A still, small voice. [ Bible ]
Better are small fish
Than an empty dish. [ Proverb ]
Great boast, small roast. [ Proverb ]
Keep touch in small things. [ Proverb ]
Great guts and small hopes. [ Proverb ]
A small wound may be mortal. [ Proverb ]
A slight gift, small thanks. [ Proverb ]
Small rain lays a great dust. [ Proverb ]
The still small voice is wanted. [ Cowper ]
Small profits and quick returns. [ Proverb ]
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. [ Coleridge ]
In every rank, or great or small,
It is industry supports us all. [ Gay ]
Small habits well pursued betimes
May reach the dignity of crimes. [ Hannah More ]
A small heart hath small desires. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A shabby coat finds small credit. [ Italian Proverb ]
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
To win or lose it all. [ Marquis of Montrose ]
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small.
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all. [ Marquis Of Montrose ]
A small shop may have a good trade. [ Proverb ]
A great ceremony for a small saint. [ Proverb ]
The still small voice of gratitude. [ Gray ]
Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
The higher value on it. [ Burns ]
Humanity is great but men are small. [ Börne ]
Small wounds if many, may be mortal. [ Proverb ]
A small pack becomes a small pedlar. [ Proverb ]
A small family is soon provided for. [ Proverb ]
No hair so small but hath his shadow. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
A small rain may allay a great storm. [ Proverb ]
Great weight may hang on small wires. [ Proverb ]
A small unkindness is a great offence. [ Hannah More ]
A small matter hurts one that is sore. [ Proverb ]
For envy, to small minds, is flattery. [ Young ]
A small hurt in the eye is a great one. [ Proverb ]
The lofty oak from a small acorn grows. [ Lewis Buncombe ]
The beginnings of all things are small. [ Cicero ]
There's a small choice in rotten apples. [ William Shakespeare ]
Venture a small fish to catch a gudgeon. [ Proverb ]
But to the world no bugbear is so great,
As want of figure and a small estate. [ Pope ]
O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies
In the small orb of one particular tear! [ William Shakespeare ]
Prisoned in a parlour snug and small,
Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall. [ Cowper ]
A small sore wants not a great plaister. [ Proverb ]
The prince, who kept the world in awe.
The judge, whose dictate fix'd the law.
The rich, the poor, the great, the small,
Are levelled: death confounds them all. [ Gay ]
Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
The mighty soul how small a body holds. [ Dryden ]
Venture a small fish to catch a great one. [ Proverb ]
Play at small games rather than stand out. [ Proverb ]
Small are the seeds fate does unheeded sow
Of slight beginnings to important ends. [ Davenant ]
From small fires comes oft no small mishap. [ George Herbert ]
People are to be taken in very small doses. [ Emerson ]
A man often pays dear for a small frugality. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
A small sum may serve for a small reckoning. [ Proverb ]
A small demerit extinguishes a long service. [ Proverb ]
Whatever comes, let's be content withal;
Among God's blessings there is no one small. [ Herrick ]
Small service is true service while it lasts. [ Wordsworth ]
A small number of choice books are sufficient. [ Voltaire ]
Yes, know thyself: in great concerns or small,
Be this thy care, for this, my friend, is all. [ Juvenal ]
Fortune in men has some small difference made.
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade. [ Pope ]
A plaister is a small amends for a broken head. [ Proverb ]
Command large fields, but cultivate small ones. [ Virgil ]
The crackling embers on the hearth are dead;
The indoor note of industry is still;
The latch is fast; upon the window-sill
The small birds wait not for their daily bread;
The voiceless flowers - how quietly they shed
Their nightly odours; - and the household rill
Murmurs continuous dulcet sounds that fill
The vacant expectation, and the dread
Of listening night. [ Hartley Coleridge ]
Books make up no small part of human happiness. [ Frederick the Great ]
What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all. [ John Wolcott ]
He that gives me small gifts would have me live. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Think naught a trifle, though it small appear:
Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,
And trifles life. [ Edward Young ]
There is not an hair so small but hath its shadow. [ Proverb ]
That is a prodigious plaister for so small a sore. [ Proverb ]
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast. [ William Shakespeare ]
A small debt makes a debtor; a heavy one, an enemy. [ Publius Syrus ]
Glory is a poison, good to be taken in small doses. [ Balzac ]
The small cart creaks, as the heavy wain should do. [ Proverb ]
Small service is true service while it lasts.
Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun. [ Wordsworth, to a child ]
This picture bears no small resemblance to yourself. [ Horace ]
While words of learned length, and thundering sound,
Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around;
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head should carry all he knew. [ Goldsmith ]
Twas a public feast and public day -
Quite full, right dull, guests hot, and dishes cold,
Great plenty, much formality, small cheer.
