Quotes About Greatness

I looked for great men, but all I found were the apes of their ideals.

Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths.

Great men too make mistakes, and many among them do it so often that one is almost tempted to call them little men.

If great men would have care of little ones, both would last long.

It is only great men who take up a great space by not being there.

The great men of a nation reach out to all mankind. They are unifying, not divisive; internationally conciliating and still great nationally.

Superiority to circumstances is one of the most prominent characteristics of great men.

When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I am going to live as if I were a great man.

Eminent station makes great men more great, and little ones less.

The great men of antiquity were poor.

Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.

It is not obligatory for a generation to have great men.

There is no disputing that Lincoln was a great man.

The biographies of the great men see their excesses as signs of their greatness.

Great men may die, but there ideas won't.

Mandela stands alone in possessing all of the qualities of other great men, but has one quality which is transcendent... his ability to forgive and to place others above himself.

Great men don't nessarily make good husbands.

Great men are sometimes so even in small things.

Not every great man is a grand human being.

Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.

Great men honour intelligence, little men honour stupidity.

We can't always expect great things from great men; but we must always expect little things from little men!

In a narrow sphere great men are blunderers.

All great virtues become great men. [Fr., Toutes grandes vertus conviennent aux grands hommes.]