““He faces the burdens of belittlement a third time as he grows older, and settles into an existence that he has embraced, or that has been forced upon him. A carapace of routine, of compromise, of silent surrenders, of half-term solutions, and of diminished consciousness begins to form around him. He turns himself over to the rigidified version of the self: the character. He begins to die small deaths, many times over. He fails to die only once, which is what he would desire if he were able fully to recognize the value of life. This third encounter with belittlement reveals belittlement for what it in fact is: death by installments.””
![“They [Americans] believe that the terrors of vast problems yield to the effects of many small solutions. Use little things to break big things, says Saint Paul, describing an essential feature of the psychology of hope.” quote by Roberto Mangabeira Unger](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/16c/roberto-mangabeira-unger-45804_big-things_they-americans-believe-that-the-terrors_2186421.jpg)
