Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.
—Jean de La Fontaine (1621–95) French Poet, Short Story Writer
The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness; thrust upon em.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
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.
—Henry Miller (1891–1980) American Novelist
The price of greatness is responsibility.
—Winston Churchill (1874–1965) British Head of State, Political leader, Historian, Journalist, Author
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.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
They’re only truly great who are truly good.
—George Chapman (c.1560–1634) English Poet, Playwright
Great and good are seldom the same man.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
He’s the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth, Vermont. On Calvin Coolidge
—Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American Civil Liberties Lawyer
The first step toward greatness is to be honest.
—Common Proverb
Great men are not always wise.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
It’s not what you take but what you leave behind that defines greatness.
—Howard Gardner (b.1943) American Cognitive Psychologist
The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Do not despise the bottom rungs in the ascent to greatness.
—Publilius Syrus (fl.85–43 BCE) Syrian-born Roman Latin Writer
Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.
—Pierre Beaumarchais (1732–99) French Inventor, Diplomat, Musician, Fugitive, Revolutionary
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
—Ray Charles (1930–2004) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
With such ardent eyes he wandered o’er me, and gazed with such intensity of love, sending his soul out to me in a look.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
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) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
No man is truly great who is great only in his own lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
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.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
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 don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle… (or) Einstein’s Theory of Relativity … (or) the Second Theory of Thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68) American Civil Rights Leader, Clergyman
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.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) Swiss-born French Philosopher
Greatness is a spiritual condition.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
Great people are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
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