Motivational Quotes

Greatness

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

- Montesquieu, Charles De

Best Quotes about Greatness

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

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

Byron, Lord

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

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

Franklin, Benjamin

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

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

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

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

Syrus, Publilius

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

Swift, Jonathan

10.

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

11.

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa

12.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

13.

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.

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

Dane, Frank

17.

Nobody's ever the greatest anything.

Polak, Maralyn

18.

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

19.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

20.

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

Booth, William

21.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

22.

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

Watson, James

23.

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

24.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Hunt, Leigh

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

31.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

Froude, James A.

32.

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

Horace

33.

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

Halsey, William F.

34.

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

Gardner, Edward

35.

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

Picabia, Francis

36.

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

37.

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

Shakespeare, William

38.

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

Darrow, Clarence

39.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Johnson, Samuel

40.

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

41.

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

Hoffer, Eric

42.

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

43.

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

Johnson, Samuel

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Winfrey, Oprah

47.

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

Rostand, Jean

48.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

49.

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.

50.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo