Motivational Quotes

Greatness

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

- Hitopadesa

Best Quotes about Greatness

Nobody's ever the greatest anything.

Polak, Maralyn

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

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

Froude, James A.

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

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

Hoffer, Eric

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

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

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

10.

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

Winfrey, Oprah

11.

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

Watson, James

12.

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.

13.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

14.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

16.

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

Charles, Ray

17.

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

Byron, Lord

18.

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

Picabia, Francis

19.

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.

20.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

21.

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

Booth, William

22.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

Landor, Walter Savage

23.

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

24.

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

25.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

26.

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

Johnson, Samuel

27.

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

Shakespeare, William

28.

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

29.

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

30.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

31.

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.

32.

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

33.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

34.

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

35.

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

36.

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.

37.

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.

38.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

39.

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

Darrow, Clarence

40.

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

41.

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

Gardner, Edward

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

45.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

46.

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

Horace

47.

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