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.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
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
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 wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
—Ray Charles (1930–2004) American Singer, Songwriter, Musician
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.
—Harry S. Truman (1884–1972) American Head of State
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
The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him. This is success, and there is no other.
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself.
—Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French Sociologist, Philosopher
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
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, and broke the die.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
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) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
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.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
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
Great men always pay deference to greater.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
No man ever yet became great by imitation.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
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?
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
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
To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.
To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.
When we listen to the better angels of our nature, we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.
Greatness comes in simple trappings.
—Richard Nixon (1913–94) American Head of State, Lawyer
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
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
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Great and good are seldom the same man.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
Nothing great in this world has been accomplished without passion.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher