Motivational Quotes

Greatness

No one ever became great by imitation.

- Johnson, Samuel

Best Quotes about Greatness

I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood too, and I always feel a little man's pleasure when they come a cropper.

Forster, Edward M.

Let us never forget that the greatest man is never more than an animal disguised as a god.

Picabia, Francis

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.

Johnson, Samuel

It is necessary to be slightly under employed if you are to do something significant.

Watson, James

The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender.

Booth, William

After a fellow gets famous it does not take long for someone to bob up that used to sit next to him in school.

Hubbard, Kin

The world isn't kept running because it's a paying proposition. (God doesn't make a cent on the deal.) The world goes on because a few men in every generation believe in it utterly, accept it unquestioningly; they underwrite it with their lives.

Miller, Henry

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

10.

A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.

La Bruyere, Jean De

11.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. [Twelfth Night]

Shakespeare, William

12.

We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself.

Baudrillard, Jean

13.

A great person is one who affects the mind of their generation.

Disraeli, Benjamin

14.

There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.

Franklin, Benjamin

15.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

16.

There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

17.

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness and truth.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

18.

No one who has come to true greatness has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to the people, and what God has given them he gives it for mankind.

Brooks, Phillips

19.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Fuller, Thomas

20.

Great men are rarely isolated mountain-peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

21.

It is not difficult to get away into retirement; and there live upon your own convictions; nor is it difficult to mix with men and follow their convictions; but to enter into the world; and there live firmly and fearlessly according to your own conscience; that is Christian greatness.

22.

There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.

Hugo, Victor

23.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Hunt, Leigh

24.

Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon --but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx --the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?

Dylan, Bob

25.

There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

26.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

Hazlitt, William

27.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

Froude, James A.

28.

A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.

Ruskin, John

29.

Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.

Syrus, Publilius

30.

Great people are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

31.

Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, and broke the die.

Byron, Lord

32.

Nobody's ever the greatest anything.

Polak, Maralyn

33.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S

34.

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

35.

A great man stands on God. A small man on a great man.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

36.

It's not what you take but what you leave behind that defines greatness.

Gardner, Edward

37.

Traditionally the great men of our country have sprung from poor environments; that being so, it would appear we have long suffered from a severe lack of poverty.

Lieberman, Gerald F.

38.

Great people are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

39.

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa

40.

Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary -- they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.

Amiel, Henri Frederic

41.

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

Charles, Ray

42.

Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

Truman, Harry S

43.

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

Dane, Frank

44.

There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.