Motivational Quotes

Greatness

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

- Winfrey, Oprah

Best Quotes about Greatness

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

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth

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

Darrow, Clarence

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.

I want to be great, something special.

Leonard, Sugar Ray

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

Bowen, Elizabeth

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

What millions died that Caesar might be great?

Campell, Joseph

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

Shakespeare, William

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

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

Swift, Jonathan

12.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

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

Gardner, Edward

14.

Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.

Hitopadesa

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.

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.

17.

Some have greatness thrust upon them, but not lately.

Dane, Frank

18.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

19.

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

20.

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

Charles, Ray

21.

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

Watson, James

22.

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

Rostand, Jean

23.

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

Picabia, Francis

24.

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

Ruskin, John

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

28.

Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.

Truman, Harry S

29.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

Fuller, Thomas

30.

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

Halsey, William F.

31.

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

32.

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

Disraeli, Benjamin

33.

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

34.

No one ever became great by imitation.

Johnson, Samuel

35.

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

Syrus, Publilius

36.

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

37.

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.

38.

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

39.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

40.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

41.

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

Johnson, Samuel

42.

The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

Froude, James A.

43.

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.

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.

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

Hoffer, Eric

46.

No great thing is created suddenly.

Epictetus

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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

Hazlitt, William

50.

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