“Absolute greatness will never be great and also small, but that greatness in us or in the concrete will never admit the small or admit of even being exceeded; instead of this, one of two things will happen—either the greater will fly and retire before the opposite, which is the less, or the advance of the less will cease to exist; but will not, if allowing or admitting smallness, be changed by that…nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change.”
Plato, Phaedo
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Socrates 168
classical Greek Athenian philosopher -470–-399 BCRelated quotes
Human Destiny, 1947, p. 33
Commenting on Charles-Eugene Guye's calculation that the odds against the random formation of a particular protein molecule would be about 1 in 10 to the 243rd.
“The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.”
"The Right Thing," ll. 7-9
The Far Field (1964)
Context: God bless the roots! — Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.
“Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions, great or small.”
Joan and Peter: The Story of an Education (1918)
“God, grant us men to see in a small thing principles which are common things both small and great.”
Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lM5PQRHMNFwC&q=%22Deus+dona+hominibus+videre+in+parvo+communes+notitias+rerum+parvarum+atque+magnarum%22&pg=PR19#v=onepage
XI, 23
Confessions (c. 397)
“Small minds can never handle great themes.”
Grandes materias ingenia parva non sufferunt.
Letter 60
Letters