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.

Man is so great that his greatness appears even in the consciousness of his misery. A tree does not know itself to be miserable. It is true that it is misery indeed to know one's self to be miserable; but then it is greatness also. In this way, all man's miseries go to prove his greatness. They are the miseries of a mighty potentate, of a dethroned monarch.

If you admire greatness in another human being, it is your own greatness you are seeing.

The greatness of prayer is nothing but an extension of the greatness and glory of God in our lives To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule - it is a failure to treat God as God. It is a sin against his glory

True greatness is not measured by the headlines a person commands or the wealth he or she accumulates. The inner character of a person-the undergirding moral and spiritual values and commitments-is the true measure of lasting greatness.

The human rainbow had been mutilated by machismo, racism, militarism and a lot of other isms, who have been terribly killing our greatness, our possible greatness, our possible beauty.

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.

In the beginning, I want to say something about human greatness. Some time ago, I was reading texts of Kungtse. When I read these texts, I understood something about human greatness. What I understood from his writings was: What is greatest in human beings is what makes them equal to everybody else. Everything else that deviates higher or lower from what is common to all human beings makes us less. If we know this, we can develop a deep respect for every human being.

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he or she is in. That person must reflect what is projected upon him or her.

It goes without saying that only inner greatness possess a true value ("une valeur véritable,", Fr.) . Any attempt to rise up (or at rising up, - "s'élever", Fr.) outwardly above others, or to want (or wish) to impose one's superiority, denote a lack of moral greatness, since we do not try to replace ("suppléer", Fr.) in that way (.... in French "par là", Fr.) to what, if we did really possess it, would have no need whatsoever to flaunt itself.

Who does his task from day to day and meets whatever comes his way, Believing God has willed it so, has found real greatness here below. Who guards his post, no matter where, believing God must need him there, Although but lowly toil it be, has risen to nobility. For great and low there's just one test, 'tis that each man shall do his best, Who works with all the strength he can, shall never die in debt to man.

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

If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.

To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love.

The greatest determinant of greatness is going to be our ability to collaborate with others who have pieces of the puzzle we don't.

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.

The life of Lincoln should never be passed by in silence by young or old. He touched the log cabin and it became the palace in which greatness was nurtured. He touched the forest and it became to him a church in which the purest and noblest worship of God was observed. His occupation has become associated in our minds with the integrity of the life he lived. In Lincoln there was always some quality that fastened him to the people and taught their to keep time to the music of his heart.

[On Russia:] In every way, there is something gigantic about this people: ordinary dimensions have no applications whatever to it. I do not mean by this that true greatness and stability are never met with; but their boldness, their imaginativeness knows no bounds. With them everything is colossal rather than well-proportioned, audacious rather than well-considered, and if they do not attain their goals, it is because they exceed them.

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

Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great & being maladjusted to an unjust status quo.

Worship is just responding to the greatness of God.

I believe that there is no test of greatness in periods, nations or men more sure than the development, among them or in them, of a noble grotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one kind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention, or incapability of understanding it.

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

To be honest, there are many things said about Russia because they have been demonized for years at the behest of the USA. It is part of the greatness of a European country to develop one's own opinion and to not view everything through the US lens. We have no lesson to teach Russia if we concurrently roll out the red carpet to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China.

There is within each of us a divine spark of greatness. Who knows of what we are capable if we only try?

The arrogance is not greatness but swelling; and the swelling seems big but it's not healthy.

Most people who desire God look for the God state too far from home, but the seed of spiritual greatness is in the heart of all. The spiritual exercises help one find a comfortable relationship with the Eck, the Holy Spirit - and with all life.

Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.

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.

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

Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice... Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.

Appreciation, whether of nature, or books, or art, or men, depends very much on temperament. What is beauty or genius or greatness to one, is far from being so to another.

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!

Governor, why wouldn't anyone want to say the Pledge of Allegiance, unless they detested their own country or were ignorant of its greatness?

Know your literary tradition, savor it, steal from it, but when you sit down to write, forget about worshiping greatness and fetishizing masterpieces.

For people could close their eyes to greatness, to horrors, to beauty, and their ears to melodies or deceiving words. But they couldn't escape scent. For scent was a brother of breath. Together with breath it entered human beings, who couldn't defend themselves against it, not if they wanted to live. And scent entered into their very core, went directly to their hearts, and decided for good and all between affection and contempt, disgust and lust, love and hate. He who ruled scent ruled the hearts of men.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

No one was ever saved because his sins were small; no one was ever rejected on account of the greatness of his sins. Where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound.

The key that unlocks your greatness is deliberate, disciplined and consistent effort.

Give her not greatness. For great souls must stand Alone and lonely in this little world: Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand, Thither by earthquakes hurled.

The economy and its dismal status is the result of policy decisions that Obama has made and put into place. It's not the quirk of fate. It's not that America's best days are over. It's not that America's past was a fad or a quirk. It's not that the great economic days of the eighties were illegitimate or unreal. It's not that this is the new normal. It's not that all of the greatness in the past was undeserved. It is precisely because of Obama policies implemented since 2009 that this country is in the shape it's in.

Neither wealth or greatness render us happy.

The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is.

The course of our lives is determined by how we react--what we decide and what we do--at the darkest of times. The nature of that response determines a person's true worth and greatness.

It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.

Every day that you don't practice is one day longer before you achieve greatness