And everybody out of their own sphere. [ Byron ]
Words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. [ Byron ]
If the channel's too small, the water must break out. [ Proverb ]
Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small. [ Edmund Spenser ]
The greatest things are done by the help of small ones. [ Proverb ]
Earthly paradise: the parents young, the children small. [ Victor Hugo ]
She did not mince matters (make a small mouth about it). [ French Proverb ]
A grand necessity elevates man; a small one degrades him. [ L. J. Nivernais ]
Genuine wit implies no small amount of wisdom and culture. [ Moses Harvey ]
Without big words, how could many people say small things? [ J. Petit-Senn ]
Happy is the man whose enemies have been in small matters. [ Proverb ]
A small sorrow distracts us, a great one makes us collected. [ Jean Paul ]
Greatness may be present in lives whose range is very small. [ Phil. Brooks ]
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. [ Proverbs ]
Small faults indulged are little thieves, that let in greater. [ Proverb ]
Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than the small-pox. [ St. Evremond ]
We can do not great things, only small things with great love. [ Mother Teresa ]
It is but a small matter to be good in the eye of the law only. [ Seneca ]
Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. [ Benjamin Franklin ]
He deserves small trust who is not privy counsellor to himself. [ Forde ]
Business is bought at a dear hand where there is small despatch. [ Bacon ]
Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring. [ Colley Cibber ]
In every rank, or great or small, 'Tis industry supports us all. [ Gay ]
No fountain so small but that heaven may be imaged in its bosom. [ Hawthorne ]
A constant fidelity in small things is a great and heroic virtue. [ Bonaventura ]
Great people's servants think themselves of no small consequence. [ German Proverb ]
Man's grand fault is, and remains, that he has so many small ones. [ Jean Paul ]
I am sorry to see how small a piece of religion will make a cloak. [ Sir William Waller ]
The diamond, though small, is a heavy load for a poor man to carry. [ Ejik ]
Absurdities are great or small in proportion to custom or insuetude. [ Landor ]
Men possessing small souls are generally the authors of great evils. [ Goethe ]
The proof of obedience is found in small matters more than in great. [ Proverb ]
Pleasures are like liqueurs: they must be drunk but in small glasses. [ Romainville ]
Often has a small spark through neglect raised a great conflagration. [ Rufus ]
The most penitent anchorite has now and then a small flight of vanity. [ Proverb ]
My house, my house, though thou art small, thou art to me the Escurial. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He that cheats in small things is a fool, but in great things is a rogue. [ Proverb ]
We confess small faults in order to insinuate that we have no great ones. [ La Rochefoucauld ]
A small drop of ink makes many men honest, who would be rogues without it. [ W. Unsworth ]
Learn on how little man may live, and how small a portion nature requires. [ Lucan ]
I dislike clocks with second-hands; they cut up life into too small pieces. [ Mme. de Sevigne ]
Human happiness depends mainly upon the improvement of small opportunities. [ J. L. Basford ]
A man who is proud of small things shows that small things are great to him. [ Madame de Girardin ]
Great events are the hour-hands of time, while small events mark the minutes. [ Ramsay ]
Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea. [ Washington Irving ]
Great things astonish us, and small dishearten us. Custom makes both familiar. [ De La Bruyere ]
In great straits and when hope is small, the boldest counsels are the safest. [ Livy ]
Heed the still small voice that so seldom leads us wrong, and never into folly. [ Mme. Du Deffand ]
To be silent is but a small virtue; but it is a serious fault to reveal secrets. [ Ovid ]
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; robes and furred gowns hide all. [ William Shakespeare ]
There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility. [ James Martineau ]
Small-pot-soon-hot style of eloquence is what our county conventions often exhibit. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
There is no creature so small and abject that it representeth not the goodness of God. [ Thomas a Kempis ]
Nature without discipline is of small force, and discipline without nature more feeble. [ John Lily ]
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
There is small difference (to the eye of the world) in being Naught, and being thought so. [ Proverb ]
Fly from the crowd, and be to virtue true. Content with what thou hast, though it be small. [ Chaucer ]
Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. [ Johnson ]
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken. [ Johnson ]
A small number of men and women think for the million; through them the million speak and act. [ J. J. Rousseau ]
An orator of past times declared that his calling was to make small things appear to be grand. [ Montaigne ]
It is better to do the smallest thing in the world than to regard half an hour as a small thing. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Reckon no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may overlook it. [ Confucius ]
The frequent recourse to finesse is always the effect of incapacity and the mark of a small mind. [ French ]
When people laugh at their own jokes, their wit is very small beer, and is lost in its own froth. [ Spurgeon ]
A small inkling of philosophy leads man to despise learning; much philosophy leads man to esteem it. [ Chamfort ]
Small thanks to the man for keeping his hands clean who would not touch the work but with gloves on. [ Carlyle ]
Men live best upon small means. Nature has provided for all, if they only knew how to use her gifts. [ Claudianus ]
To great evils one must oppose great virtues; and also to small, which is the harder task of the two. [ Carlyle ]
If any man think it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken. [ Plutarch ]
What seems generosity is often disguised ambition, that despises small to run after greater interests. [ Rochefoucauld ]
Every gift which is given, even though it be small, is in reality great if it be given with affection. [ Pindar ]
Stern duties need not speak sternly. He who stood firm before the thunder worshipped the still small voice.
