Full Idea
It would be absurd to devote all our energies to securing the greatest possible precision and clarity in matters of little consequence, and not to demand the highest precision in the most important things of all.
Gist of Idea
It would be absurd to be precise about the small things, but only vague about the big things
Source
Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 504e)
Book Reference
Plato: 'The Republic', ed/tr. Lee,Desmond [Penguin 1988], p.302
A Reaction
I offer this to modern analytic philosophers, who often strike me as having this priority the wrong way round. Their defence, of course, is that the important things depend on the things of little consequence - but they can lose the plot with big things.