Motivational Quotes

Greatness

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

- Dane, Frank

Best Quotes about Greatness

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa

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

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

Hazlitt, William

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

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

Booth, William

In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer --the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.

Taylor, A. J. P.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.

Swift, Jonathan

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Johnson, Samuel

14.

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

15.

At most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightful conversation, but as morals for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.

Donne, John

16.

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

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

17.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

18.

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

19.

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

Picabia, Francis

20.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S

21.

Nobody's ever the greatest anything.

Polak, Maralyn

22.

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.

King Jr. Martin Luther

23.

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

Shakespeare, William

24.

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

25.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

26.

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

Halsey, William F.

27.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

28.

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.

29.

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

Ruskin, John

30.

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

31.

A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

Hoffer, Eric

32.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

33.

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

34.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

35.

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

36.

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.

37.

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

38.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Hunt, Leigh

39.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

40.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

41.

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

Gardner, Edward

42.

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

Baudrillard, Jean

43.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

45.

Man is only truly great when he acts from his passions.

Disraeli, Benjamin

46.

False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.

Bruyere, Jean De La

47.

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

Byron, Lord

48.

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

Syrus, Publilius

49.

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

Watson, James

50.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.