Quotes About Greatness

Schubert had been one of the first composers to groan, "Who can do anything after Beethoven?

What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.

There is a freedom born from the acknowledgement of greatness in literature, as if one gave away what one desired to keep, and in giving, there is a new space cleared for growth, an onrush of a new season beneath a secret sun. Acknowledging any great work of art is like being in love; one walks on air; any decline, destruction, death are within, not in the beloved; it is a falling in love with immortality, a freedom, a flight in paradise.

Great persons, like great empires, leave their mark on history.

He is still all potential. The potential to be great, the potential to be mad. He will achieve both magnificently.

Des shrugged. He didn't believe much in equality. Working to make everybody equal didn't leave much chance for anyone to achieve greatness.

The foundation of greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment, instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.

The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for. Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego. The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.

Everybody's life really consists of small things. Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego.

This is why Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, "Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm."2

At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it

Very few great artists feel the giant agony of the world.

Not because he had complete courage based on overwhelming strength, which is merely a matter of course, but because, by his sorrow for wrongdoing ad his willingness to do anything to expiate it, he showed greatness of soul.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact; and great trade will always be attended with considerable abuses. The contraband will always keep pace in some measure with the fair trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed in the cure of evils, which are closely connected with the cause of our prosperity.

The great has terror for its basis... the beautiful is founded on mere positive pleasure...

Whatever therefore is terrible, with regard to sight, is sublime too, whether this cause of terror be endued with greatness of dimensions or not; for it is impossible to look on anything as trifling, or contemptible, that may be dangerous. There are many animals, who, though far from being large, are yet capable of raising ideas of the sublime, because they are considered as objects of terror. As serpents and poisonous animals of almost all kinds.

But let it be considered that hardly anything can strike the mind with its greatness, which does not make some sort of approach towards infinity; which nothing can do whilst we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, is one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea.

he was, indeed, arrived at that pitch of greatness, that the means of his ruin could only be found in his own family.

Do not all these things interest you? Isn't it a fine thing to be alive when so many great things are happening?

In times of confusion, every active genius finds the place assigned him by nature: in a general state of war, military merit is the road to glory and to greatness.

the younger Andronicus was speedily corrupted by his infant greatness

My son deems himself a great and heroic prince; but, alas! our miserable age does not afford scope for heroism or greatness. His daring spirit might have suited the happier times of our ancestors; but the present state requires not an emperor, but a cautious steward of the last relics of our fortunes.

No one is to practise or aspire after virtue or perfection upon a motive of greatness, or of being exalted by it. This would be to fall into the snare of pride, which is to be feared under the cloak of sanctity itself.

There never was a truly great man, who was not a lover and encourager of learning, as of the highest improvement of the human mind