"Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself."
Read quote
5 likes
Greatness quotes
Greatness
1.9K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Greatness
Browse quotes that often appear alongside greatness — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Greatness quotes (page 30 of 94)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Wisdom and courage make mutual contributions to greatness."
Read quote
4 likes
"In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."
Read quote
4 likes
"Good fortune will elevate even petty minds, and give them the appearance of a certain greatness and stateliness, as from their high place they look down upon the world; but the truly noble and resolved spirit raises itself, and becomes more conspicuous in times of disaster and ill fortune."
Read quote
4 likes
"Accepting responsibility for the actions of others contributes to your own greatness."
Read quote
4 likes
"To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre."
Read quote
4 likes
"How great is the path proper to the Sage! Like overflowing water, it sends forth and nourishes all things, and rises up to the height of heaven. All-complete is its greatness! It embraces the three hundred rules of ceremony, and the three thousand rules of demeanor. It waits for the proper man, and then it is trodden. Hence it is said, 'Only by perfect virtue can the perfect path, in all its courses, be made a fact.'"
Read quote
4 likes
"One has followed the other in an endless circle, for it is certain that as man's insight increases so he finds both wretchedness and greatness within himself. In a word man knows he is wretched. Thus he is wretched because he is so, but he is truly great because he knows it."
Read quote
4 likes
"I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them."
Read quote
4 likes
"That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience."
Read quote
4 likes
"We are all capable of greatness when we know without any doubt that we are directly connected to a higher purpose."
Read quote
4 likes
"I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles."
Read quote
4 likes
"I believe in being a motivator."
Read quote
4 likes
"Albert Einstein once reported, "Great spirits have always encountered voilent opposition from mediocre minds." If you want to achieve your own greatness, to climb your own mountains, you'll have to use yourself as your first and last consultant."
Read quote
4 likes
"The way I like to measure greatness is... How many people can you make want to be better?"
Read quote
4 likes
"GLOUCESTER: Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, As I had rather hide me from my greatness, Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid, And in the vapour of my glory smother'd. But God be thanked. . . ."
Read quote
4 likes
"Those who in this world have the courage to try and solve in their own lives new problems of life, are the ones who raise society to greatness."
Read quote
4 likes
"There are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on their brow, no condescension even; when they take us by the hand, and we share their thought."
Read quote
4 likes
"The first step to greatness is to be honest."
Read quote
4 likes
"Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts."
Read quote
4 likes