Quotes on Small Things Can Make Big Thing

When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small.
Ruth Eleanor

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.
Hans Nouwens

Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love....The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta

The Microbe is so very small You cannot make him out at all, But many sanguine people hope To see him through a microscope.
Joseph Hilaire Pierre Ren Belloc

We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.
Mother Teresa

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win
Jonathan Kozol

The existence of a man is so small a thing to take, so mighty a thing to employ.
Robert Louis Stevenson

The way of fortune is like the milky way in the sky; which is a number of smaller stars, not seen asunder, but giving light together; so it is a number of little and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that make men fortunate.
Francis Bacon, Sr.

A seed is small in size. But it carries in its womb leaves, flowers, fruits, nay even the whole tree. The human brain is very much like a seed. It may not have a great shape and size. But it traps within itself endless possibilities. It is a fountainhead of thoughts and promises that can be fulfilled.
Amitabh Bachchan

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.
James A. Garfield

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant.
Marilyn vos Savant

One cannot with impunity try to transfer this task entirely to mechanical assistants if one wishes to figure something, even though the final result is often small indeed.
Max Webber

It always makes me sad when I think of how I saw Wagner wasting his vitality, not only by singing their parts to some of his artists, but acting out the smallest details, and of how few they were who were responsive to his wishes.
Anton Seidl

You cannot escape the results of your thoughts. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.
James Lane Allen

I was just glad to meet somebody outside of my group of small town friends who was into music. Somebody else who had aspirations to do something more than sing at a record hop.
John Oates

Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.
W. Eugene Smith

Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.
Frederica Montseny

It is a good idea for diplomats to keep their word in small matters. It makes the later complete betrayals more of a surprise.
John Barnes

Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say is good for me. Nor did I regret it. Wine has been for me a firm friend and a wise counselor. Often...wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them.
Duff Cooper

My situation is a solemn one. Life is offered to me on condition of eating beefsteaks. But death is better than cannibalism. My will contains directions for my funeral, which will be followed not by mourning coaches, but by oxen, sheep, flocks of poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white scarfs in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow creatures
George Bernard Shaw

Writing in my sixty-fourth year, I can truthfully say that since I reached the age of discretion I have consistently drunk more than most people would say is good for me. Nor did I regret it. Wine has been for me a firm friend and a wise counsellor. Often...wine has shown me matters in their true perspective, and has, as though by the touch of a magic wand, reduced great disasters to small inconveniences. Wine has lit up for me the pages of literature, and revealed in life romance lurking in the commonplace. Wine has made me bold but not foolish; has induced me to say silly things but not to do them.
Duff Cooper

Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small; no one is too old or too young to do something.
Bobby Sands

How deep our sleep last night in the mountains here, beneath the trees and stars, hushed by solemn-sounding waterfalls and many small soothing voices in sweet accord whispering peace! And our first pure mountain day, warm, calm, cloudless, -- how immeasurable it seems, how serenely wild! I can scarcely remember its beginning. Along the river, over the hills, in the ground, in the sky, spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm, new life, new beauty, unfolding, unrolling in glorious exuberant extravagance, -- new birds in their nests, new winged creatures in the air, and new leaves, new flowers, spreading, shining, rejoicing everywhere.
John Muir

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
Robert Francis Kennedy

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swedish proverb

How often do we sigh for opportunities of doing good, whilst we neglect the openings of Providence in little things, which would frequently lead to the accomplishment of most important usefulness! Dr. Johnson used to say, "He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do any." Good is done by degrees. However small in proportion the benefits which follow individual attempts to do good, a great deal may thus be accomplished by perseverance, even in the midst of discouragements and disappointments
George Crabbe

The thing is plain. All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practice. The rest is affectation and imposture
William Hazlitt

It is a smaller thing to suffer punishment than to have deserved it.
Ovid

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow
Proverb

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mohandas Gandhi

Before you agree to do anything that might add even the smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself: What is my truest intention? Give yourself time to let a yes resound within you. When it's right, I guarantee that your entire body will feel it.
Oprah Winfrey

Faithfulness in the performance of small duties gives us strength to adhere to difficult determinations that life will someday force us to make.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
George Washington

Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God's hand gives the impulse and direction.
Alexander MacLaren

Saturn is not going away, ... Neither are the planets. What's the rush Why not delay our space probes a bit, make them smaller and more sophisticated and use solar power.
Michio Kaku

