GREATNESS

Related Subjects: Dignity, Distinction, Fame, Honor, Power, Reputation

1. Great men are the real men, the men in whom nature has been fortunate. They are not extra­ordinary—they are in the true order. It is the little men who are not what they ought to be.—AMIEL
   

2. Men in great place are thrice servants,—servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business.—BACON, Of Great Place
   

3. Great men are not always wise.—Bible, Job 32:9
   

4. When the dust of death has choked
   A great man's voice, the common words he said
   Turn oracles.—ELIZABETH B. BROWNING, Casa Guidi Windows
   

5. Beneath the rule of men entirely great,
   The pen is mightier than the sword.—BULWER-LYTTON, Richelieu
   

6. All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.—CARLYLE, Sir Walter Scott
   

7. No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.—CARLYLE, Heroes & Hero-Worship
   

8. They're only truly great who are truly good.—GEORGE CHAP MAN, Revenge for Honour
   

9. Greatness and goodness are not means,—but ends!
   Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
   The good great man? Three treasures,—love, and light,
   And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath;—
   And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,—
   Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.—COLERIDGE, Complaint
   

10. Some great men owe most of their greatness to the ability of detecting in those they destine for their tools the exact quality of strength that matters for their work.—JOSEPH CONRAD, Lord Jim
    

11. No great man is ever born too soon or too late. When we say that the time is not ripe for this or that celebrity, we confess by implication that this very man, and no other, is required.—NORMAN DOUGLAS, South Wind
    

12. When the high heart we magnify,
    And the clear vision celebrate,
    And worship greatness passing by,
    Ourselves are great.—JOHN DRINKWATER, Abraham Lincoln

13. It is only the great men who are truly obscene. It is that touch which stamps their genius. It gives profundity and truth to their vision of life. If they had not dared to be obscene they could never have dared to be great. Their vision of the world would have remained fatally marred.—HAVELOCK ELLIS, The Art of Life
    

14. To be great is to be misunderstood.—EMERSON, Self-Reliance
    

15. When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.—EMERSON, Representative Men
    

16. He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.—EMERSON, Representative Men
    

17. Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.—EMERSON, Progress of Culture
    

18. No, I distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood, too.—E. M. FORSTER, I Believe
    

19. The world cannot live at the level of its great men.—SIR JAMES G. FRAZER, The Golden Bough
    

20. Greatness is so often a courteous synonym for great success.—PHILIP GUEDALLA
    

21. The union of theorizer, organizer, and leader in one man is the rarest phenomenon on earth; therein lies greatness.—ADOLF HITLER
    

22. Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.—WASHINGTON IRVING
    

23. Thou'rt an ass, Robin, thou'rt an ass,
    To think that great men be
    More gay than I that lie on the grass
    Under the greenwood tree.
    I tell thee no, I tell thee no,
    The Great are slaves to their gilded show.—GEORGE JAMES, Richelieu
    

24. He seemed to me ever by his work one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.—BEN JONSON, Of Francis Bacon
    

25. Greatness of name in the father oft-times overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first.—BEN JONSON, Timber
    

26. So when a great man dies,
    For years beyond our ken,
    The light he leaves behind him lies
    Upon the paths of men.—LONGFELLOW, Charles Sumner
    

27. Great thoughts, great feelings, came to them,
    Like instincts unawares.—R. M. MILNE, The Men of Old
    

28. Great men are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted.—NAPOLEON
    

29. Pathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness.—NIETZSCHE, Ecce Homo

30. Serve a great man, and you will know what sorrow is.—Proverb
    

31. A great man's foolish sayings pass for wise ones.—Proverb
    

32. Great men rejoice in adversity just as brave soldiers triumph in war.—SENECA, De Providentia
    

33. It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.—SENECA
    

34. There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
    

35. Rightly to be great
    Is not to stir without great argument,
    But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
    When honour's at the stake.—SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
    

36. I have touched the highest point of all my greatness;
    And from that full meridian of my glory,
    I haste now to my setting: I shall fall
    Like a bright exhalation in the evening,
    And no man see me more.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry VIII
    

37. The choice and master spirits of this age.—SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
    

38. They that stand high have many blasts to shake them.—SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
    

39. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.—SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
    

40. The great man is the man who does a thing for the first time.—ALEXANDER SMITH, Dreamthorp
    

41. Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.—SYDNEY SMITH, Lady Holland's Memoir
    

42. The world knows nothing of its greatest men.—SIR HENRY TAYLOR, Philip Van Artevelde
    

43. In me there dwells
    No greatness, save it be some far-off touch
    Of greatness to know well I am not great.—TENNYSON, Idylls of the King
    

44. I wish the rulers would try a little more to make great men; that they would set less value on the work, and more on the workmen; that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak, and that no form or combination or social policy has yet been devised to make an energetic people of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.—DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America
    

45. The death of a great man begins another history, of his continuing influence, his changing renown, the legend which takes the place of fact.—CARL VAN DOREN,
    Benjamin Franklin
    

46. The great things are not done only by impulse, but are a series of small things brought together. . . And great things are not something accidental but certainly must be willed.—VAN GOGH, Letters
    

47. Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
    Of that which once was great, is passed away.—WORDSWORTH, On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic