By Little and Little

One makes a better world by what Dostoevsky liked to call “microscopic actions.” When you walk down the street, Zossima tells the other monks, don’t scowl. A kindly look can shift a person’s mood and affect his next encounter, in an ever-growing chain of effects you will never see. Cast a little bread upon the waters.

–Gary Saul Morson, “The Greatest Christian Novel,” First Things