Small Numbers Quotes

• Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

  George Washington

  Military, War, 4th Of July

  George Washington, Stephen Lucas (1999). “The Quotable George Washington: The Wisdom of an American Patriot”, p.24, Rowman & Littlefield

  72 Copy quote

  Show source

• Taste is the best judge. It is rare. Art only addresses itself to an excessively small number of individuals.

  Paul Cezanne

  Art, Judging, Addresses

  7 Copy quote

• Zero invites imagination, but small numbers invite questions about whether large numbers will ever materialize.

  Eric Ries

  Zero, Imagination, Invites

  Eric Ries (2011). “The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”, p.52, Crown Business

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• We live in a country where a small number of people have incredible wealth and power. America has more income and wealth inequality than any other major country.

  Bernie Sanders

  Country, America, People

  Source: www.ebony.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a progression of understanding vis-a-vis pro football that varies drastically with the factor of distance -- physical, emotional, intellectual and every other way. Which is exactly the way it should be, in the eyes of the amazingly small number of people who own and control the game, because it is this finely managed distance factor that accounts for the high-profit mystique that blew the sacred institution of baseball off its ''national pastime'' pedestal in less than fifteen years.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Baseball, Football, Distance

  Hunter S. Thompson (2012). “The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time”, p.56, Pan Macmillan

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would be a very bad idea... to exhibit even a small number of this new series, as the whole effect can only be achieved from an exhibition of the entire group.

  Claude Monet

  Ideas, Numbers, Groups

  Claude Monet (2014). “Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters”, Chartwell

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of our anxieties is de-focusing the relatively small number of engineers we have. Within our own core development, I am reluctant to fund projects that are way afield of where we are.

  Howard Hughes

  Anxiety, Development, Way

  28 Copy quote

• We live in a scientific age, yet we assume that knowledge of science is the prerogative of only a small number of human beings, isolated and priestlike in their laboratories. This is not true. The materials of science are the materials of life itself. Science is part of the reality of living; it is the way, the how and the why for everything in our experience.

  Rachel Carson

  Reality, Numbers, Age

  Rachel Carson (2011). “Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson”, p.91, Beacon Press

  110 Copy quote

  Show source

• A city can only be reconstructed in the form of urban quarters. A large or a small city can only be reorganized as a large or a small number of urban quarters; as a federation of autonomous quarters. Each quarter must have its own center, periphery and limit. Each quarter must be a city within a city.

  Leon Krier

  Numbers, Cities, Limits

  "The City Within the City" by Leon Krier, zeta.math.utsa.edu. November 1977.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• This work of connecting our light to the world does not need to be done through a mass movement, or by millions of people. . . .The real work is always done by a small number of individuals. What matters is the level of participation: whether we dare to make a real commitment to the work of the soul.

  Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

  Real, Commitment, Numbers

  20 Copy quote

• Notes are part of life for any composer for hire. There's no way around it. I think anyone who has done even a small number of films as a professional composer gets used to that idea pretty quickly.

  Christophe Beck

  Thinking, Numbers, Ideas

  Source: collider.com

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think what's happening with the veterans is a gift from God to show us what happens when you take layers and layers of bureaucracy and place them between the patients and the health care provider. And if we can't get it right, with the relatively small number of veterans, how in the world are you going to do it with the entire population?

  Benjamin Carson

  Thinking, Numbers, Care

  "VA scandal 'a gift from God' because it showed Americans how bad Obamacare will be, conservative commentator Ben Carson says" by Francesca Chambers, www.dailymail.co.uk. May 25, 2014.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

  Edward Bernays

  Mind, Wire, Patterns

  "Propaganda". Book by Edward Bernays (p. 37 - 38), 1928.

  145 Copy quote

  Show source

• The control of large numbers is possible, and like unto that of small numbers, if we subdivide them.

  Sun Tzu

  Math, Large Numbers, Ifs

  Sun Tzu (2015). “The Book of War”, p.29, Sun Tzu

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Religious truth is captive in a small number of little manuscripts which guard the common treasures, instead of expanding them. Let us break the seal which binds these holy things; let us give wings to truth that it may fly with the Word, no longer prepared at vast expense, but multitudes everlastingly by a machine which never wearies to every soul which enters life.

  Johannes Gutenberg

  Religious, Wings, Numbers

  29 Copy quote

• God suffers in the multitude of souls whom His word can not reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books, which confine instead of spread the public treasure. Let us break the seal which seals up holy things and give wings to Truth in order that she may win every soul that comes into the world by her word no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied, but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.

  Johannes Gutenberg

  Religious, Book, Winning

  48 Copy quote

• The history of atomism is one of reductionism – the effort to reduce all the operations of nature to a small number of laws governing a small number of primordial objects.

  Leon M. Lederman

  Law, Effort, Operations

  Leon M. Lederman, Dick Teresi (1993). “The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, what is the Question?”, p.87, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Men

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Among top grandmasters the Dutch is a rare defense, which is good reason to play it! It has not been studied very deeply by many opponents, and theory, based on a small number of 'reliable' games, must be rather unreliable.

  Bent Larsen

  Games, Play, Defense

  10 Copy quote

• With God's help, you will continue to succeed in your leadership and in your duties, because Our Lord's work is accomplished not so much by the multitude of workers as by the fidelity of the small number whom He calls.

  Vincent de Paul

  Faith, Succeed, Helping

  Saint Vincent de Paul, Pierre Coste (1992). “Correspondence, conferences, documents”, New City Pr

  174 Copy quote

  Show source

• Holiness is not reserved for a small number of exceptional persons. It is for everyone. It is the Lord who brings us to holiness when we are willing to collaborate in the salvation of the world for the glory of God, despite our sin and our sometimes rebellious temperament.

  Pope John Paul II

  World, Holiness, Sometimes

  Pope John Paul II (2012). “A Pilgrim Pope: Messages for the World”, p.261, Andrews McMeel Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unfortunately, there is something of a flaw in this idealized picture of the way the scientific community discovers truth. And the flaw is that most scientific work never gets noticed. Study after study has shown that most scientific papers are read by almost no one, while a small number of papers are read by many people.

  James Surowiecki

  Science, People, Community

  James Surowiecki (2005). “The Wisdom of Crowds”, p.170, Anchor

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• And yet I would not freely exchange my science for those of my fellow laureates. They are forever confined in their professional discussions to the small numbers of their fellow scientists.

  George Stigler

  Science, Forever, Scientist

  6 Copy quote

• Basically, the body does have a vast amount of inbuilt anti-ageing machinery; it's just not 100% comprehensive, so it allows a small number of different types of molecular and cellular damage to happen and accumulate.

  Aubrey de Grey

  Numbers, Body, Damage

  "We don't have to get sick as we get older". Interview with Caspar Llewellyn Smith, www.theguardian.com. July 31, 2010.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• It just seems logical that sticking to investing in only a small number of companies that you understand well, rather than moving down the list to your thirtieth or fiftieth favorite pick, would create a much greater potential to earn above-average investment returns.

  Joel Greenblatt

  Moving, Average, Investing

  Joel Greenblatt (2011). “The Big Secret for the Small Investor: A New Route to Long-Term Investment Success”, p.60, John Wiley & Sons

  14 Copy quote

  Show source