A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far-reaching.
—Sivananda Saraswati (1887–1963) Indian Hindu Spiritual Teacher
Inches make champions.
—Vince Lombardi (1913–70) American Football Coach
All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
You may succeed in delaying, but never in preventing the transition of South Africa to a democracy.
—Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) South African Political leader
The Principle of Power gives us just what we ask of it; if we only undertake little things, it only gives us power for little things; but if we try to do great things in a great way it gives us all the power there is.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.
—Mother Teresa (1910–97) Roman Catholic Missionary, Nun
Don’t worry, be happy.
—Anonymous
Never neglect the little things. Never skimp on that extra effort, that additional few minutes, that soft word of praise or thanks, that delivery of the very best that you can do. It does not matter what others think, it is of prime importance, however, what you think about you. You can never do your best, which should always be your trademark, if you are cutting corners and shirking responsibilities. You are special. Act it. Never neglect the little things.
—Og Mandino (1923–96) American Self-Help Author
If we triumph in the little things of our common hours, we are sure to triumph in our lives.
—Unknown
What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
A small leak can sink a great ship
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.
—Zeno of Citium (c.334–c.265 BCE) Greek Philosopher
It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one than a little; a great deal may rouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick (1746–1816) British Nobleman, Politician
The chief duty I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Increased QUALITY/PRODUCTIVITY is made up of 1000s of small improvements. Just like Gulliver who was held down by 1000s of threads. Each one doesn’t seem to mean much, and in the case of a thread, can be easily broken. But 1000s of them can have a very strong effect.
—Unknown
Fewer and fewer Americans possess objects that have a patina, old furniture, grandparents pots and pans—the used things, warm with generations of human touch, essential to a human landscape. Instead, we have our paper phantoms, transistorized landscapes. A featherweight portable museum.
—Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American Writer, Philosopher
It has been rightly said that nothing is unimportant, nothing powerless in the universe; a single atom can dissolve everything, and save everything! What terror! There lies the eternal distinction between good and evil.
—Gerard de Nerval (1808–55) French Poet, Essayist, Critic
Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories.
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German Literary and Marxist Critic
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Human felicity is produced not as much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.
—Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American Self-Help Author
Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I’ll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things.
—Lawrence Dale Bell (1894–1956) American Industrialist
Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
It is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth bears no harvest of sweetness—calling their denial knowledge.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Someone has calculated that in fifteen minutes a day we can read the Bible through twice in a year’s time.
—Unknown
As the few adepts in such things well know, universal morality is to be found in little everyday penny-events just as much as in great ones. There is so much goodness and ingenuity in a raindrop that an apothecary wouldn’t let it go for less than half-a-crown…
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of departure which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
To be free of destructive stress don’t sweat the small stuff and by realizing that all stuff is small.
—Indian Proverb
Success in life is founded upon attention to the small things rather than to the large things; to the everyday things nearest to us rather than to the things that are remote and uncommon.
—Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American Educationist
Leave a Reply