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.
Napoleon Hill

Cities may now bulldoze private citizens' homes, farms and small businesses to make way for shopping malls or other developments.
Bob Goodlatte

You need an infinite stretch of time ahead of you to start to think, infinite energy to make the smallest decision. The world is getting denser. The immense number of useless projects is bewildering. Too many things have to be put in to balance up an uncertain scale. You can't disappear anymore. You die in a state of total indecision.
Jean Baudrillard

The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

The white, the Hispanic, the black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.
Jesse Jackson

The function of government ought to be: make sure you have good water to drink, somebody picking up the garbage, good roads to drive on, enough electricity to turn your light bulbs and your record player on, and whatever smaller amounts of regulatory assistance is necessary to make this society work
Frank Zappa

As long as Nazi violence was unleashed only, or mainly, against the Jews, the rest of the world looked on passively and even treaties and agreements were made with the patently criminal government of the Third Reich.... The doors of Palestine were closed to Jewish immigrants, and no country could be found that would admit those forsaken people. They were left to perish like their brothers and sisters in the occupied countries. We shall never forget the heroic efforts of the small countries, of the Scandinavian, the Dutch, the Swiss nations, and of individuals in the occupied part of Europe who did all in their power to protect Jewish lives
Albert Einstein

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
Arthur C. Clarke

A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.
Lord Dunsany

In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.
Hans Nouwens

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
Mahatma Gandhi

Man is so muddled, so dependent on the things immediately before his eyes, that every day even the most submissive believer can be seen to risk the torments of the afterlife for the smallest pleasure.
Joseph de Maistre

If you have a big problem in your life, all that means is that you are being a small person!
T. Harv Eker

Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential. They experience synergy only in small, peripheral ways in their lives. But creative experiences can be produced regularly, consistently, almost daily in people's lives. It requires enormous personal security and openness and a spirit of adventure.
Stephen R. Covey

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swedish proverb

As a small boy Francis Crick had been haunted by a fear that by the time he grew up everything would have been discovered. Inspired by Arthur Mee
Matt Ridley

Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow
Proverb

1. Romance is a state of mind. 2. Romance is an attitude. 3. Romance is about the little things- small loving gestures, hugs, saying "I love you" (and meaning it), and sincere compliments.
Gregory Godek

If youâ€šÃ„Ã´re starting a small business with your spouse, then remember the increased stress from work can easily carry over into your romantic relationship.
Mitch Thrower

Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the wind blows out the candle and blows up the bonfire.
Franois de La Rouchefoucauld

Golf is not a game of great shots. It's a game of the most misses. The people who win make the smallest mistakes
Gene Littler

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time and they feel that you are trying to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

I held a blue flower in my hand, probably a wild aster, wondering what its name was, and then thought that human names for natural things are superfluous. Nature herself does not name them. The important thing is to know this flower, look at its color until the blends becomes as real as a keynote of music. Look at the exquisite yellow flowerettes at the center, become very small with them. Be the flower, be the trees, the blowing grasses. Fly with the birds, jump with a squirrel!
Sally Carrigharâ€

One of the best things in the gospel of Jesus is the stress it lays on small things. It ascribes more value to quality than to quantity; it teaches that God does not ask how much we do, but how we do it.
James Freeman Clarke

Live and work to make a difference, to make things better, even the smallest things. Give full consideration to the rights and interests of others. No business is successful, even if it flourishes, in a society that does not care for or about its people.
Eugene C. Dorsey

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
Cherie Carter-Scott

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
William Boetcker

It is natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes an interesting side branch.
William Cullen Bryant

You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
John Kenneth Galbraith

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation.
William Bradford

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.
Anthony Michael

And yet in a way I would rather fail point blank. Things one can do have no value. I don't mind feeling small myself, but I dread finding the world is.
Elizabeth Bowen

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.
George Washington

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, Just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat
Napolean Hill

Like a big mountain, a small garden stimulates, restores, and delights us, just as it poses challenges, promotes mastery, provides exercise and relieves monotony
Winifred Gallagher

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set
Lyn Yutang

Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.
Solon

Is it so small a thing To have enjoyd the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done; To have advancd true friends, and beat down baffling foes?
Matthew Arnold

Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win
Jonathan Kozol

Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.
W. Eugene Smith

Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay
Sallust

Words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Lord Byron

Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense
Winston Churchill

A flower's appeal is in its contradictions - so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect.
Adabella Radici

