Motivational Quotes

Greatness

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

- Swift, Jonathan

Best Quotes about Greatness

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

La Fontaine, Jean De

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

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.

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.

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

Hazlitt, William

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

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa

10.

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

11.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Fuller, Thomas

12.

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

Shakespeare, William

13.

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.

14.

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

Darrow, Clarence

15.

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

Watson, James

16.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

17.

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

18.

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

Gardner, Edward

19.

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

Picabia, Francis

20.

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

Ruskin, John

21.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

22.

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

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

23.

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Franklin, Benjamin

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.

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

Shakespeare, William

28.

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

Johnson, Samuel

29.

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

Swift, Jonathan

30.

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

Horace

31.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

Landor, Walter Savage

32.

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

Charles, Ray

33.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

34.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Johnson, Samuel

35.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

36.

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

37.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

38.

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

39.

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

Winfrey, Oprah

40.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

41.

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

42.

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

Byron, Lord

43.

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

44.

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

45.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S

46.

Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.

Hunt, Leigh

47.

The greatest men of a nation are those it puts to death.

Renan, Ernest

48.

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