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Misattributed to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
It is a small-scale pep talk for people who will never make history: you do not need a platform, only to do the job in front of you well. It sounds like King because his name lends a saying weight, but it belongs to the long line of self-help and sermon wisdom that was handed on until it stuck to him. People still use it on cards, graduation speeches and office walls.
Context reviewed
In context
May contain spoilersShow the scene
No speech, sermon or letter by Martin Luther King Jr. has been found that contains this sentence, and he is not the earliest person credited with it. The earliest exact-wording match in Barry Popik's research is a 31 October 1902 newspaper item crediting the American theologian James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888), whose 1880 lectures Self-Culture make a related point. Napoleon Hill printed a close variant in The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons (1928), and Mother Teresa is credited with a cousin of it, small things with great love, from 1975. The King attribution seems to be a later internet one.
Sources (1)
- Barry Popik: If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great wayDated citations 1880, 1893, 1902, 1928, 1975Reference checked
Context reviewed
