Greatness quotes
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside greatness — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"The superior man honors his virtuous nature, and maintains constant inquiry and study, seeking to carry it out to its breadth and greatness, so as to omit none of the more exquisite and minute points which it embraces, and to raise it to its greatest height and brilliancy."
"Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great & being maladjusted to an unjust status quo."
"A good man, is a good man, whether in this church, or out of it."
"Be not afraid of greatness."
"I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, and in short, I was afraid."
"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."
"Instead of feeling a poverty when we encounter a great man, let us treat the new comer like a travelling geologist, who passes through our estate, and shows us good slate, or limestone, or anthracite, in our brush pasture."
"Exaggeration, the inseparable companion of greatness."
"Greatness begins beyond your comfort zone."
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members."
"How to discover your greatness? By upgrading our relationships and by having goals beyond our comfort zone."
"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."
"The best motivating is self-motivating. The guy says, "I wish someone would come by and turn me on. "What if they don't show up? You've got to have a better plan for your life.""
"Jokes? There are no jokes. The truth is the funniest joke of all."
"To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness."
"That's the reason I believe in the power of prayer, because I believe you have to be able to first believe in a being superior to you, You have to believe in God and once you're able to believe in God and embrace the greatness of the creator, then you're able to believe in yourself and embrace the greatness that God put into you and each of us, and you're able to tap into that. But there will be days."
"You and I are like the first two people on earth who at the beginning of the world had nothing to cover themselves with - at the end of it, you and I are just as stripped and homeless. And you and I are the last remembrance of all that immeasurable greatness which has been created in all the thousands of years between their time and ours, and it is in memory of all that vanished splendour that we live and love and weep and cling to one another."
"The great man is too often all of a piece; it is the little man that is a bundle of contradictory elements. He is inexhaustible. You never come to the end of the surprises he has in store for you."
"She could not admit but that he had remarkable qualities, sometimes she thought that there was even in him a strange and unattractive greatness; it was curious then that she could not love him, but loved still a man whose worthlessness was now so clear to her."
"Greatness is not this, wonderful, esoteric, elusive, god-like feature that only the special among us will ever taste. You know? It's something that truly exists, in, all of us. It's very simple, this is what I believe, and, I'm willing to die for it. Period. It's that simple."
