“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.”

Quoted by Gerard Irvine, "Antipanegyric for Tom Driberg," [memorial service for Driberg] (8 December 1976)
1970s
Variant: It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.

Go Rin No Sho (1645)
Context: Third is the Fire book. This book is about fighting. The spirit of fire is fierce, whether the fire be small or big; and so it is with battles. The Way of battles is the same for man to man fights and for ten thousand a side battles. You must appreciate that spirit can become big or small. What is big is easy to perceive: what is small is difficult to perceive. In short, it is difficult for large numbers of men to change position, so their movements can be easily predicted. An individual can easily change his mind, so his movements are difficult to predict. You must appreciate this. The essence of this book is that you must train day and night in order to make quick decisions.

When he beat computer Go program Alphago.
Alphago(movie) 72:41.
AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol

The Near East (1968), p. 31
General sources

On Shoeless Joe Jackson, as quoted in "The Sportlight" http://www.mediafire.com/view/mazvkq3hy6g68vp/Rice%2C%20Grantland.%20The%20Sportlight.%20The%20Daily%20Boston%20Globe.%20December%2016%2C%201932..jpg by Grantland Rice, in The Daily Boston Globe (December 16, 1932), p. 40
Context: I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me. I liked the way he kept his right foot forward, being a left-handed hitter, and his left foot back. That gave him more body and shoulder power than the average hitter has.

1960s, Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address (1962)

Source: A Million Little Pieces