insignificancy

There is but a step from conscious insignificancy to the loftiest pretension.

A general fit of piety bespoke the general dread; and they who had before been chiefly intent upon establishing their importance with their fellow-travellers, seemed now feelingly convinced of their own dependence and insignificancy.

Finding nothing, either in the animals or vegetables of the newly discovered countries which could justify a very advantageous representation of them, Columbus turned his view towards their minerals; and in the richness of their productions of this third kingdom, he flattered himself he had found a full compensation for the insignificancy of those of the other two.

The success of her Letters is stated by herself to have been the source of much good to her: she who, only ten years before, declared that 'this world had nothing for her but a few friends,' who owns that 'a certain weariness of life, and a sense of insignificance and insipidity,' did then 'deject' her, now feels that the success of her writings appeased 'that uneasy sense of helplessness and insignificancy which often depressed and afflicted her.'

Greece shared in the general decay: her commerce and manufactures, being confined to supplying the consumption of a diminished and impoverished population, sunk into insignificancy.