Quotes About Greatness

When I was a boy, I would read those postcards and know exactly why my father was doing what he was doing: he was taking a stab at greatness, that is, if greatness is simply another word for doing something different from what you were already doing--or maybe greatness is the thing we want to have so that other people will want to have us, or maybe greatness is merely the grail for our unhappy, striving selves, the thing we think we need but don't and can't get anyway.

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.

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.

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

Effort is between you, and you, and nobody else. So that team that thinks it's ready to see you, they think what they've seen on film, they ain't saw what film shows, because every day is a new day. Every moment is a new moment. So now you've got to go out and show them that I'm a different creature now, than I was five minutes ago, cause I'm pissed off for greatness. Cause if you ain't pissed off for greatness, that just means you're okay with being mediocre, and ain't no man in here okay with just basic.

We are distracted from our greatness because are greatness is what scares us. Right where you are…God is.

Every day, in every moment, you get to exercise choices that will determine whether or not you will become a great person, living a great life. Greatness is not something predetermined, predestined or carved into your fate by forces beyond your control. Greatness is always in the moment of the decision.

If you expect greatness, greatness shouldn't surprise you.

The sage never strives for greatness, and can therefore accomplish greatness.

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

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

The measure of a country's greatness should be based on how well it cares for its most vulnerable populations.

It seems like election 2016 has been a whole lot about a person who's very high in the polls, that doesn't have a clue about how to govern.A person who has been filled with scandals, and who could not lead, and, of course, I'm talking about Hillary Clinton.I think America is in trouble, but it's not beyond repair. But it's going to take leadership who sees the greatness of this country, and who believes that once again we can be one nation, under God.

Take those chances and you can achieve greatness, whereas if you go conservative, you'll never know. I truly believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Even if you fail, learning and moving on is sometimes the best thing.

God alone is the judge of true greatness because He knows men's hearts.

Remember that this greatness was won by men with courage, with knowledge of their duty, and with a sense of honor in action.

Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance.

It is moments like these that force us to try harder, and dig deeper, and to discover gifts we never knew we had - to find the greatness that lies within each of us.

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.

Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.

The greatness of a culture can be found in its festivals

We feel unsatisfied until we know ourselves akin even with that greatness which made the spots on which it rested hallowed; and until, by our own lives, and by converse with the thoughts they have bequeathed us, we feel that union and relationship of the spirit which we seek.

The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.

It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.

Look. This is your world! You can't not look. There is no other world. This is your world; it is your feast. You inherited this; you inherited these eyeballs; you inherited this world of color. Look at the greatness of the whole thing. Look! Don't hesitate - look! Open your eyes. Don't blink, and look, look - look further.

And why does it make you sad to see how everything hangs by such thin and whimsical threads? Because you’re a dreamer, an incredible dreamer, with a tiny spark hidden somewhere inside you which cannot die, which even you cannot kill or quench and which tortures you horribly because all the odds are against its continual burning. In the midst of the foulest decay and putrid savagery, this spark speaks to you of beauty, of human warmth and kindness, of goodness, of greatness, of heroism, of martyrdom, and it speaks to you of love.

The essence of greatness is the ability to choose personal fulfillment in circumstances where others choose madness.

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

I note the derogatory rumors concerning the use of alcoholic stimulants and lavish living. It is the penalty of greatness.

When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity - regardless of what others may do - you are destined for greatness.

Greatness is the dream of youth realized in old age.

‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.

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.

Until your dream dominates your mindset, you'll never wake up to your greatness.

An unbending and absolute acceptance of any idea is a sure sign of a small mind, no matter the greatness of intellect possesed by the one accepting that idea.

Sometimes it takes great suffering to pierce the soul and open it up to greatness

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

Do not be discouraged on account of the greatness of the work; only be humble and faithful. . . . He who scattered Israel has promised to gather them; therefore inasmuch as you are to be instrumental in this great work, He will endow you with power, wisdom, might, and intelligence, and every qualification necessary.

It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles.

The penalty of greatness is to write autographs.

What is peddled about nowadays as philosophy, especially that of N.S. [National Socialism], but has nothing to do with the inner truth and greatness of that movement [namely the encounter between global technology and modern humanity] is nothing but fishing in that troubled sea of values and totalities.

Putin wants to reestablish Russian greatness, not as the Cold War, but in 19th century empire terms.

In a musically imperfect world, there is still perfection in the voice of Barbara Cook. For anyone eulogizing the historic scores of a long-lost era of Broadway greatness, not to worry. Somebody is still singing them with purity and passion. She is Barbara Cook, and she sings them for the angels to applaud.

I know that in South Africa, we were in that space, and we're still suffering from that space. And that was where a government very successfully convinced the majority of a population that every single person there was blocking the other people from achieving greatness in the country, only to realize that we were all being oppressed at the same time. That's one of the biggest things. And I'm proud to say that.

I suppose the thing I most would have liked to have known or been reassured about is that in the world, what counts more than talent, what counts more than energy or concentration or commitment, or anything else - is kindness. And the more in the world that you encounter kindness and cheerfulness - which is its kind of amiable uncle or aunt - the better the world always is. And all the big words: virtue, justice, truth - are dwarfed by the greatness of kindness.

Greatness of soul consists not so much in soaring high and in pressing forward, as in knowing how to adapt and limit oneself.

Greatness finds us by obstacles in front of us. I don’t look at hurdles as obstacles blocking my path but opportunities to overcome.