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
High stations tumult, not bliss create.—None think the great unhappy, but the great.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
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
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Irish Satirist
Greatness does not approach him who is forever looking down.
—The Hitopadesha Indian Collection of Fables
Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.—This is a feudal tenure which they cannot alter.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
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
The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Great people are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
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.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Greatness is a spiritual condition.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–88) English Poet, Critic
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
—Ray Charles (1930–2004) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
It’s not what you take but what you leave behind that defines greatness.
—Howard Gardner (b.1943) American Cognitive Psychologist
The first step toward greatness is to be honest.
—Common Proverb
Great woman belong to history and to self sacrifice.
—Leigh Hunt (1784–1859) British Poet, Essayist, Journalist
A great thing can only be done by a great person; and they do it without effort.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.
—Alexis Carrel (1873–1944) American Surgeon, Biologist
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
—Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American 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
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
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.
—Unknown
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.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) German Philosopher, Physicist
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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 (428 BCE–347 BCE) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
The dullard’s envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) British Essayist, Caricaturist, Novelist
The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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