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.

I'm convinced that the greatness that matters more is the greatness people achieve through helping each other, through collaborating, more than the greatness that's achieved by grabbing all you can or getting all you can or building all you can.

That's the reason I believe in the power of prayer, because I believe you have to be able to first believe in a being superior to you, You have to believe in God and once you're able to believe in God and embrace the greatness of the creator, then you're able to believe in yourself and embrace the greatness that God put into you and each of us, and you're able to tap into that. But there will be days.

Think not of the sinner or the greatness of his sin, but think of the greatness of the Savior!

Greatness is never appreciated in youth, called pride in midlife, dismissed in old age, and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can do destroy it.

Few people have courage enough to appear as good as they really are. Most people confuse greatness with power, despite the fact that greatness has nothing to do with power.

The only way a work of art can become great is for one to acknowledge that it doesn't belong to anybody. The greatness is in constantly giving back, coming to an acknowledgment of the source. Look back to the source of any individual, any process, any set of materials. If the individual personality can relinquish its insistence on concepts like this is mine, I did it, this is original, nobody else has done it, it goes straight for greatness or the essential spirit.

A man who has once perceived, however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no longer be happy if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, troubled by trivial misfortunes, dreading what fate may have in store for him. The man capable of greatness of soul will open wide the windows of his mind, letting the winds blow freely upon it from every portion of the universe.

Every life is worthy and every life is capable of greatness. We have an obligation to make sure that opportunity for greatness is there.

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

The greatness of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.

It's a sign of this film's greatness that the enormous sadness that accompanies the final leave-taking of the circus interior is a good deal more than the conclusion of an unpretentious evening's entertainments; it's a sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.

You are destined to become the peer of those you most respect because the greatness you perceive in them is your own.

Greatness as a leader is measured in part by your willingness to accept daunting challenges. Achieving tough goals requires practicing the secret of commitment: Risk all to win all.

Of all parts of wisdom, the practice is the best. Socrates was esteemed the wisest man of his time because he turned his acquired knowledge into morality, and aimed at goodness more than greatness.

Perhaps the greatest definition I think of character and quality is people who when they're truly great rather than making you feel that tall they make you feel that tall, that they're greatness as it were improves you.

The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.

The nation which once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor.

Recycle your pain, allow your pain to reach you to greatness.

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

I am desperate for attention. But everyone else is too. Everyone has fantasies of fame and greatness. Life for most people is a process of shedding those fantasies.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness; one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper and steadfast as an anchor. For such an one we gladly exchange the greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the profoundest thinker.

A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.

He who stays not in his littleness, loses his greatness.

Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

Any person can achieve greatness if they understand the philosophy of success and the steps required to achieve it.

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.

I've got a reason for running. I talk about a larger goal, which is to call upon the best of America. It's part of the renewal. It's reform and renewal. Part of the renewal is a set of high standards and to remind people that the greatness of America really does depend on neighbors helping neighbors and children finding mentors. I worry. I'm very worried about, you know, the kid who just wonders whether America is meant for him. I really worry about that.

Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things - things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him.

Failure is a stepping-stone to greatness.

My greatness does not extend to this shelf.

When I reflect that one man, armed only with his own physical and moral resources, was able to cause this land of Canaan to spring from the wasteland, I am convinced that in spite of everything, humanity is admirable. But when I compute the unfailing greatness of spirit and the tenacity of benevolence that it must have taken to achieve this result, I am taken with an immense respect for that old and unlearned peasant who was able to complete a work worthy of God.

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

Knowledge and courage take turns at greatness.

The ultimate test of your greatness is the way you treat every human being.

I can't stand satisfaction. To me, greatness comes from that quest for perfection.

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.

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.

He who expects from a great name in politics, in philosophy, in art, equal greatness in other things, is little versed in human nature. Our strength lies in our weakness. The learned in books are ignorant of the world. He who is ignorant of books is often well acquainted with other things; for life is of the same length in the learned and unlearned; the mind cannot be idle; if it is not taken up with one thing, it attends to another through choice or necessity; and the degree of previous capacity in one class or another is a mere lottery.

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.

So what will define greatness for your generation? I believe it is to use the knowledge that you have earned here to find ways, not only to connect to computers, but to connect to people; not only to bridge gaps in science, but to bridge gaps between cultures; not only to use numbers and formulas to create, but to use words to lead, and in the process, to close that canyon between ignorance and understanding.

Wisdom is the essential basis of greatness.

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.

I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is the higher achievement.

Statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.

Only the rare expands our minds, only as we shudder in the face of a new force do our feelings increase. Therefore the extraordinary is always the measure of all greatness. And the creative element always remains the value superior to all others and the mind superior to our minds.