[ Sidney Dobell ]
Every lie, great or small, is the brink of a precipice, the depth of which nothing but omniscience can fathom. [ Reade ]
Great souls are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over them: only small mean souls are otherwise. [ Carlyle ]
The happiness of married life depends upon the power of making small sacrifices with readiness and cheerfulness. [ Selden ]
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part; the rest are confounded with the multitude. [ Voltaire ]
Truth is simple indeed, but we have generally no small trouble in learning to apply it to any practical purpose. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The glory of a people and of an age is always the work of a small number of great men, and disappears with them. [ Baron de Grimm ]
Leave it better than you found it. If we all did that, even in small ways, the world would be a much better place.
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others. [ Burke ]
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Between the great things that we cannot do and the small things we will not do, the danger is that we shall do nothing. [ Adolph Monod ]
As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so it is of small wits to talk much and say nothing. [ Rochefoucauld ]
Nothing can embellish a beautiful face more than a narrow band that indicates a small wound drawn crosswise over the brow. [ Richter ]
Too elevated qualities often unfit a man for society. We do not go to market with ingots, but with silver and small change. [ Chamfort ]
Nothing is so wholesome, nothing does so much for people's looks, as a little interchange of the small coin of benevolence. [ Ruffini ]
If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and authorcraft are of small amount to that. [ Carlyle ]
Nothing can we call our own but death, and that small model of the barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. [ William Shakespeare ]
There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. [ Nelson Mandela ]
Happy child! the cradle is still to thee a vast space; but when thou art a man the boundless world will be too small for thee. [ Schiller ]
Oh, how a small portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living! [ Philip, King of Macedon ]
Character is made up of small duties faithfully performed - of self-denials, of self-sacrifices, of kindly acts of love and duty. [ Anonymous ]
There is nothing so small but that we may honour God by asking his guidance of it, or insult him by taking it into our own hands. [ John Ruskin ]
If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large it trips him up, if too small it pinches him. [ Horace ]
Happy child! the cradle is still to thee an infinite space; once grown into a man, and the boundless world will be too small to thee. [ Friedrich Schiller ]
Transitory is all human work, small in itself, contemptible; only the worker thereof and the spirit that dwelt in him is significant. [ Carlyle ]
At the gates of the forest the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and small, wise and foolish. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
The world is large when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide; But the world is small when your enemy is loose on the other side. [ John Boyle O'Reilly ]
The grave is a very small hillock, but we can see farther from it, when standing on it, than from the highest mountain in all the world. [ A. Tholuck ]
If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime. [ Legouve ]
As a shoe, when too large, is apt to trip one, and when too small, to pinch the feet; so is it with him whose fortune does not suit him. [ Horace ]
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters; it is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it. [ V. Hugo ]
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop-window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within. [ Spurgeon ]
Little-minded people's thoughts move in such small circles that five minutes' conversation gives you an arc long enough to determine their whole curve. [ Oliver Wendell Holmes ]
The woman's cause is man's. They rise or sink together; dwarfed or godlike, bond or free; if she be small, slight-natured, miserable, how shall men grow? [ Tennyson ]
Truth, like the juice of a poppy, in small quantities, calms men; in larger, heats and irritates them, and is attended by fatal consequences in its excess. [ Landor ]
I do not believe in luck in war, any more than in luck in business. Luck is a small matter; may affect a battle or a movement, but not a campaign or a career. [ U. S. Grant ]
Qualities of a too superior order render a man less adapted to society. One does not go to market with big lumps of gold; one goes with silver or small change. [ Chamfort ]
They who neglect the opportunity of reaping a small advantage in hopes they shall obtain a better, are far from acting on a reasonable and welladvised foundation. [ S. Croxall ]
We are too fond of our own will; we want to be doing what we fancy mighty things: but the great point is to do small things, when called to them, in a right spirit. [ Cecil ]
The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. I would have a man great in great things, and elegant in little things. [ Johnson ]
Everybody takes pleasure in returning small obligations; many go so far as to acknowledge moderate ones; but there is hardly anyone who does not repay great obligations with ingratitude. [ Rochefoucauld ]
As small letters hurt the sight, so do small matters him that is too much intent upon them; they vex and stir up anger, which begets an evil habit in him in reference to greater affairs. [ Plutarch ]
Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip. But only crow-bars loose the bull-dog's lip; Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields, Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields. [ O. W. Holmes ]
Perhaps, if I am very lucky, the feeble efforts of my lifetime will someday be noticed, and maybe, in some small way, they will be acknowledged as the greatest works of genius ever created by Man. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others. [ Frederic Saunders ]
