 
                            
                        
                        
                        “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
            Canto 2, stanza 43 
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
        
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
“Great acts I reach to, to small things I bow.”
                                        
                                        L'alte non temo, e l'umili non sdegno. 
Canto II, stanza 46 (tr. Fairfax) 
 Variant translation https://archive.org/stream/dictionaryofquot00harbuoft#page/331/mode/1up: The proud I fear not, nor the meek disdain. 
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)
                                    
                                
                                    “The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.”
                                
                                
                                
                                
                            
                                        
                                        Merlin's Song II 
1860s, May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)
                                    
“A small man always has one weapon he can use against a great big man: he can "talk" about him.”
Country Town Sayings (1911), p298.
“He's as great a master of ill language as ever was bred at a Bear-Garden.”
Source: London Terraefilius, No. 3, p. 29, (1707).
"Logical and Mathematical Thought?" in The Monist, Vol. 20 (1909-1910), p. 69
 
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                         
                            
                        
                        
                        