
“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