Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way

Older than Napoleon Hill — credited to James Freeman Clarke James Freeman Clarke 1810–1888 · American Unitarian minister and author
Disputed — not Hill’s wording, and in print long before him Rights unconfirmed

The popular imperative wording is a newspaper compression, not Napoleon Hill’s sentence. The phrase was already loose in American print by 1894, and from October 1902 papers printed it in the first person under James Freeman Clarke’s name — “If I can not do great things. I can do small things in a great way.” — more than two decades before Hill’s Law of Success ↗, which does carry a longer variant as an unattributed boxed epigram. No Clarke book containing the line has been located either, so his authorship rests on those period credit lines rather than on a primary source.

Last verified 17 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way” credited to James Freeman Clarke (1810–1888) in "Sentiment of Authors," Northern Wisconsin Advertiser, 30 October 1902. The popular "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way" is a later, unattributed newspaper wording; Napoleon Hill's Law of Success prints a longer variant: "If you cannot do great things yourself, remember that you may do small things in a great way."

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Napoleon Hill. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of James Freeman Clarke — American Unitarian minister, theologian and author. Theme: "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The paper trail

Earliest credited printing
“Sentiment of Authors,” Northern Wisconsin Advertiser (Wabeno, Wis.), 30 October 1902, p. 2
Wording there
“If I can not do great things. I can do small things in a great way.—James Freeman Clarke.”
Napoleon Hill’s version
The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons
Popular wording first seen
“Gems of Thought,” The Brooksville Journal (Fla.), 6 March 1947, p. 2 — unattributed

“If I cannot do great things I can do small things in a great way,” said James Freeman Clarke. It’s well to keep in mind the dignity of what is known as little things. All deeds have a moral value. The commonplace duties, even the drudgeries, may have a halo about them when done as unto the Lord. Devotional item, 1907

From the item headed “Little Things” in The Central Presbyterian (Richmond, Va.), 18 December 1907, p. 12. Transcribed from the Library of Congress scan; light OCR punctuation has been normalised.

Scanned book
Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons (Internet Archive)
Northern Wisconsin Advertiser, 30 October 1902, page 2 (Library of Congress)

How the sentence travelled

The newspaper printings shown here — 1894, 1902, 1907 — are long in the public domain as texts, and Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success was first published in 1928. But rights follow the originating work, and no originating work for this sentence has been identified: the Clarke credit rests on newspaper filler columns rather than any located book of his, and the popular imperative wording is an anonymous later reshaping. With the origin unresolved, no public-domain claim is asserted for the line itself.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Where the credit goes wrong

This line is pinned on Napoleon Hill across nearly every quote site. The pin has a real hook — a version of the sentence genuinely sits in one of his books — but neither the wording nor the idea originates with him.

Napoleon Hill wrong originator

Hill (1883–1970) did print a version, but a longer one: The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons ↗ sets “If you cannot do great things yourself, remember that you may do small things in a great way” in a decorative box in the Master Mind lesson, with no name attached — the way that book presents dozens of aphorisms it did not originate. The maxim was already credited to someone else in newspapers by 1902 ↗, more than two decades before Hill’s book.

James Freeman Clarke wording drift

Clarke is the name the period sources give, but they give a first-person resolution, not an instruction: “If I cannot do great things I can do small things in a great way,” said James Freeman Clarke ↗. The imperative “do small things in a great way” that everyone repeats is a later newspaper form, and no book of Clarke’s has been found containing the sentence at all.

Best supported reading: an old maxim credited to James Freeman Clarke in American papers from October 1902 ↗, reshaped into today’s imperative by anonymous filler columns by 1947 ↗ — with Napoleon Hill’s name attached because a longer variant sits unsigned inside his book.

Context

Why this one drifted

Newspapers of the early 1900s ran short filler columns — “Sentiment of Authors,” “Gems of Thought” — that swallowed a line, dropped its credit, and reshaped its grammar to fit a column inch. That is visibly what happened here: Clarke’s first-person resolution (“I can do small things in a great way”) becomes an instruction to the reader (“do small things in a great way”), and the name falls off along the way.

Napoleon Hill’s name attached later and for a mechanical reason: The Law of Success sets aphorisms in decorative boxes between blocks of text, unsigned. A reader — or a quote-site scraper — meets the line inside Hill’s book and reasonably assumes it is Hill’s. It is a common failure mode for anthologising authors, and Hill, whose biographical claims have been heavily questioned by historians, is an unusually strong magnet for it.

The filler columns kept the sentence and threw away the name.

The paper trail, in order

1894 — an unsigned essay, “A Great Life,” in The Mirror (Stillwater, Minn.) argues that the greatest life “was built up slowly and painfully by doing small things in a great way day by day.” The phrase is loose in the language; no author is named.

1902–1907 — the maxim appears in fixed form, credited to James Freeman Clarke, in a syndicated authors’-sentiments filler and then in The Central Presbyterian, which builds a whole devotional item around it.

1928–1933 — Hill’s Law of Success prints the longer “if you cannot do great things yourself” version as an unsigned epigram; by 1933 newspapers are recycling that exact wording as filler, still with no name on it.

1947 — the compressed imperative that circulates today shows up in Florida “Gems of Thought” columns, again unattributed. Only much later does Hill’s name get bolted onto it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Character Humility

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Northern Wisconsin Advertiser, 30 Oct 1902, p. 2loc.gov

The earliest printing located that credits the maxim, in its first-person form, to James Freeman Clarke.
The Central Presbyterian, 18 Dec 1907, p. 12loc.gov

A fuller devotional item, “Little Things,” that opens by quoting Clarke by name.
The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessonsarchive.org

Scanned Ralston Publishing Co. printing of Napoleon Hill’s course, carrying the longer epigram in the Master Mind lesson.
The Brooksville Journal, 6 Mar 1947, p. 2loc.gov

An unattributed “Gems of Thought” column printing the compressed imperative wording that circulates today.
James Freeman Clarkewikipedia.org

Life dates, ministry and bibliography for the man the period credit lines name.
Napoleon Hill (Wikiquote)wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced Hill quotations — this line is not among them.

The name the period sources actually give

Who was James Freeman Clarke?

James Freeman Clarke

1810–1888 · American Unitarian minister, theologian and author

James Freeman Clarke was a Boston Unitarian minister, abolitionist and prolific author who founded the Church of the Disciples and moved in the Transcendentalist circle around Margaret Fuller. His books — Ten Great Religions (1871), Self-Culture (1880), Every-Day Religion (1886) — were written for ordinary readers, and his recurring theme was that ordinary duties carry moral weight, which is exactly the ground this maxim stands on. He died in 1888, when Napoleon Hill was still a small child.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest credited printing

“Sentiment of Authors,” Northern Wisconsin Advertiser (Wabeno, Wis.), October 30, 1902, p. 2 — the earliest credited printing located in the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America newspaper archive: “If I can not do great things. I can do small things in a great way.—James Freeman Clarke.” A longer variant appears as a boxed epigram in the Master Mind lesson of Napoleon Hill, The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons, first published Meriden, Conn.: Ralston University Press, 1928; the scan linked here is a later Ralston Publishing Co. (Cleveland, Ohio) printing, whose copyright page reads “Copyright, MCMXXXVII, by Napoleon Hill — Copyright Prior to Revision, MCMXXVIII.”

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way’?” Last verified 17 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-cannot-do-great-things-do-small-things-in-a-great-way/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied