People who are too much concerned with little things usually become incapable of big ones.
[Ceux qui s’appliquent trop aux petites choses deviennent ordinairement incapables des grandes.]François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶41 (1665-1678) [tr. Kronenberger (1959)]
(Source)
Present from the 1665 edition. See here for more discussion (English).
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:
They that use to employ their minds too much upon Trifles, commonly make themselves incapable of any thing that is serious or great.
[tr. Stanhope (1694), ¶42]
Those who apply themselves too much to little things, commonly become incapable of great ones.
[pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶38; ed. Lepoittevin-Lacroix (1797), ¶41]]
Those who apply themselves much to little things, commonly become incapable of great ones.
[ed. Carville (1835), ¶35]
Those who bestow too much application on trifling things, become generally incapable of great ones.
[ed. Gowens (1851), ¶42]
Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things.
[tr. Bund/Friswell (1871)]
Undue attention to details tends to unfit us for greater enterprises.
[tr. Heard (1917)]
Too close attention to trifles generally breeds incapacity in matters of moment.
[tr. Stevens (1939)]
Men too involved in details usually become unable to deal with great matters.
[tr. FitzGibbon (1957)]
People too much taken up with little things usually become incapable of big ones.
[tr. Tancock (1959)]
Those who apply themselves too much to little things, ordinarily become incapable of great ones.
[tr. Whichello (2016)]
Quotations about:
great works
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Why are not more gems from our early prose writers scattered over the country by the periodicals? Selections are so far from preventing the study of the entire authors that they promote it. Who could read the extracts which Lamb has given from Fuller, without wishing to read more of the old Prebendary? But great old books of the great old authors are not in every body’s reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every bookworm, when, in any fragrant, scarce old tome, he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it the widest circulation that newspapers and magazines, penny and halfpenny, can afford.
Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849) English poet, biographer, essayist, teacher
Biographia Borealis: or, Lives of Distinguished Northerns, “Roger Ascham” (1833)
(Source)
Speaking of the practice of including brief extracts -- quotations -- from famous authors in magazines and newspapers to fill up columns or create a break between stories. Ironically, this extracted quotation -- slightly paraphrased -- was widely circulated in the mid-late 19th and early 20th Century misattributed to his father, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, or simply labeled as "Coleridge" without citation, leading to the same confusion.
Usually quoted more succinctly as: "Why are not more gems from our great authors scattered over the country? Great books are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly, than to know them only here and there; yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get more. Let every bookworm, when in any fragrant, scarce old tome he discovers a sentence, a story, an illustration, that does his heart good, hasten to give it."
