Quotes About Greatness

The truest mark of being born with great qualities, is being born without envy.

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness.

Jane Addams, writing about her Twenty Years at Hull House, said, "People did not want to hear about simple things. They wanted to hear about great things—simply told.

Man's greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.

Successful American presidents project a populist image. They do not place themselves above their compatriots but strive whenever possible to show qualities typical of "average" Americans. If they have an intellectual bent, they do their best to hide it. To be likable, smiling, and unpretentious is all-important, to express the values of middle America an essential prerequisite for greatness.

OCTAVIA Mi van önben több, mint egy állatban? NEGRO DA PONTE A világ nagyszer?sége és iszonyata.

Open still remains a free life for great souls. Verily, he who possesses little is so much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty!

The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly.

The existentialist will not ask, "What is this thing?" but "What does this thing signify for me?" Thus he will put the altogether subjective "significance" in place of the objective nature, which is not only the height of absurdity but also of pride and insolence. As true greatness " signifies" nothing for the little man, he will see in it only a kind of infirmity the better to be able to enjoy his own "significant" inflatedness.

That isn't greatness. That's just foolishness.

You should know by now that I've already had greatness. I traded it for mediocrity and some measure of sanity.

Err on the side of awesome.

The main objective is to learn to think crudely. Crude thinking is the great one's thinking.

Jim Collins's classic book Good to Great.

Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.

I'm the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.

It is not so much the sight of immorality of the great that is to be feared as that of immorality leading to greatness. ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE Democracy in America

Existe una suerte de denominador común entre todas las grandes civilizaciones y culturas clásicas: para quienes vivían en ellas, todas eran inmortales.

People we meet, some great in the eyes of the world and some almost invisible to the larger society, are often conduits of God's wisdom.

Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. It has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be. True sanctity is precisely drinking our own cup and trusting that by thus fully claiming our own, irreplaceable journey, we can become a source of hope for many.

When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.

If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This is always exhilarating and sublime.

All true greatness runs as level a course, and is as unaspiring, as the plow in the furrow. It wears the homeliest dress and speaks the homeliest language