Greatness Quotes - Page 17

• A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.

  Maya Angelou

  People, Leader, Ifs

  "Maya Angelou on Courage and Creativity". Interview with Alison Beard, hbr.org.

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• I believe our task is to develop a moral and aesthetic imagination deep enough and wide enough to encompass the contradictions of our time and history, the tremendous loss and tragedy as well as greatness and nobility, an imagination capable of recognizing that where there is light there is shadow, that out of hubris and fall can come moral regeneration, out of suffering and death, resurrection and rebirth.

  Richard Tarnas

  Believe, Fall, Loss

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  Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.67, Beacon Press

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• He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice or arms illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Sophroniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato.

  Seneca the Younger

  Plato, Mean, Son

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• 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.'

  Confucius

  Men, Perfect, Water

  Confucius, Mencius (1861). “The Chinese Classics”, p.286

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• Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! This is the state of man: today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening - nips his root, And then he falls, as I do.

  William Shakespeare

  Death, Fall, Farewell

  'Henry VIII' (1613) act 3, sc. 2, l. 352

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• Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man. Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.Joy is wealth.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Powerful, Mistake, Successful

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.207, Library of Alexandria

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• The greatest man is he who chooses right with the most invincible resolution.

  Seneca the Younger

  Men, Resolution, Invincible

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• .. we shall not be properly educated ourselves, nor will the guardians whom we are training, until we can recognise the qualities of discipline, courage, generosity, greatness of mind, and others akin to them, as well as their opposites in all their manifestations.

  Plato

  Opposites, Discipline, Generosity

  Plato, Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee (1987). “The Republic”

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• The first step to greatness is to be honest.

  Samuel Johnson

  Firsts, Steps, Honest

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Reviews, political tracts, and Lives of eminent persons”, p.311

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• 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.

  Blaise Pascal

  Fall, Space, Filling Up

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• As machines become more and more efficient and perfect, so it will become clear that imperfection is the greatness of man.

  Ernst Fischer

  Men, Perfect, Machines

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• You can do anything you wish to do, have anything you wish to have, be anything you wish to be.

  Robert Collier

  Entrepreneur, Achievement, Wish

  Robert Collier (2013). “The Secret of Power”, p.25, Simon and Schuster

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• All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.

  Albert Camus

  Creativity, New Beginnings, Bad Ass

  Albert Camus (2012). “The Myth of Sisyphus: And Other Essays”, p.12, Vintage

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• Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

  Aristotle

  Beauty, Beautiful, Gratitude

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• Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.

  Ayn Rand

  Dream, Happy Life, Waiting

  Ayn Rand (2011). “Ayn Rand Novel Collection”, p.1850, Penguin

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• I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Death, Kindness

  Abraham Lincoln, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (1950). “The Lincoln treasury”

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• Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.

  Athenaeus

  Inspirational, Wisdom, Doe

  Athenaeus (1854). “The Deipnosophists Or Banquet of the Learned of Athenaeus: With an Appendix of Poetical Fragments, Rendered Into English Verse by Various Authors and a General Index : in Three Volumes”, p.1003

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• It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.

  Samuel Johnson

  Stars, Distance, Light

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.217, Harvard University Press

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• The greatness that would make us grave,
  Is but an empty thing.
  What more than mirth would mortals have?
  The cheerful man's a king.

  Isaac Bickerstaffe

  Kings, Men, Cheerful

  Isaac BICKERSTAFFE (1814). “Love in a Village ... As performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. Printed ... from the prompt book. With remarks by Mrs. Inchbald”, p.14

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• And inasmuch as the great-souled man deserves most, he must be the best of men; for the better a man is the more he deserves, and he that is best deserves most. Therefore the truly great-souled man must be a good man. Indeed greatness in each of the virtues would seem to go with greatness of soul.

  Aristotle

  Men, Soul, Good Man

  Aristotle (2017). “Eleven Common Characteristics of Great Souls”, p.4, Philaletheians UK

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• I believe [in God], and then there are times when I don't, because the nature of the universe tells me that I'm a fool to believe in something greater than myself. And then there are times when I'm absolutely in awe of the greatness of God, or whatever name you want to attach to whatever it is that's controlling our lives.

  Tom Fontana

  Believe, Names, Want

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Spaghetti is good with ranch, and spaghetti is good with sugar. You put all of that together and make a sandwich out of it and you get greatness. People shouldn't judge unless they try it.

  Terry Rozier

  People, Judging, Trying

  Source: bleacherreport.com

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• The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.

  Walter Scott

  Path, Virtue, Worldly

  Walter Scott (1875). “Waverley Novels: The heart of Mid-Lothian”, p.420

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• Giving consistent effort in the little things in day-to-day life leads to true greatness. Specifically, it is the thousands of little deeds and tasks of service and sacrifice that constitute the giving or losing of one's life for others and for the Lord. They include gaining a knowledge of our Father in Heaven and of the gospel. They also include bringing others into the faith and fellowship of his kingdom. These things do not usually receive the attention or the adulation of the world.... .

  Howard W. Hunter

  Father, Sacrifice, Giving

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