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 artists who the world has always recognized as the greatest are those with the widest sympathy. The greatness of the great artist depends precisely on the width and the intensity of his sympathy."
"Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning."
"The great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past."
"In addition to that, we have a woman post-production supervisor, a woman colorist, a woman first AD, a woman production supervisor... I think it's really sad when I hear so many shows are content to stay in a mono-cultural realm, not realizing how they are subtracting from their own greatness by not inviting women and people of color into the space - that seasoning that makes the recipe even more great. It was absolutely imperative for me. It's how I run all my crews."
"If you want to know the one reason that's taking me back, I'll tell you: I cannot bring myself to abandon to destruction all the greatness of the world, all that which was mine and yours, which was made by us and is still ours by right - because I cannot believe that men refuse to see, that they can remain blind and deaf to us forever, when the truth is ours and their lives depend on accepting it."
"Hank, this is great." "Yes." He said it simply, openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she knew, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one's own greatness, knowing that it is understood."
"Look around you and look at history. You will see the achievements of man’s mind. You will see man’s unlimited potentiality for greatness, and the faculty that makes it possible. You will see that man is not a helpless monster by nature, but he becomes one when he discards that faculty: his mind. And if you ask me, what is greatness? I will answer, it is the capacity to live by the three fundamental values of John Galt: reason, purpose, self-esteem."
"Politics and the fate of mankind are formed by men without ideals and without greatness. Those who have greatness within them do not go in for politics."
"Because a man can write great works he is none the less a man."
"I'm doing this because I want to do it better."
"A mouth that has no moisture and no breath Breathless mouths may summon; I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death."
"Adversity is the nurse of greatness which roughly rocks her patients back to health."
"Greatness knows itself."
"Greatness, once fallen out with fortune, must fall out with men too."
"Poor wretches that depend On greatness' favor, dream as I have done; Wake, and find nothing."
"Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare."
"Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?"
"O England! Model to thy inward greatness, like little body with a might heart."
"I write the script; nobody sees it, not the people that put the money in the picture. I cast who I want, and make the film. That's why I've always felt the only thing standing between me and greatness, is me. There's no excuse for me not to be great except that I'm not."
"America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness is built upon our freedom - is moral, not material. We have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man."
