarlett O'Hara. Gone  with  the Wind, ch.5.

Paintin's not important. What's important is keepin' busy.

-Moses'
  In news summaries, 2  Jan.

La chose la plus importante a'   toute la vie est le choix du me¤  tier: le hasard en dispose. The most important thing in life is to choose a profession: chance arranges for that.

-Pascal, Blaise
c.1654^1662  Pense¤  es, pt.2, no.97.

It isnot living, but living well, whichwe oughttoconsider most important.

-Plato
Crito, 48b (translated by H North Fowler,1923).

When all is said and done, leading a good life is more important than keeping a good diary.

-Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain
  Diary entry, 8 Jul.

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world: and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  The Irrational Knot, preface.