Quotes About Greatness

The left think they've got a monopoly on this silly idea that we are a nation of immigrants, America's greatness is traceable to its immigrants. I'm sorry. I don't buy that as a stand-alone idea anyway because really what they're trying to say with that is that America's greatness is due to America's diversity, and that has not a thing to do with it. American Greatness is because of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our country.

Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.

For the truth is that men do not desire to be the Common Man any more than they are the Common Man. They need greatness in others and the occasion to discover the greatness in themselves.

The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.

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

As I have heard Bush say, only a wartime president is likely to achieve greatness, in part because the epochal upheavals of war provide the opportunity for transformative change of the kind Bush hoped to achieve. In Iraq, Bush saw his opportunity to create a legacy of greatness.

Greatness is not born from one success. Greatness is born from persevering through the countless failed attempts that preceded.

Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.

It is of dangerous consequence to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.

For centuries the church has confronted the human community with role models of greatness. We call them saints when what we really often mean to say is 'icon,' 'star,' 'hero,' ones so possessed by an internal vision of divine goodness that they give us a glimpse of the face of God in the center of the human. They give us a taste of the possibilities of greatness in ourselves.

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.

people who personify the system are indeed well known for not being what they seem to be; they have achieved greatness by embracing a level of reality lower than that of the most insignificant individual life- and everyone knows it.

Other things being equal, it is the person who can lift his work up to the plane of the intuitional and inspiration who achieves greatness, both in his work and in his career.

Success in war underpins the claims to greatness of many presidents.

Man's greatness is great in that he knows himself wretched. A tree does not know itself wretched. It is then being wretched to know oneself wretched; but it is being great to know that one is wretched.

I've spent the last few years really trying to come out of that belief system. Speaking mythologically, it's like Beauty and the Beast. The beast kidnaps the beauty until she learns to love him for who he is. In a sense, our negative beliefs kidnap our greatness, our life-force. We have to go and kiss them.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,--it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.

There is a winner in you. You were created to be successful, to accomplish your goals, to leave your mark on this generation. You have greatness in you. The key is to get it out.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

'I have chosen you!' Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.

Little did I conceive of the greatness of the defeat (at Bull Run), the magnitude of the disaster which it had entailed upon the United States. So short-lived has been the American Union, that men who saw it rise may live to see it fall.

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.

Albert Einstein once reported, "Great spirits have always encountered voilent opposition from mediocre minds." If you want to achieve your own greatness, to climb your own mountains, you'll have to use yourself as your first and last consultant.

When was the last time you heard an insightful, inspiring piece of oratory from an Australian political leader, an appeal to what is pure and true within humanity: a statement of belief backed by ideas for change betterment, a call to those immutable values wherein lie the potential greatness of people individually and collectively? Such exhortation, such leadership is lamentably scarce.

Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness.

One is too small a number to achieve greatness. No accomplishment of real value has ever been achieved by a human being working alone.

Greatness is more than potential. It is the execution of that potential. Beyond the raw talent. You need the appropriate training. You need the discipline. You need the inspiration. You need the drive.

Some people chase money. Some people chase fame. Some chase greatness - and that's what I'm trying to do.

The technologies which have had the most profound effects on human life are usually simple. A good example of a simple technology with profound historical consequences is hay. ... It was hay that allowed populations to grow and civilizations to flourish among the forests of Northern Europe. Hay moved the greatness of Rome to Paris and London, and later to Berlin and Moscow and New York.

God operates by different rules of time and space. And God's infinite greatness, which we would expect to diminish us, actually makes possible the very closeness that we desire. A God unbound by our rules of time has the ability to invest in every person on earth. God has, quite literally, all the time in the world for each one of us.

No one has ever achieved greatness without dreams.

We offend God because we do not know His greatness.

In this crucible of wickedness the true greatness of Mormon shines like a star.

She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty, and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be, 'truth, reverence, and good will,' then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great.

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.

A certain excessiveness seems a necessary element in all greatness.

I realize now that I've hoped to be great - as an actress, as a mother - because I want to embody the greatness of women who didn't get to be all they could have been. Their dignity, their courage, and their brilliance make me strive to be better. They're a part of me.

Adolescents sense a secret, unique greatness in thems.elves that seeks expression. They gesture towards the heart when trying to express any of this, a significant clue to the whole affair.

Greatness is helping others realize they are great, beautiful and capable. Genius is seeing the wonder and possibility in those others ignore.

Wisdom is the essential basis of greatness.

Greatness comes through serving. The more you serve, the greater you become

You can't define the ache that's in George's voice. It's just something inherently him. It doesn't need definition. It doesn't need clarification. It doesn't need a lot of things. You just sit back and appreciate it. It's just greatness.

Sometimes worst enemies like a Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier that's what makes you fight so hard. Without them they never would have achieved greatness.

The artists who the world has always recognized as the greatest are those with the widest sympathy. The greatness of the great artist depends precisely on the width and the intensity of his sympathy.

Get a look at greatness!