A thing is mighty big when time and distance cannot shrink it.

Hurston’s line measures “bigness” not by immediate impact or public acclaim, but by durability. If something remains significant even after the separating effects of time (forgetting, changing fashions) and distance (physical removal, social or emotional separation), then it possesses a scale that ordinary forces cannot reduce. The remark can apply to love, grief, art, memory, or moral truth: what is truly consequential keeps its weight when you step away from it and when years pass. Implicitly, the quote challenges shallow standards of importance—what seems large up close may shrink with perspective—while elevating what endures as the real measure of greatness.