How curious that such an outsize man, in physique as well as personality, should be remembered today mainly for giving his name to a small fish. For the 19th century, Bismarck was no herring but a leviathan. Between 1862 and 1890, he created Germany, seeing off first the Austrian empire and then France.

The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.

When I was a child, my father used to take me for walks, often along a river or by the sea. We would pass people fishing, perhaps reeling in their lines with struggling fish hooked at the end of them. Once I saw a man take a small fish out of a bucket and impale it, still wriggling, on an empty hook to use as bait.

The big fish run the show. I'm a middle fish, but there are small fish that are poisonous.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

I prefer being a small fish in a big pond.

I think in both of those situations, it's important as an actor to learn, despite the success I had as a kid, that it's important to understand what it means to be a small fish in a big pond.

The fast fish, not the big fish, eats the small fish.