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Greatness |
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| “Great hopes make great men.” |
| -- Thomas Fuller |
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| "Self-confidence is the first
requisite to great undertakings." |
| -- Samuel Johnson |
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| "No great man ever complains
of want of opportunity." |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| “Those
who aspire to greatness must humble themselves.” |
| -- Lao-tzu |
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| "The great man is he that does not lose
his child's heart." |
| -- Menius |
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| "Great things are done more
through courage than through wisdom." |
| -- German Proverb |
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| "Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of
strength." |
| -- Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87),
American clergyman |
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| "No great deed is done by
falterers who ask for certainty." |
| -- George Eliot |
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| "Great deeds are usually
wrought at great risks.' |
| -- Herodotus |
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| "It is easy to live after the world's
opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the
great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect
sweetness the independence of solitude." |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| "Greatness consists in trying to be great. There is no other
way." |
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-- Albert Camus (1913-60),
French novelist, essayist, playwright, philosopher |
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| "Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the
philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow
before children." |
| -- Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931),
Lebanese-born American mystic, poet, painter |
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| "Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age." |
| -- Alfred Victor Vigny
(1797-1863), French author, translator |
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| "Genius is nothing but a great aptitude
for patience." |
| -- George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-88),
French naturalist |
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| "An invincible determination
can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great
distinction between great men and little men." |
| -- Dr. Thomas Fuller (1608-61),
English clergyman |
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| "No great thing is created suddenly, any
more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire
a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom,
then bear fruit, then ripen." |
| -- Epictetus (AD 55?-135?), Greek Stoic
philosopher |
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| "Nothing great was ever achieved without
enthusiasm." |
| -- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), American
writer |
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| "Some of the world's greatest
feats were accomplished by people not smart enought to know they
were impossible." |
| -- Doug Larson |
|
| "For with slight efforts how should we
obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire it." |
| -- Euripides (480?-406 BC), Greek dramatist |
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| "Great things are not done by
impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." |
| -- Vincent van Gogh |
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| "The lights of stars that were
extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who
died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their
personalities." |
| -- Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-born
American mystic poet, painter |
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| "Everything that is really great and
inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in
freedom." |
| -- Albert Einstein (1875-1955), German-born
American theoretical physicist |
|
| "The great end of life is not knowledge
but action." |
| -- Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95), British
biologist |
|
| "When one has great gifts, what answer to
the meaning of existence should one require beyond the right to
exercise them?" |
| -- Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-73), British-born
American writer |
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| "If you would stand well with a great
mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a
little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself." |
| -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English
poet |
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| "To be conscious that you are ignorant is
a great step to knowledge." |
| -- Benjamin "Dizzy" Disraeli
(1804-81), British politician |
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| "The heights of great men reached and
kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their
companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night." |
| -- Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill
(1874-1965), British statesman, author |
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| "I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on
its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than
wanting to design something--or wanting to be a writer, rather than
wanting to write. It should be a by-product, not a thing in itself.
Otherwise, it's just an ego trip." |
| -- Roger Zelazny (1937-95), Scifi, fantasy writer |
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| "Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness-- a
harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and
athletic proportion." |
| -- William Cullen Bryant
(1794-1878), American poet, editor |
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| "The price of greatness is responsibility." |
| -- Sir Winston Leonard Spenser
Churchill (1874-1965), British prime minister, author |
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| "The history of the world is but the
biography of great men." |
| -- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), British
historian, essayist |
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| "I find the great thing in this world is,
not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are
moving." |
| -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832),
German writer, scientist |
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| "He who has never failed
somewhere, that man cannot be great." |
| -- Herman Melville |
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| "The superior man acquaints himself with
many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past, in order to
strengthen his character thereby." |
| -- I Ching (BC 1150) |
|
| "All great deeds and all great thoughts
have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street
corner or in a restaurant's revolving door." |
| -- Albert Camus (1913-60), French writer |
|
| "The basic difference between an ordinary
person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a
challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or
a curse." |
| -- Carlos Castaneda (b. 1931), American writer |
|
“Everyone is trying to accomplish
something big, not realizing that life
is made up of little things.” |
| -- Frank A. Clark |
|
| "A human action becomes genuinely important when
it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality
and the ephemerality of everything human. It is only this awareness that
can breathe any greatness into an action." |
| -- Václav Havel (b. 1936),
Czechoslovakian writer, politician, widely known playwright |
|
| "Great minds have purposes, others have
wishes." |
| -- Washington Irving |
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| "Great things are accomplished by talented
people who believe they will accomplish them." |
| -- Warren G. Bennis (b. 1925), American writer,
educator |
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| "More men have become great through
practice than by nature." |
| -- Democritus (460 BC - 370 BC), Greek
philosopher |
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| "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." |
| -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-68), African-American reverend, civil rights leader |
|
| "He
who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times." |
|
--
Johann von Schiller |
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| "The greatest use of life is to spend it
for something that will outlast it." |
| -- William James (1842 - 1910) |
|
| "Character may be manifested in the great
moments, but it is made in the small ones." |
| -- Phillips Brooks (1835-93), American
Episcopal bishop |
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| "Let us carefully observe those good
qualities wherein our enemies excel us; and endeavor to excel them,
by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in
them." |
| -- Plutarch (AD 46?-120?), Greek biographer,
philosopher |
|
| "Be
not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon them." |
|
--
William Shakespeare |
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| "The great thing in this world
is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are
moving." |
| -- Oliver Wendell Holmes |
|
| "It is easy to believe that life
is long and one's gifts are vast -- easy at the beginning, that is.
