On The Little Things That Make a Big Difference

Think of the Queen Elizabeth — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab. It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go. So I said, 'Call me Trim Tab.'

Richard BuckminsterBuckyFuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor. Learn more about him from the Buckminster Fuller Institute.

Image: Buckminster Fuller, 1978 (Photograph: Fred Blocher courtesy of Stanford Libraries)

Originally published on The Minot Voice: August 30, 2015