Quotes About Greatness

We find great things are made of little things,And little things go lessening till at lastComes God behind them.

Seneca thinks the gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity.

In Scrum, we make everything visible. We air our dirty laundry. We are honest about the state of our code because code is never perfect. We become more fully human, more worthy of the divine, and closer to that greatness in the details.

There are many roads to singularity, not all of them well traveled. The newest ones can be arduous, but they are often shortcuts to greatness. (Baltasar Gracián, 1601-1658)

See into the Spirit of the Times A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Way of the Samurai is in desperateness. Ten men or more cannot kill such a man. Common sense will not accomplish great things. Simply become insane and desperate.

Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire. —François de La Rochefoucauld

The whole law of human existence consists in nothing other than a man's always being able to bow before the immeasurably great. If people are deprived of the immeasurably great, they will not live and will die in despair. The immeasurable and infinite are as necessary for man as the small planet he inhabits. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It is in the nature of things that not all politicians can achieve greatness.

Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.

Some men," she said, not raising her eyes from his hand, "choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who's forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.

Yet to achieve greatly, a man must believe something. Belief and knowledge pave the road to greatness. Knowledge is perhaps the most valuable of all. We all seek the coin of knowledge.

Winners know that failure inspires winning—so why be afraid of failure, when it can lead to greatness? Understand that not being afraid of failure doesn't mean you can't still hate failing.

Just think of all the great and noble souls who have lived and worked in the world. Isn't it worthwhile to come after them and inherit what they won and taught? And think of all the great people in the world today! Isn't it worthwhile to think we can share their inspiration? And the, all the great souls that will come in the future? Isn't it worthwhile to work a little and prepare the way for them-make just one step in their path easier? - Anne Shirley

It has been a prosy day for us, she said thoughtfully, but to some people it has been a wonderful day. Some one has been rapturously happy in it. Perhaps a great deed has been done somewhere today-- or a great poem written-- or a great man born.

an infinite Power must be infinitely little as well as infinitely great. We are neither, therefore there are things too little as well as too great for us to apprehend.

In many ways the greatest the world had ever known though there was a prohibition against saying so in polite political society. In any case, it so far exceeded the sort of minor realm ruled by the Borgias, the meager reach of the Medici, the influence of any Italian city-state, that any such comparison was like comparing an elephant to an ant. It could only be compared, de facto, no matter what political-speak required people to say, to Rome when Rome was the very definition of empire.

True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you want.

Nel profondo di ogni essere umano c'è un enigma nero come la notte. Lo scuro della pupilla altro non è che quella notte priva di stelle, lo scuro giù nel profondo dell'occhio altro non è che il buio stesso dell'universo. Solo come mistero l'uomo assume grandezza e chiarezza sufficienti. [...]

The great man of science, unless he is also a philosopher, ... deserves the title of genius as little as the man of action.

It is one of the triumphs of human wit ... to conquer by humility and submissiveness ... to make oneself small in order to appear great ... such ... are often the expedients of the neurotic.

We should like Nature to go no further; we should like it to be finite, like our mind; but this is to ignore the greatness and majesty of the Author of things.

There have been great men with little of what we call education. There have been many small men with a great deal of learning. There has never been a great people who did not possess great learning.

The minds that rise and become really great are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive.