Motivational Quotes

Greatness

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

- Dane, Frank

Best Quotes about Greatness

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

Gardner, Edward

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.

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.

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

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Hoffer, Eric

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Swift, Jonathan

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.

10.

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

Picabia, Francis

11.

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

Halsey, William F.

12.

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

13.

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

14.

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

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

15.

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

16.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

17.

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

18.

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

Darrow, Clarence

19.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

20.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

21.

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

22.

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

23.

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

24.

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

Ruskin, John

25.

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

Horace

26.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

27.

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

28.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

29.

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

Byron, Lord

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Charles, Ray

35.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Hunt, Leigh

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

40.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S

41.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

42.

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

Shakespeare, William

43.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

Froude, James A.

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

48.

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

Hazlitt, William

49.

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

50.

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa