“It is possible to evade a multitude of sorrows by the cultivation of an insignificant life. Indeed if a person’s ambition is to avoid trouble, the recipe is simple: shed your ambitions, cut the wings of every purpose, and seek a little life with a purposes, a few relations, and a few contacts.

If you want to get through the world with the smallest trouble, reduce yourself to the smallest compass.

Tiny souls can dodge through life; bigger souls are blocked on every side. As soon as a person enlarges his or her life, resistances are multiplied. If you are petty and selfish and just caring about yourself, you will have no trouble; if you are interested in the agenda of Christ, your suffering will be increased on every side.”

Ellie Lefaro (Focus on the Family radio broadcast), quoting J. Henry Jowett

Her quote is apparently a paraphrase of some selections from The School of Calvary by John Henry Jowett.