GREATNESS
Addison, Joseph
A contemplation of God's works, a generous concern for the good of mankind, and the unfeigned exercise of humility—these only, denominate men great and glorious.
Alexander, James W.
The study of God's word, for the purpose of discovering God's will, is the secret discipline which has formed the greatest characters.
Allston, Washington
Distinction is the consequence, never the object, of a great mind.
Ames, Fisher
The most substantial glory of a country is in its virtuous great men.—Its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their example.
Bacon, Francis
Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so that they have no freedom, neither in their persons, in their actions, nor in their times.—It is a strange desire to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self.
Beecher, Henry Ward
Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength.
Bismarck, Otto Eduard
A really great man is known by three signs—generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.
Brooks, Phillips
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives him for mankind.
Brougham, Lord
The true test of a great man—that, at least, which must secure his place among the highest order of great men—is, his having been in advance of his age.
Bryant, Cullen William
Difficulty is a nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who rocks her foster children roughly, but rocks them into strength and athletic proportions.—The mind, grappling with great aims and wrestling with mighty impediments, grows by a certain necessity to the stature of greatness.
Campbell, Thomas
What millions died that Caesar might be great.
Carlyle, Thomas
Great men are the commissioned guides of mankind, who rule their fellows because they are wiser.
Channing, William Ellery
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in storms, and most fearless under menace and frowns; and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God, is most unfaltering.
Colton, Caleb C.
Great men often obtain their ends by means beyond the grasp of vulgar intellect, and even by methods diametrically opposite to those which the multitude would pursue. But, to effect this, bespeaks as profound a knowledge of mind as that philosopher evinced of matter, who first produced ice by the agency of heat.
In life we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he has gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pigmy.
The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.
Times of general calamity and collusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the lightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
The truly great consider first, how they may gain the approbation of God; and secondly, that of their own conscience; having done this, they would then willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellowmen.
A great mind may change its objects, but it cannot relinquish them; it must have something to pursue; variety is its relaxation, and amusement its repose.
Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants—both know too much of him.
Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
D'Aubigne, Jean Henri Merle
A great man may be the personification and type of the epoch for which God destines him, but he is never its creator.
Demosthenes
Everything great is not always good, but all good things are great.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion—it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Franklin, Benjamin
There never was yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.
Hall, Joseph
He is great enough that is his own master.
Henry, Matthew
Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good, and partaking of God's holiness.
Hillard, George Stillman
The theory that a great man is merely the product of his age, is rejected by the common sense and common observation of mankind.—The power that guides large masses of men, and shapes the channels in which the energies of a great people flow, is something more than a mere aggregate of derivative forces. It is a compound product, in which the genius of the man is one element, and the sphere opened to him by the character of his age and the institutions of his country, is another.
Hoppin, James Mason
A nation's greatness resides not in her material resources, but in her will, faith, intelligence, and moral forces.
Iffland, August Wilhelm
He is great who can do what he wishes; he is wise who wishes to do what he can.
Johnson, Samuel
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
Jones, Sir William
If I am asked who is the greatest man? I answer the best; and if I am required to say who is the best? I reply he that has deserved most of his fellow creatures.
Landor, Walter Savage
Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.
Lavater, John Caspar
He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like Samson, and "tells neither father nor mother of it."
Macaulay, Thomas Babington
The difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd supposes.—But the same feelings which in ancient Rome produced the apotheosis of a popular emperor, and in modern times the canonization of a devout prelate, lead men to cherish an illusion which furnishes them with something to adore.
Mann, Horace
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
Mazzini, Giuseppe
The great men of the earth are but marking stones on the road of humanity; they are the priests of its religion.
Mulock, Dinah Maria
The man who does his work, any work, conscientiously, must always be in one sense a great man.
Parker, Theodore
There never was a great institution or a great man, that did not, sooner or later, receive the reverence of mankind.
Reade, Charles
Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, and martyrs the greater part will never be known till that hour when many that were great shall be small, and the small great.
Rochefoucould, Francois, duc de la
Great souls are not those which have less passion and more virtue than common souls, but only those which have greater designs.
However brilliant an action may be, it ought not to pass for great when it is not the result of a great design.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques
Great men never make bad use of their superiority; they see it, and feel it, and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.
Rowe, Nicholas
Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good, though the ungrateful subjects of their favors are barren in return.
Ruskin, John
He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.
Schopenhauer, Arthur
In estimating the greatness of great men, the inverted law of the physical stands for the intellectual and spiritual nature—the former is lessened by distance, the latter increased.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus
A great, a good, and a right mind is a kind of divinity lodged in flesh, and may be the blessing of a slave as well as of a prince: it came from heaven, and to heaven it must return; and it is a kind of heavenly felicity, which a pure and virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree, even upon earth.
He who is great when he fails is great in his prostration, and is no more an object of contempt than when men tread on the ruins of sacred buildings, which lien of piety venerate no less than if they stood.
Great is he who enjoys his earthenware as if it were plate, and not less great is the man to whom all his plate is no more than earthenware.
Shakespeare, William
Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon them.
He is not great, who is not greatly good.
Sidney, Sir Philip
In the truly great, virtue governs with a scepter of knowledge and wisdom.
Smith, Sydney
There is but one method, and that is hard labor; and a man who will not pay that price for greatness had better at once dedicate himself to the pursuit of the fox, or to talk of bullocks, and glory in the goad.
Sparks, Jared
If the title of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be charged with an indiscretion or a vice; who spent his life in establishing the independence, the glory, and durable prosperity of his country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the sacrifice of a single principle—this title will not be denied to Washington.
South, Robert
There never was any heart truly great and gracious, that was not also tender and compassionate.
Vauvenargues, Luc de Clapiers
Great men undertake great things because they are great; fools, because they think them easy.
Washington, George
It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.
Webster, Daniel
A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness.
Young, Edward
High stations tumult, not bliss create.—None think the great unhappy, but the great.
