"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
“That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.”
"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
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Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Die…" by Robert Browning?
Robert Browning 179
English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era 1812–1889Related quotes
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: The Little Man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with illusions of strength and greatness, of others' strength and greatness. He is proud of his great generals but not proud of himself. He admires thought which he did not have and not the thought he did have. He believes in things all the more thoroughly the less he comprehends them, and does not believe in the correctness of those ideas which he comprehends most easily.
“These little things are great to little man.”
Oliver Goldsmith
(1728–1774) Irish physician and writer
Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 42.
“The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.”
Listen, Little Man! (1948)
Context: You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.
Source: Miracles (1947), Ch. 7: "A Chapter of Red Herrings"
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..."
“How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence!”
Book XLII: Ch. 18: A summary of the changes which have occurred around the globe in my lifetime
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)
Context: How small man is on this little atom where he dies! But how great his intelligence! He knows when the face of the stars must be masked in darkness, when the comets will return after thousands of years, he who lasts only an instant! A microscopic insect lost in a fold of the heavenly robe, the orbs cannot hide from him a single one of their movements in the depth of space. What destinies will those stars, new to us, light? Is their revelation bound up with some new phase of humanity? You will know, race to be born; I know not, and I am departing.