Quotes About Greatness

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand.

A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.

One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.

Isn't it confoundedly easy to think you're a great man if you aren't burdened with the slightest idea that Rembrandt, Beethoven, Dante or Napoleon ever lived?

Sometimes I have the feeling that you are not quite aware--and this honors you--of the historical greatness of your position, that you think too modestly about yourself. Everything you do is destined to be of historic significance. One day, your letters, your decisions, will belong to all mankind, like those of Wagner and Brahms.

She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.

Virtue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vulgar and ordinary.

To superficial minds, the vices of the great seem at all times agreeable.

The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers, and, what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers, of wealth and greatness.

But in the languor of disease and the weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of greatness disappear. To one, in this situation, they are no longer capable of recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction.

In the gray Poland plundered by the Soviet utopia there was no shortage of cunning petty demons on the party payroll out searching for young souls with ballistic tendencies, souls who dreamed of greatness and despised the trifling daily round of worries and pursuits.

Not all creatures can become as great as they think.

Mediocrity does not befit your true magnitude.

If you have space for a flawed person to do great things and succeed, you give yourself the same permission. On a human level, we are all flawed. On a divine level, we are all perfect.

It wasn't the thought of death or the failure of their mission that troubled him as he sat there and played. It was a fear of personal failure, a fear that had haunted him since he'd been a child. It was the fear which had driven him to pursue two different careers without being able to choose between them. And though he didn't realize it, it was the fear which had driven more men and women to greatness than far more rational motivations… .

The difference between me and them, they constantly look up to each other; I look up to legends. -MillYentei

Krishna's son, Samba, is portrayed in the scriptures as an irresponsible lout, perhaps to inform us that the child of a great man need not be a great man; greatness is not transmitted through the generations. Every man ultimately makes or destroys his own legacy.

greatness is not transmitted through the generations. Every man ultimately makes or destroys his own legacy.

It seems that God is clearly calling His people everywhere to prayer, and as Matthew Henry said generations ago, "Whenever God is preparing to do something great in the earth, He first sets His people a-praying!

How does Jesus differ from other great persons and heroes? All heroes come from lowliness and want to be great, while Jesus comes from the heights and wants to be humble. All heroes are human beings and want to be like God,[523] while Christ is God and wants to be a human being. All heroes are born of the earth; Christ is born of God.[524] [—] John 3:6; Acts 4:12

What may appear weak and insignificant to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as Christians should not be constantly feeling the pulse of their spiritual life, so too the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be continually taking its temperature.

It might take just as much effort to fit in as it does to stand out, because you're standing up for yourself. It's those who take a risk and take chances who achieve greatness. Those who play it safe never can.

the people... they are church-broken, nation-broken -- they drink and pray and piss in the one place. Every man has a house-broken heart except the great man. The people love their church and know it, as a dog knows where he was made to conform, and there he returns by his instinct.

Every man has a house-broken heart except the great man.