I do now remember the poor creature, small beer.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry IV. Part II. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small.

Edmund Spenser (1553-1599): Faerie Queene. Book v. Canto ii. St. 43.

There's small choice in rotten apples.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Taming of the Shrew. Act i. Sc. 1.

To compare

Great things with small.

John Milton (1608-1674): Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 921.

But mice and rats, and such small deer,

Have been Tom's food for seven long year.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iii. Sc. 4.

Hence, ye profane! I hate ye all,

Both the great vulgar and the small.

Abraham Cowley (1618-1667): Horace. Book iii. Ode 1.

Small habits well pursued betimes

May reach the dignity of crimes.

Hannah More (1745-1833): Florio. Part i.

Small have continual plodders ever won

Save base authority from others' books.

These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights

That give a name to every fixed star

Have no more profit of their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

That dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

Marquis Of Montrose (1612-1650): My Dear and only Love.

Small Latin, and less Greek.

Ben Jonson (1573-1637): To the Memory of Shakespeare.

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns

As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:

To Him no high, no low, no great, no small;

He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Essay on Man. Epistle i. Line 277.

How small of all that human hearts endure,

That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!

Still to ourselves in every place consigned,

Our own felicity we make or find.

With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,

Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784): Lines added to Goldsmith's Traveller.

How pure the joy, when first my hands unfold

The small, rare volume, black with tarnished gold!

John Ferriar (1764-1815): Illustrations of Sterne. Bibliomania. Line 137.

Think naught a trifle, though it small appear;

Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,

And trifles life.

Edward Young (1684-1765): Love of Fame. Satire vi. Line 208.

Small service is true service while it lasts.

Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one:

The daisy, by the shadow that it casts,

Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): To a Child. Written in her Album.

There is no great and no small

To the Soul that maketh all;

And where it cometh, all things are;

And it cometh everywhere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882): Essays. First Series. Epigraph to History.

Small to greater matters must give way.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act ii. Sc. 2.

Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act iv. Sc. 6.

That unlettered small-knowing soul.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Love's Labour's Lost. Act i. Sc. 1.