Quotes About Greatness

In and through the personal rediscovery of the great, we find that we need not be the passive victims of what we deterministically call 'circumstances'...but that by linking ourselves...with the great we can become freer- freer to be ourselves, to be what we most want and value.

Auch er stieg funkelnd empor im größten und schrecklichsten Feuer, das Buchheim je heimgesucht hatte. Er, der Brandstifter und Zündfunke, flog hinauf, um dort oben ein Stern zu werden und für alle Zeit hinabzustrahlen auf eine Welt, die zu eng war für einen so großen Geist wie ihn.

Great men always pay deference to greater.

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

Only adversity provides the opportunity for greatness.

Mother Teresa who said, "We can do no great things, only small things, with great love.

You'll never be great if you don't stop worrying about small and insignificant things.

There are few who will find shortcuts. There are simply rare opportunities to accelerate competence, and without paying the price, no matter how great or small, none will become prepared to lead others.

your greatness will be made possible through the extremes of your personality—the very extremes that sometimes make for campfire satire and legendary stories.

The secret of greatness is simple: do better work than any other man in your field - and keep on doing it.

We are what we repeatedly do. Greatness then, is not an act, but a habit

Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.

through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

There wasn't a single teetotaler "among the world's really great men," Stoll wrote; on the contrary, he said, the roster of wine-loving giants ran from Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Columbus, Dickens, Lincoln, and Bismarck, not to mention Verdi, Wagner, and Admiral Dewey.

they must create the environment for action. In June 1967 Robert Kennedy said, "Few will have the greatness to bend history itself. But each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And in the total of all those acts, will be written the history of this generation" (p. 237).

A man who is pleased with himself can be an adequate restorer but only a man with a damaged canvas of his own can be a truly great restorer. Luigi Conti

the role of "myth," embellishments of Jesus that make him comparable to various divine-human figures in the larger culture (such as the Caesars) so that he can compete with them for greatness. We will have occasion to explore such questions in more depth as we proceed.

You know, be able to do something great in your life, you're gonna have to realize your failures. You're gonna have to embrace them and figure out how to overcome it.

Despite our wonders and greatness, we are a society that has experienced so much social regression, so much decadence, in so short a period of time, that in many parts of America we have become the kind of place to which civilized countries used to send missionaries. - quoting William Bennett

Los grandes espíritus siempre encuentran violenta oposición de las mentes mediocres».

I saw you then not only as the symbol of your people and its greatness, but as the voice of the invincible and uncompromising conscience of the human race at a time of danger to the dignity of man, created in the image of God. It was not only the liberties and the honor of your own people that you saved.

There is no gift more great than love.

Europeans often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office [the presidency], the greatest in the world, unless we except the Papacy, to which any man can rise by his own merits, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men.

The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.