Quotes About Greatness

You wish to be great, begin from the least. You are thinking to construct some mighty fabric in height; first think of the foundation of humility. And how great soever a mass of building one may wish and design to place above it, the greater the building is to be, the deeper does he dig his foundation.

You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.

Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness.

to Alexander the Great, who wept when there were no more worlds to conquer...

The contrast between the greatness of Greece's ambitions and the poverty of her resources put a special premium on outside support."2

Aber wie sollte ein so rascher Ruhm nicht einen so leeren Kopf beduseln? (...) Und dann, ist es nicht eigentlich verflucht leicht, sich für einen großen Menschen zu halten, wenn man nicht mit der leisesten Ahnung belastet ist, daß ein Rembrandt, ein Beethoven, ein Dante, ein Napoleon je gelebt haben?

And, actually, isn't it damn easy to think you're a great man if you aren't troubled by the slightest notion that a Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante, or Napoleon ever existed?

Y, además, ¿no es acaso lo más fácil del mundo considerarse un gran hombre cuando no se tiene ni la menor idea de que hayan existido alguna vez un Rembrandt, un Beethoven, un Dante, un Napoleón?

Die erste Lehre war gegeben: daß die großen Männer immer die gütigsten sind.

Pero a la larga, la fuerza innata de una obra no se deja ocultar, y se resiste a quedar encerrada tras las puertas del olvido. Una obra de arte puede quedar olvidada por un tiempo, puede ser prohibida u ocultada, pero la grandeza acaba siempre por vencer a lo efímero.

Y, además, ¿no es mucho más fácil creerse un gran hombre cuando uno no tiene ni la menor idea de que haya existido alguna vez un Rembrandt, un Beethoven, un Dante o un Napoleón?

Besides, isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?

I truly believe greatness is in all of us. Don't let anyone talk us out of our truth.

Though men are apt to flatter and exalt themselves with their great achievements, yet these are, in truth, very often owing not so much to design as chance.

It is man that makes truth great, and not truth that makes man great.

For us, with the rule of right and wrong given us by Christ, there is nothing for which we have no standard. And there is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

There never was a great truth but it was reverenced; never a great institution, nor a great man, that did not, sooner or later, receive the reverence of mankind.

God is Light, not darkness. God is Love, not hate. God is truth, not untruth. God alone is great.

If we are going to stay a great power and I hope and pray we will we need the truth. We need to know what is going right and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now.

Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself.

For the truth is that men do not desire to be the Common Man any more than they are the Common Man. They need greatness in others and the occasion to discover the greatness in themselves.

Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth.

All greatness affects different minds, each in its own particular kind, and the variations of testimony mark the truth of feeling.

Every great religion is, in truth, a concentration of great ideas, capable, as all ideas are, of infinite expansion and adaptation.