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: ‘The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.’ In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
Bertrand Russell

Two people sat talking in a small room for several weeks, and things started happening. They began thinking about each other; one would dream about the other; they copied each other's mannerisms. What was it really all about? She liked to think she had a firm hold on the reins at all times, but the truth was that often she was just along for the ride.
Lisa Alther

If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
Sydney J. Harris

One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.
Bret Harte

Acceptance. It is the true thing everyone longs for. The one thing everyone craves. To walk in a room and to be greeted by everyone with hugs and smiles. And in that small passing moment, you truly know you're loved, needed, and accepted.
Rena Harmon

The first thing to do is to break the circuit between bile and brain by resolutely turning oneÃs thoughts away from the vexatious subject. This does not means finding convincing arguments, but simply breaking off the contact by, for example, forcing oneself to careful observation of some object or another. When the train of thought has thus been redirected, a few moments of mediation will prevent the reaction of the bile from continuing. This small act of control has the highest importance, for it ensures that when the anarchistic Automaton attacks the conscious self, victory shall go to the latter
Isha De Lubicz

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.
Swedish Proverb

Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that "would," in this world of ours, is a mere zero to "should," and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to "shall."
Thomas Carlyle

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.
Sonia Johnson

A Christmas candle is a lovely thing;It makes no noise at all,But softly gives itself away;While quite unselfish, it grows small.
Eva K. Logue

War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.
Hannah Arendt

A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history.
Mohandas K. Gandhi

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you.
Jim Rohn

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Never doubt that a small group of commited people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

A graduation is a small but significant tradition that I think everyone should take part in. What a great way to symbolize a part of your journey and to represent your thoughts for moving on.
Martin Stoleman

In the field one has to face a chaos of facts, some of which are so small that they seem insignificant; others loom so large that they are hard to encompass with one synthetic glance. But in this crude form they are not scientific facts at all; they are absolutely elusive, and can be fixed only by interpretation, by seeing them sub specie aeternitatis, by grasping what is essential in them and fixing this. Only laws and gerneralizations are scientific facts, and field work consists only and exclusively in the interpretation of the chaotic social reality, in subordinating it to general rules.
Bronislaw Malinowski

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.
Arthur Schopenhauer

All fingers are not alike, If you cut bigger ones to make all equal it is communism, If you stretch smaller ones to make all equal it is socialism, If you do nothing to make all equal it is capitalism.
B. J. Gupta

Boredom is what you fight. Constant, ever-present boredom. So you learn to look forward to small things. Sunlight glimpsed through a cloud, an extra piece of pie or candy, good thread to sew your blouse, a ribbon to wear in your hair.
Valerie W. Wesley

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
Fran Lebowitz

That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.
Barack Obama

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
Barack Obama

The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, Just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat.
Napoleon Hill

Work to connect yourself to the "allness" of life -- instead of identifying with the smallness of it -- and you'll awaken to a greatness already living within you that is no more bothered by the little things in life than a mountain is made miserable by the rain that falls upon it.
Guy Finley

Memory is a child walking along a seashore. You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up and store away among its treasured things.
Pierce Harris

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
Mother Teresa

Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs
Henry Ford

Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.
Norman Lear

Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
Maxim Gorky

Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.
Cherie Carter-Scott

Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort
Humphrey Davy

Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense
Winston Churchill

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
G.K. Chesterton

A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, big or small, young or old. He doesn't care if you're not smart, not popular, not a good joke-teller, not the best athlete, nor the best-looking person. To your dog, you are the greatest, the smartest, the nicest human being who was ever born. You are his friend and protector.
Louis Sabin

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
Robert Francis Kennedy

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.
Eyemadreamer Keri Russell

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make very small use of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.
William James

Gambling houses are temples where the most sordid and turbulent passions contend; there no spectator can be indifferent. A card or a small square of ivory interests more than the loss of an empire, or the ruin of an unoffending group of infants, and their nearest relatives.
Johann Georg von Zimmermann

Natural capitalism is not about making sudden changes, uprooting institutions, or fomenting upheaval for a new social order. Natural capitalism is about making small, critical choices that can tip economic and social factors in positive ways.
Paul Hawken

Fashion is born by small facts, trends, or even politics, never by trying to make little pleats and furbelows, by trinkets, by clothes easy to copy, or by the shortening or lengthening of a skirt.
Elsa Schiaparelli

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

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