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Small Quotes

Big ideas about being underestimated.

Several of these small quotes come from people describing being dismissed early — a company written off as minor before it grew, a hometown that never gets credited. If scale itself interests you more, the Big collection makes the opposite case.

When I first heard Ray Charles, he was a flop artist on a small label in California. He hadn't sold any records. And I bought his contract for $2,500.

Quotes by Ahmet Ertegun

Egypt does not possess rich natural resources. Its agricultural area is relatively small - less than 10 per cent of the total land. Its growth relies on tourism, Suez Canal tariffs, and foreign investment.

Quotes by Ahmed Zewail

I am small. I was always small. But only physically.

Quotes by Agnes Varda

I joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions. It was a technical Marxist subject and I did not understand...

Quotes by Agnes Smedley

Always Quotes

In the little hall leading to it was a rack holding various Socialist or radical newspapers, tracts, and pamphlets in very small print and on very bad paper. The subjects treated were technical Marxist theories.

Quotes by Agnes Smedley

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Quotes by Aesop

The level of our success is limited only by our imagination and no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.

Quotes by Aesop

From a small seed a mighty trunk may grow.

Quotes by Aeschylus

The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations - great or small - to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century.

Quotes by Adlai Stevenson I

Big Quotes

We own only a small percentage in Omnivore, but we manage it. It is basically a venture capital fund to help newer enterprises and provide them with the funding they require in their early stages of development.

Quotes by Adi Godrej

I am not a small guy - I will be the first to say it.

Quotes by Adebayo Akinfenwa

'Parks and Rec' is definitely a mainstream show - the group that watches it on TV on Thursday night is small, but the audience that watches it on things like Hulu, Netflix, and Tivo is enormous.

Quotes by Adam Scott

Saxon, if you are unfamiliar, is a British heavy-metal band that has been around since the mid-'70s and was in no small part the inspiration for Spinal Tap.

Quotes by Adam Schlesinger

When you're making under-million-dollar films, it becomes so much about actors' availability. When you're using big actors for small films, you're in second or third position to the big monoliths.

Quotes by Adam Rapp

Business Quotes

I like to read in the bathtub. Ideally, that bathtub would be located on a small Greek island.

Quotes by Adam Mansbach

I was born in California. When I was six, we moved to a small town in northern Indiana called Mishawaka.

Quotes by Adam Driver

The Prophet defeated the enemies of Islam even when he and his followers were small in number.

Quotes by Abu Bakar Bashir

I grew up in a small Southern town, kind of a counterculture to a small Southern mentality.

Quotes by Abigail Spencer

We set up a small bitcoin and ethereum mining operation... that miraculously now is actually making a lot of money.

Quotes by Abigail Johnson

Great Quotes

Even a small reduction in errors and rework can have a significant impact.

Quotes by Abigail Johnson

Frequently Asked Questions

Do these quotes only talk about small in terms of size?
Not at all — "small" here ranges from company size to towns to personal ambition. One speaker even once thought a company was "a small company ripping off our copyrights," before it turned out to be a much bigger deal than expected. For more on how scale plays out in the working world, see Business quotes.
What do these quotes say about small towns?
One is blunt about it: "Small towns are the worst for getting recognised." It's a candid take on how a smaller community can limit visibility or opportunity, at least in this speaker's experience.
Is being small always seen negatively in these quotes?
No — one turns it into something aspirational: "I want to be in the small percentage of women who don't settle for conventional roles." Here, "small" describes an exclusive, admirable group rather than a limitation. If you'd rather explore the opposite end of scale, Big quotes covers bigger ambitions too.
How does this collection compare small and great?
One quote draws a direct contrast: "Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous." It suggests smallness here is linked to pettiness, while greatness is linked to generosity of spirit. Explore that idea further in Great quotes.
Is there a common thread tying these small quotes together?
Mostly that "small" is relative here — it can mean underestimated, limiting, exclusive, or even petty depending on context, and these four quotes touch on nearly every version of that. For more everyday words examined from every angle, check out Always quotes.

Others use the word to describe standing apart from convention rather than physical size, and one older line frames small speech as narrow-minded rather than short. Compare with Great quotes or Business quotes for related angles.