...the chief work actuating man's whole life is not done by his hands, his feet, or his back, but by his consciousness. Before a man can do anything with his feet or hands, a certain alteration has first to take place in his consciousness...these alterations are always minute and almost imperceptible.

Bryullóv one day corrected a pupil's study. The pupil, having glanced at the altered drawing, exclaimed: “Why, you only touched it a tiny bit, but it is quite another thing.” Bryullóv replied: “Art begins where the tiny bit begins.”
That saying is strikingly true not only of art but of all life.... True life is not lived where great external changes take place...it is lived only where these tiny, tiny, infinitesimally small changes occur.

Leo Tolstoy. WHY DO MEN STUPEFY THEMSELVES.