Motivational Quotes

Greatness

Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.

- Shakespeare, William

Best Quotes about Greatness

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

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

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

Syrus, Publilius

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

Shakespeare, William

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

Mcgovern, George

Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked in the general run of the world.

Chesterfield, Lord

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

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

10.

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

11.

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

Gardner, Edward

12.

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

Charles, Ray

13.

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.

14.

All my life I have always known I was born to greatness.

Winfrey, Oprah

15.

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

Picabia, Francis

16.

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

17.

Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.

Rostand, Jean

18.

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.

Bowen, Elizabeth

19.

Those who intend on becoming great should love neither themselves or their own things, but only what is just, whether it happens to be done by themselves or others.

Plato

20.

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

Halsey, William F.

21.

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

Montesquieu, Charles De

22.

He's the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth, Vermont. [On Calvin Coolidge]

Darrow, Clarence

23.

To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.

Horace

24.

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

Byron, Lord

25.

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

26.

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

Booth, William

27.

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

Dane, Frank

28.

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.

29.

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.

30.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

31.

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

32.

The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

33.

I can write good songs. I can sing 'em, and I mean it, Imean it deeply, and I pour everything into that. Other than that, I suck.

Duritz, Adam

34.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

35.

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

Watson, James

36.

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

37.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Johnson, Samuel

38.

The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.

Carlyle, Thomas

39.

Nobody's ever the greatest anything.

Polak, Maralyn

40.

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

41.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

42.

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

Ruskin, John

43.

Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.

Beaumarchais, Pierre De

44.

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.

45.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

46.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

47.

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.

48.

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

Johnson, Samuel

49.

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

50.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S