If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito
Not the Dalai Lama — a Body Shop slogan from the 1990sAnita Roddick1942–2007 · British entrepreneur, founder of The Body Shop
?Attribution status: Disputed — the wording predates any Dalai Lama attribution by more than a decade, and no source establishes either of them as the author.?Reuse status: Rights unconfirmed
The earliest documented appearance of this saying is a January 1993 Time profile of Anita Roddick, where it is a slogan painted on the side of a Body Shop lorry — and even there Roddick is quoting her own truck, not claiming authorship. No speech, book, or interview of the 14th Dalai Lama has ever been produced for it; Wikiquote files it under Disputed and dates the first attribution to him to 2004.
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito” Commonly credited to the Dalai Lama — but disputed. The earliest documented appearance is a Body Shop lorry slogan quoted in Time, 25 January 1993 ("If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito"); the earliest attribution to the Dalai Lama dates only to 2004. Origin unknown. Via Quotle.info
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Dalai Lama. Use the credit shown above instead.
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
Evoking the world of Anita Roddick — British entrepreneur, founder of The Body Shop. Theme: "If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito". 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 think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito". 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.
IF YOU THINK YOU’RE TOO SMALL TO HAVE AN IMPACT, TRY GOING TO BED WITH A MOSQUITO
Slogan, not scripture
The lorry slogan as capitalised in the 1993 Time profile and transcribed on Wikiquote ↗. Note the differences from the version now circulated under the Dalai Lama’s name: “have an impact” rather than “make a difference,” and “going to bed with” rather than “sleeping with.”
January 1993 — the earliest known example. Wikiquote ↗ cites Philip Elmer-DeWitt’s Time profile of Anita Roddick, in which the line appears as a slogan taken from the side of a Body Shop lorry.
November 1995 — quote researcher Barry Popik’s next citation is an advertisement in an Ohio newspaper, the Bryan Times, reworking the line for a water-conditioning company. See his citation trail ↗.
2004 — the first attribution to the Dalai Lama that Wikiquote can date ↗, which is why the entry sits under Disputed rather than among his sourced quotations.
No author or first publication has been established for this wording, so no rights status can honestly be asserted — and certainly not public domain. The earliest text that carries it, the January 1993 Time article, is itself a modern in-copyright work; the slogan it reports has no identified author at all.
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.
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Fact-check
Who it gets pinned on
This line has changed owners at least three times in thirty years, and each new owner made it sound older and wiser than the citation trail supports.
✕
The popular creditThe 14th Dalai Lama Disputed
Wikiquote lists the saying in its Disputed section for the Dalai Lama and records the earliest attribution to him as dating from 2004 ↗ — more than a decade after the saying was already in print. No speech, teaching or book of his has been produced containing it.
✕
The folk credit“An African proverb” Undocumented
Barry Popik notes the “African proverb” label attached to the saying without documentation, and Wikiquote points to a 2010 blog post using it; neither turns up a proverb collection or any pre-1993 source. Popik’s citation trail ↗ leaves the origin unresolved.
✕
The over-creditAnita Roddick as coiner Partial
Roddick is the earliest name attached to the line, but Time presented it as a slogan she took from the side of one of her own company’s lorries — a favourite, not a coinage, as Wikiquote transcribes it ↗. Her own Wikiquote page ↗ does not carry the line at all.
✓The honest answer: nobody has traced an author. The trail runs back to a Body Shop delivery truck and stops, and the researcher who compiled the citations ↗ says so plainly.
Context
Why this one sticks to the Dalai Lama
The saying is a perfect fit for a certain kind of inspirational feed: short, funny, faintly Buddhist in shape, and entirely unfalsifiable in a caption. The Dalai Lama is one of the internet’s most reliable magnets for that profile — a globally recognised name whose actual published output is large enough that nobody bothers to check whether a given line is in it.
What the paper trail actually shows is a commercial slogan. In January 1993 Time described Anita Roddick’s Body Shop lorries as rolling billboards for pithy lines, and printed this one in capitals. From there it drifted: an American water-treatment advertisement reworked it in 1995, it was relabelled an “African proverb” by the late 1990s, and only in 2004 did it start arriving with the Dalai Lama’s name on it.
A slogan on the side of a delivery truck became, in about a decade, the wisdom of a Nobel laureate.
Read the full story
Roddick’s own claim on it is weaker than the internet assumes too. Time presents the line as something she took off the side of one of her company’s lorries — a favourite slogan, not a coinage. Popik’s survey of the early citations ends with the origin unresolved, which is where an honest answer has to stop.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1942–2007 · British entrepreneur, founder of The Body Shop
Dame Anita Roddick opened the first Body Shop in Brighton in 1976 and turned it into a global chain that campaigned on animal testing, human rights and environmental causes as loudly as it sold soap. She was famous for using her own delivery lorries as rolling billboards for slogans, which is how the mosquito line first reached print. She is the earliest name documented alongside the saying — but not, on the available evidence, provably its author.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest documented in
Earliest documented appearance: Philip Elmer-DeWitt, “Anita the Agitator,” Time, 25 January 1993 — quoted there as a slogan on the side of a Body Shop lorry. No documented work of the 14th Dalai Lama has been produced containing this line.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito’?” Last verified 22 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-think-you-are-too-small-to-make-a-difference-try/