If you add a little to a little and do this often, soon the little will become great.
—Hesiod (f.700 BCE) Greek Poet
It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.
—John Wooden (1910–2010) American Basketball Coach, Educator
All great things are only a number of small things that have carefully been collected together.
—Unknown
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
A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.
—Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) Italian Poet, Philosopher
You’ll come to learn a great deal if you study the Insignificant in depth.
—Odysseus Elytis (1911–96) Greek Poet
Little pots soon boil over.
—Anonymous
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
Don’t worry, be happy.
—Anonymous
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
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
Yard by yard, it’s very hard. But inch by inch, it’s a cinch.
—Unknown
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
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
As we become curators of our own contentment on the Simple Abundance path… we learn to savor the small with a grateful heart.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (b.1947) American Self-help Author
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
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
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
I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett (b.1930) American Investor
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist
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
Here’s what I mean by building your own subculture…I don’t mean you disregard every rule of your community. I don’t go around naked, for example. I don’t run through red lights. The little things, I can obey. But the big things—how we think, what we value—those you must choose for yourself. You can’t let anyone—or any society—determine those for you.
—Mitch Albom (b.1958) American Sports Journalist
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
We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.
—Marian Wright Edelman (b.1939) American Activist, Advocate
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
There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man.—It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Someone has calculated that in fifteen minutes a day we can read the Bible through twice in a year’s time.
—Unknown
Those that are little, little things suit.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
A small leak can sink a great ship.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
What a profound significance small things assume when the woman we love conceals them from us.
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French Novelist
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