#Greatness Quotes

“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”

“Is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!”

“Greatness knows itself.”

“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. . . .”

“His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!”

“Be not afraid of greatness.”

“When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.”

“I have touched the highest point of all my greatness.”

“His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong.”

“He who would be a great soul in the future, must be a great soul now.”

“The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.”

“Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”

“Nature never rhymes her children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man, we fancy a resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his character and fortune, a result which he is sure to disappoint. None will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, but only in his high unprecedented way.”

“The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.”

“Not in his goals but in his transitions, man is great.”

“Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?”

“It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“Great men do not content us. It is their solitude, not their force, that makes them conspicuous.”

“We expect a great man to be a good reader.”

“Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, but symmetrical men never.”

“The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future.”

“Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.”

“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

“The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.”

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.”

“Great men are sincere.”

“We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe; can we not take the leap?”

“A great man will find a great subject, or which is the same thing, make any subject great.”

“History - a biography of a few stout and earnest persons”

“Let him be great, and love shall follow him.”

“All nobility in its beginnings was somebody's natural superiority.”

“Creativity means believing you have greatness.”

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. This rule,equally arduous in actual and intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it.”

“Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake.”

“You know that he who would be the greatest among you must become the servant of all.”

“He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”

“He is great who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of others.”

“In your hands you hold the seeds of failure or the potential for greatness. Your hands are capable, but they must be used and for the right things to reap the rewards you are capable of attaining. The choice is yours.”

“The first thing a great person does is make us realize the insignificance of circumstance.”

“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.”

“Every great man is unique.”

“You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.”

“Many people who want to be great aren't willing to do the work to make it possible!”

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

“To be great, you must be misunderstood”

“Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with celestial air, until it eclipses the sun and moon.”

“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.”

“In your hands you hold the seeds of failure - or the potential for greatness.”

“All the great things are simple.”