Hi, I am presenting my views on the second one
2). Small opportunities are often the beginning of great achievements.
As the phrase says, small opportunities are often the beginning of great achievements, and its very true in every respect and every genre. What does ‘small opportunities’ refers here, a chance or an opportunity that a person gets to achieve something. And when all this small opportunities are counted as one it can mark a great achievement for a person. A famous poet gives a kind of a ladder to describe this phrase:
100% - I did.
90% - I will.
80% - I can.
70% - I think I can.
60% - I might.
50% - I think I might.
40% - What is it?
30% - I wish I could.
20% - I don't know how.
10% - I can't.
0% - I won't
With every increase in the percentage of work completed the person gets to feel that an achievement is in his way. Just look each step here as a single opportunity and when all these opportunities gets accounted (i.e. 100%), it results in an achievement.
Some days back I was seeing an interview of Shah Rukh Khan. We all know that he has achieved so much. Lets see how he started, in the very beginning he was a sports player in his school days, when coming to college he was dropped from the sports team. This gave him an opportunity to act in a play, after that he got an opportunity to act in a TV serial and after that he got an opportunity to act in films. So the most important thing to learn from this phrase is to capitalize on each and every opportunity that a person gets and turn all those opportunities into an achievement.
If you have any query or doubt regarding this explanation, do let me know and after that we can move on to the third one.