“Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 293.
“Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.”
Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher
Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher
Sylphs
Poems (1851), Prometheus
Context: The glad sons of the deliver'd earth
Shall yearly raise their multitudinous voice,
Hymning great Jove, the God of Liberty!
Then he grew proud, yet gentle in his pride,
And full of tears, which well became his youth,
As showers do spring. For he was quickly moved,
And joy'd to hear sad stories that we told
Of what we saw on earth, of death and woe,
And all the waste of time. Then would he swear
That he would conquer time; that in his reign
It never should be winter; he would have
No pain, no growing old, no death at all.
And that the pretty damsels, whom we said
He must not love, for they would die and leave him,
Should evermore be young and beautiful;
Or, if they must go, they should come again,
Like as the flowers did. Thus he used to prate,
Till we almost believed him.
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
"Whether Genius is Conscious of its Powers?"
The Plain Speaker (1826)
“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer
Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
“For the greatness of Reason is not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Knowest thou what kind of speck you art in comparison with the Universe?—That is, with respect to the body; since with respect to Reason, thou art not inferior to the Gods, nor less than they. For the greatness of Reason is not measured by length or height, but by the resolves of the mind. Place then thy happiness in that wherein thou art equal to the Gods. (33).
Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest
Source: Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old
Eric Hoffer book The True Believer
Section 10
The True Believer (1951), Part One: The Appeal of Mass Movements
“The greatness of the man's power is the measure of his surrender.”
William Booth (1829–1912) British Methodist preacher