Quotes About Greatness

Never did a great man hate good wine.

The followers of a great man often put their eyes out, so that they may be the better able to sing his praise.

One must be a great man indeed to be able to hold out even against common sense." "Or else a fool.

A man is a man to the extent that he is a superman. A man should be defined by the sum of those tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition.

Thus, I blush to add, you can not be a philosopher and a good man, though you may be a philosopher and a great one.

For nothing is more commendable, nothing more becoming in a preeminently great man than courtesy and forbearance.

Kings cannot ennoble thee, thou good, great soul, for One who is higher than kings hath done that for thee; but a king can confirm thy nobility to men.

Manifestly, dying is nothing to a really great and brave man.

Reverence is a good thing, and part of its value is that the more we revere a man, the more sharply are we struck by anything in him (and there is always much) that is incongruous with his greatness.

He who is neither afraid of the wolves nor hurts the lambs, He is called a great man!

Realise well, proud little man that even the highest clouds don't shine! For above all things there lie brightest stars.

Any man's greatness is a tribute to the nobility of all mankind, so when we celebrate the genius of [Leo] Tolstoy, we say, "Look! One of our boys made it! Look what we're capable of!"

I'm the greatest, I'm a bad man, and I'm pretty!

As Herman Melville wrote of that seagoing monster of a man Captain Ahab, "All mortal greatness is but disease.

No great man is ever born too soon or too late.

Greatness, with private men Esteem'd a blessing, is to me a curse; And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude The happy freemen, are the only slaves. Happy the golden mean!

I'm gonna go down in history as being one of the best music men and businessmen in entertainment ... The people that I'm going to be greater than are Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Clive Davis.

A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, his living is natural and poetic.

A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.

Men are but men, and the greatest men are they who soonest learn the simpler things.

John Paul II was one of the greatest men of the last century. Perhaps the greatest.

If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him . . he will be surrounded by grandeur.

The greatness that would make us grave, Is but an empty thing. What more than mirth would mortals have? The cheerful man's a king.

If we must live with a perpetual sense that the world and the men in it are greater than we and too much for us, let it be the measure of our virtue that we know this and seek no comfort.