But the limits of life grow more evident; it becomes clear that
great work can be done rarely, if at all." |
| -- Alfred Adler |
|
| "Everything that is really great and
inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in
freedom." |
| -- Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955), German-born
American theoretical physicist |
|
| "Believe me! The secret of reaping the
greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to
live dangerously!" |
| -- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900) |
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| "Do continue to believe that with your
feeling and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more
strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the
world go forth from it." |
| -- Rainer Maria Rilke |
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| "I believe the first test of a truly great
man is his humility." |
| -- John Ruskin (1819-1900), British writer |
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| "I know of no great men except those who
have rendered great service to the human race." |
| -- Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778),
French philosopher |
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| "The high minded man must care more for
the truth than for what people think." |
| -- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher |
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| "We can do no great things, only small
things with great love." |
| -- Mother Teresa (1910-97), Albanian-born
Indian nun, |
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| "The great use of life is to spend it on
something that will outlast it." |
| -- James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), American
historian |
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| "Genius begins great work,
labor alone finishes it." |
| -- Joseph Joubert |
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| “Great men are they who see that the spiritual
is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the
world.” |
| -- R. W. Emerson |
|
| "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." |
| -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929-68), African-American reverend, civil rights leader |
|
| "The great successful men of the world
have used their imagination...they think ahead and create their
mental picture in all it details, filling in here, adding a little
there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily
building--steadily building." |
| -- Robert J. Collier (1876-1918), Writer,
author |
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| "In reading the lives of great men, I
found that the first victory they won was over
themselves...self-discipline with all of them came first." |
| -- Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd US
President |
|
| "The truth is
rarely does greatness come unsought to any person. To win the
lottery, you must buy a lottery ticket. To have greatness come
knocking at your door, you must have been first looking for
greatness. If the truth were known, many a time has greatness come
knocking, found no one home, and moved on to the next address on its
list." |
| -- Albert Emerson Unaterra
(1952-2002), American writer |
|
| "I don't know that I ever wanted
greatness, on its own. It seems rather like wanting to be an
engineer, rather than wanting to design something-- or wanting to be
a writer, rather than wanting to write. It should be a by-product,
not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it's just an ego trip." |
| -- Roger Zelazny (1937-95), Scifi, fantasy
writer |
|
| "We grow great by dreams. All big men are
dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the
red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great
dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through
bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes
always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come
true." |
| -- Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th US
President |
|
| "A wise man ought always to follow the
paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been
supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it
will savor of it. Let him act like the clever archers who, designing
to hit the mark which yet appears too far distant, and knowing the
limits to which the strength of their bow attains, take aim much
higher than the mark, not to reach by their strength or arrow to so
great a height, but to be able with the aid of so high an aim to hit
the mark they wish to reach." |
| -- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian
writer, |
|
| "The ideal life is in our
blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man when
he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds
he is doing -- where there is not forever beating at the doors of
his soul some great desire to do something larger, which he knows
that he was meant and made to do." |
| -- Phillips Brooks (1835-93),
American Episcopal bishop |
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