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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.

About 3,500 years ago, when a patriarch called Moses was supposed to be leading a tribe of Seth's descendants out of the deserts of the Sinai Peninsula, another tribe of shepherds and pastoralists had already established a small kingdom for...

Quotes by Terry Glavin

Hispanic unemployment is higher than the national average and when the federal government is killing small businesses and killing jobs it is hurting the future of the Hispanic community and we need to carry that message.

Quotes by Ted Cruz

I follow my gut and the prompting of my spirit in all things, small and big.

Quotes by Tanushree Dutta

I'd rather have one good scene in a movie by a great director than a small role in a mediocre movie.

Quotes by Tahar Rahim

Where I grew up, there was one supermarket, one school, one hairdresser, and that was it. It was a very small community.

Quotes by Sylvia Hoeks

In one month, the Small Business Administration does $1 billion of loans and guarantees for businesses; many of those are women-owned businesses.

Quotes by Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Banks can't recoup the costs of serving customers who save in small amounts and transact frequently.

Quotes by Sylvia Mathews Burwell

Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.

Quotes by Sydney Smith

I went in with Jack and Leslie, into this room that was lined with brick, and there on the side I can remember very clearly was this small model with plates for the bases - the original model with everything...

Quotes by Sydney Brenner

I also became interested in chemistry and gradually accumulated enough test tubes and other glassware to do chemical experiments, using small quantities of chemicals purchased from a pharmacy supply house.

Quotes by Sydney Brenner

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

Quotes by Sydney J. Harris

A small venue is so much more intimate and loose. You can actually be more spontaneous, I feel.

Quotes by Suzy Bogguss

It's clear that the small business tax credit created under the Affordable Care - while well-intentioned policy - can be improved to better serve the needs of small businesses.

Quotes by Suzan DelBene

HBO has 28 million subscribers, small stuff compared to TBS, which can be seen in 88 million homes.

Quotes by Suzanne Fields

I'm very happy to have a small, long, career instead of one big hit and then oblivion.

Quotes by Susannah McCorkle

It's been increasingly hard to make small stories about female friendship, and, definitely, those stories don't have any shot of getting a theatrical release.

Quotes by Susanna Fogel

Small businesses provide 75 percent of new U.S. jobs and are the backbone of our economy, and no outdated ban should be keeping small business owners from collecting the same interest their money could earn if it were held by...

Quotes by Sue Kelly

I am committed to strengthening our agricultural economy by protecting the unique interests of small and medium size family farms so that they can continue to operate.

Quotes by Sue Kelly

The interest rate because of Mr. Raghuram Rajan has been too high, and so medium and small industries have all collapsed. This has led to increased unemployment.

Quotes by Subramanian Swamy

My parents are small business owners, and the Korean community, like a lot of immigrant communities, is very much owner-driven.

Quotes by Su-chin Pak

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.