
“A great flame follows a little spark.”
Canto I, line 34 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
Source: The Moon Is Down
“A great flame follows a little spark.”
Canto I, line 34 (tr. Sinclair).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso
Statement to a TImes reporter in 1990, as quoted in "The wit and wisdom of Boris" in Guardian Unlimited (23 April 2007)
1990s
Song, "The Little Red Lark".
Source: The Sex Sphere (1983), p. 40
“Be calm. A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.”
Source: There Will Be Time (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 126)
“This poor little one-horse town.”
"The Undertaker's Chat", first published as "A Reminiscence of the Back Settlements" in The Galaxy, Vol. 10, No. 5, November 1870 http://books.google.com/books?id=2TIZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA731. Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old http://books.google.com/books?id=5LcIAAAAQAAJ (1875)
“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Divinity
“You're only given a little spark of madness and if you lose that, you're nothing.”
A Night at the Roxy (1978)
Letter to the Louis D. Oaks, Los Angeles Chief of Police (17 May 1923)
Context: I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces. I am not a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit, when I see a line of a hundred policeman with drawn revolvers flung across a street to keep anyone from coming onto private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.