Source: Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), Night IV, Line 118.
“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.”
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 8, The Hermit (Edwin and Angelina), st. 8.
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: My intellect tells me: "Tell the truth at any cost." The Little Man in me says: "It is stupid to expose oneself to the little man, to put oneself at his mercy. The Little Man does not want to hear the truth about himself. He does not want the great responsibility which is his. He wants to remain a Little Man. He wants to remain a Little Man, or wants to become a little great man. He wants to become rich, or a party leader, or commander of a legion, or secretary of the society for the abolition of vice. But he does not want to assume responsibility for his work..."
Translation of Horace, book ii, Ode x.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“284. A Man knows his Companion in a long Journey and a little Inn.”
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“The superannuated man”
Last Essays of Elia (1833)
“But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.”
"The Greater Cats"
Kings Daughter (1929)
Context: The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there, and the different skies,
And night with different stars.
They prowl the aromatic hill,
And mate as fiercely as they kill,
To roam, to live, to drink their fill;
But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.
Country Sentiment (1920)
Context: I am an old man
With my bones very brittle,
Though I am a poor old man
Worth very little,
Yet I suck at my long pipe
At peace in the sun,
I do not fret nor much regret
That my work is done.
"Brittle Bones".
“A man must be a little mad if he does not want to be even more stupid.”
Book III, Ch. 9
Essais (1595), Book III
“These little things are great to little man.”
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 42.