There is nothing of which men are more liberal than their good advice, be their stock of it ever so small; because it seems to carry in it an intimation of their own influence, importance, or worth. [ Young ]
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear: robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw doth pierce it. [ William Shakespeare ]
Greatness of mind is not shown by admitting small things, but by making small things great under its influence. He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great. [ John Ruskin ]
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. [ Sir Humphry Davy ]
Man is of the earth, but his thoughts are with the stars. A pigmy standing on the outward crest of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest. [ Carlyle ]
A man's longest purposes will be his best purposes. It is true, life is short and uncertain; but it is better to live on the short arc of a large circle than to describe the whole circumference of a small circle. [ Charles H. Parkhurst ]
There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free from his master. [ Bible ]
The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of attention. [ Sterne ]
There are brains so large that they unconsciously swamp all individualities which come in contact or too near, and brains so small that they cannot take in the conception of any other individuality as a whole, only in part or parts. [ Mrs. Jameson ]
At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling. [ Macaulay ]
Small miseries, like small debts, hit us in so many places and meet us at so many turns and corners, that what they want in weight they make up in number, and render it less hazardous to stand one cannon ball than a volley of bullets. [ Colton ]
A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world; vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast. Despise not thou small things, either for evil or for good; for a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth. [ Tupper ]
A very small offence may be a just cause for great resentment: it is often much less the particular instance which is obnoxious to us than the proof if carries with it of the general tenor and disposition of the mind from whence it sprung. [ Greville ]
There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small. [ Goethe ]
A man who cannot win fame in his own age will have a very small chance of winning it from posterity. True, there are some half-dozen exceptions to this truth among millions of myriads that attest it; but what man of commonsense would invest any large amount of hope in so unpromising a lottery? [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Women have the genius of charity. A man gives but his gold, a woman adds to it her sympathy. A small sum in the hands of a woman does more good than a hundred times as much in the hands of a man. Feminine charity renews every day the miracle of Christ feeding a multitude with a few loaves and fishes. [ E. Legouve ]
Ridicule intrinsically is a small faculty; we may say, the smallest of all faculties that other men are at the pains to repay with any esteem. It is directly opposed to thought, to knowledge, properly so called; its nourishment and essence is denial, which hovers on the surface, while knowledge dwells far below. [ Carlyle ]
Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labor. It argues, indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere in the habits of industry, without the pleasure of perceiving those advantages which, like the bands of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]
It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art. in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an accumulation of small facts made by successive generations of men - the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid. [ Samuel Smiles ]
People are always talking about originality; but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us; and this goes on to the end. And after all, what can we call our own, except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor. [ Goethe ]
I wouldn't be surprised if someday some fisherman caught a big shark and cut it open, and there inside was a whole person. Then they cut the person open, and in him is a little baby shark. And in the baby shark there isn't a person, because it would be too small. But there's a little doll or something, like a Johnny Combat little toy guy - something like that. [ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
Health is certainly more valuable than money; because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly, but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness. [ Johnson ]
Wherever there is a sky above him and a world around him, the poet is in his place; for here too is man's existence, with its infinite longings and small acquirings; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed endeavours; its unspeakable aspirations, its fears and hopes that wander through eternity; and all the mystery of brightness and of gloom that it was ever made of, in any age or climate, since man first began to live. [ Carlyle ]
Love is the river of life in this world. Think not that ye know it who stand at the little tinkling rill, the first small fountain. Not until you have gone through the rocky gorges, and not lost the stream; not until you have gone through the meadow, and the stream has widened and deepened until fleets could ride on its bosom; not until beyond the meadow you have come to the unfathomable ocean, and poured your treasures into its depths - not until then can you know what love is. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]
Let us now suppose that in the mind of each man there is an aviary of all sorts of birds some flocking together apart from the rest, others in small groups, others solitary, flying anywhere and everywhere. . . . We may suppose that the birds are kinds of knowledge, and that when we were children, this receptacle was empty; whenever a man has gotten and detained in the enclosure a kind of knowledge, he may be said to have learned or discovered the thing which is the subject of the knowledge: and this is to know. [ Dialogues, Theaetetus ]