Quotes About Greatness

Do you recall, from your childhood on, how very much this life of yours has longed for greatness? I see it now, how from the vantage point of greatness it longs for even greater greatness. That is why it does not let up being difficult, but that is also why it will not cease to grow.

Everyone has the power for greatness, not for fame but greatness, because greatness is determined by service.

False greatness is unsociable and remote: conscious of its own frailty, it hides, or at least averts its face, and reveals itself only enough to create an illusion and not be recognized as the meanness that it really is. True greatness is free, kind, familiar and popular; it lets itself be touched and handled, it loses nothing by being seen at close quarters; the better one knows it, the more one admires it.

Whoever has not arrived at the clear insight that there might be greatness entirely outside his own sphere for which he has no understanding, whoever does not have at least a dim inkling in which area of the human spirit this greatness might be situated: he is within his own sphere either without genius, or he has not educated himself up to the point of the classical attitude.

Worship is a response to greatness. A man does not become a worshipper merely by saying, "Now I shall become a worshipper." That is impossible. That cannot be done. A man becomes a worshipper when he sees something great that calls forth his admiration or his worship. That is the only way worshippers are made. Worship answers to greatness.

Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness--that means cynically and with innocence.

It is often lamented by the churchmen that Washington and Lincoln possessed little religion except that found in the word 'God.' All that can here be affirmed is that what the religion of those two men lacked in theological details it made up in greatness. Their minds were born with a love of great principles... There are few instances in which a mind great enough to reach great principles in politics has been satisfied with a fanatical religion... It must not be asked for Washington and Lincoln that, having reached greatness in political principles, they should have loved littleness in piety.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.

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

True artists pursue greatness in craft in order to give the Lord the best fruit of the talent He has given them, not to build themselves up. They understand that true greatness is found in the heart of the servant.

That knowledge which adds greatness to character is knowledge so handled as to transform every phase of immediate experience.

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

I have never lost faith in America's essential goodness and greatness.

He is the way, the truth, and the light, and no one can come back into the presence of our Father in heaven except through him. Christ is God the Son and possesses every virtue in its perfection. Therefore, the only measure of true greatness is how close a man can become like Jesus. That man is greatest who is most like Christ, and those who love him most will be most like him.

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

No tongue is able to declare the greatness of the love that Jesus bears to every soul: and therefore this Spouse, when he would leave this earth, in order that his absence might not cause us to forget him, left us as a memorial this Blessed Sacrament, in which he himself remained; for he would not that there should be any other pledge to keep alive our remembrance of him than he himself.

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

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.

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

I know starting careers in troubled times is a challenge, but it is also a privilege. Because it's moments like these that force us to try harder, dig deeper and to discover gifts we never knew we had. To find the greatness that lies within each of us. So don't ever shy away from that endeavor. Don't stop adding to your body of work. I can promise that you will be the better for that continued effort as will be this nation that we all love.

Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character.

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.

It's just that it's hard to believe in greatness.

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.

Our destiny is greatness and we must return to its fulfillment.

One interesting indication of Capablanca's greatness is that to non-chess players his name was better known than the names of all other chess masters together! This was due partly to his engaging personality and distinguished appearance: he was one of those exceptional people who at once stand out in a crowd.

With eyes of faith consider the greatness of your mission and the wonderful amount of good which you can accomplish.

What I saw so clearly when I started climbing was adventure. Difficulty was only an ingredient. I never thought to wonder about grades, just as I never thought to wonder what Tarzan might bench press. I found the closer I moved to sport, the closer I felt to science - and the closer I moved to adventure, the closer I felt to greatness.

The Jews who will it shall achieve their State. We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and in our own homes peacefully die. The world will be liberated by our freedom, enriched by our wealth, magnified by our greatness. And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.

The potential for greatness lives within us all.

Both desire and imagination are stored in the mind of the individual and when stretched, both have the potential to position a person for greatness.

Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness.

Human relations are built on feeling, not on reason or knowledge. And feeling is not an exact science; like all spiritual qualities, it has the vagueness of greatness about it.

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.

Never for a moment allow your greatness to interfere with your goodness.

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 a lot of small things done well. Day after day, workout after workout, obedience after obedience, day after day.

Theodosius was chaste and temperate; he enjoyed, without excess, the sensual and social pleasures of the table, and the warmth of his amorous passions was never diverted from their lawful objects. The proud titles of Imperial greatness were adorned by the tender names of a faithful husband, an indulgent father; his uncle was raised, by his affectionate esteem, to the rank of a second parent.

I do not admire a virtue like valour when it is pushed to excess, if I do not see at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue, as one does in Epaminondas, who displayed extreme valour and extreme benevolence. For otherwise it is not an ascent, but a fall. We do not display our greatness by placing ourselves at one extremity, but rather by being at both at the same time, and filling up the whole of the space between them.

No one has ever achieved greatness without dreams.

Greatness is largely a social accident, and almost always socially supported.

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! Hath he not always treasures, always friends, The good great man? Three treasures, love and light, And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath; And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

We don't have to be victims of our past, that we can let go of our bitterness, and that all of us can achieve greatness.

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.

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends.

Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, with which all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite... Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarreling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: It is even, as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.

A president who believed that America's greatness is recoverable and expandable - a chief executive determined to lead us back to national restoration - would reject the crippling notions of national impotency that Obama has embraced.