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data-mw-ve-target-container> <div class="vector-body-before-content"> <div class="mw-indicators"> </div> <div id="siteSub" class="noprint">From Wikiquote</div> </div> <div id="contentSub"><div id="mw-content-subtitle"><span class="mw-redirectedfrom">(Redirected from <a href="/w/index.php?title=Great&redirect=no" class="mw-redirect" title="Great">Great</a>)</span></div></div> <div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_(L%27Emeute)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/220px-Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="169" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/330px-Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/55/Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/440px-Honor%C3%A9_Daumier_-_The_Uprising_%28L%27Emeute%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg 2x" data-file-width="4001" data-file-height="3077" /></a><figcaption>The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise. ~ <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Desmoulins" class="extiw" title="w:Camille Desmoulins">Camille Desmoulins</a> </figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg/220px-Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="219" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg/330px-Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg/440px-Angelo_Bronzino_-_St_Matthew_-_WGA03275.jpg 2x" data-file-width="930" data-file-height="925" /></a><figcaption>Whoever <a href="/wiki/Wishes" title="Wishes">wishes</a> to be great among you must be your <a href="/wiki/Servant" title="Servant">servant</a>. ~ <a href="/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew" title="Gospel of Matthew">Gospel of Matthew</a></figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-right" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg/220px-Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="293" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg/330px-Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg/440px-Statue_d%27Alfred_le_Grand_%C3%A0_Winchester.jpg 2x" data-file-width="768" data-file-height="1024" /></a><figcaption>Greatness <a href="/wiki/Knows" class="mw-redirect" title="Knows">knows</a> <a href="/wiki/Itself" class="mw-redirect" title="Itself">itself</a>. ~ <a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a> </figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-right" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg/220px-Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="221" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg/330px-Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg/440px-Bronze_Horseman_by_Kustodiev.jpg 2x" data-file-width="834" data-file-height="837" /></a><figcaption>No great <a href="/wiki/Deed" title="Deed">deed</a> is done <br /> By falterers who ask for <a href="/wiki/Certainty" title="Certainty">certainty</a>. ~ <a href="/wiki/George_Eliot" title="George Eliot">George Eliot</a> </figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-right" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg/220px-%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="293" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg/330px-%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg/440px-%D0%9C%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC.jpg 2x" data-file-width="900" data-file-height="1200" /></a><figcaption>Some are <a href="/wiki/Born" class="mw-redirect" title="Born">born</a> great, some <a href="/wiki/Achieve" class="mw-redirect" title="Achieve">achieve</a> greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. ~ <a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a> </figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size mw-halign-right" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg/220px-Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="348" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg/330px-Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg/440px-Magic_Sankt_Petersburg_-_Weisse_N%C3%A4chte-Landmarks_%26_Treasures_2.jpg 2x" data-file-width="833" data-file-height="1319" /></a><figcaption>We have not the <a href="/wiki/Love" title="Love">love</a> of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness. ~ <a href="/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle" title="Thomas Carlyle">Thomas Carlyle</a> </figcaption></figure> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Victoria_Cross_2.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Victoria_Cross_2.jpg/220px-Victoria_Cross_2.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="323" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Victoria_Cross_2.jpg/330px-Victoria_Cross_2.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Victoria_Cross_2.jpg 2x" data-file-width="436" data-file-height="640" /></a><figcaption>It is not <a href="/wiki/Wealth" title="Wealth">wealth</a> or <a href="/wiki/Ancestry" class="mw-redirect" title="Ancestry">ancestry</a> <br />but <a href="/wiki/Honour" class="mw-redirect" title="Honour">honourable</a> <a href="/wiki/Conduct" class="mw-redirect" title="Conduct">conduct</a> and a <a href="/wiki/Noble" class="mw-redirect" title="Noble">noble</a> disposition <br />that maketh <a href="/wiki/Men" class="mw-redirect" title="Men">men</a> great.</figcaption></figure> <p><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatness" class="extiw" title="w:Greatness">Greatness</a></b> or <b>preeminence</b> are terms used to emphasize the perceived superiority of a person or thing. In Europe the most lauded rulers were given the attribute the Great (e.g. <a href="/wiki/Alfred_the_Great" title="Alfred the Great">Alfred the Great</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_the_Great" class="extiw" title="w:Peter the Great">Peter the Great</a>), and during the Roman Era and Middle Ages, the Latin title for the Great (Magnus) was used (e.g. <a href="/wiki/Albertus_Magnus" title="Albertus Magnus">Albertus Magnus</a>). </p> <div role="navigation" style="margin-left: 2em;"> <p>Arranged alphabetically by author or source:<br /><a href="#A">A</a> · <a href="#B">B</a> · <a href="#C">C</a> · <a href="#D">D</a> · <a href="#E">E</a> · <a href="#F">F</a> · <a href="#G">G</a> · <a href="#H">H</a> · <a href="#I">I</a> · <a href="#J">J</a> · <a href="#K">K</a> · <a href="#L">L</a> · <a href="#M">M</a> · <a href="#N">N</a> · <a href="#O">O</a> · <a href="#P">P</a> · <a href="#Q">Q</a> · <a href="#R">R</a> · <a href="#S">S</a> · <a href="#T">T</a> · <a href="#U">U</a> · <a href="#V">V</a> · <a href="#W">W</a> · <a href="#X">X</a> · <a href="#Y">Y</a> · <a href="#Z">Z</a> · <i><a href="#Hoyt's_New_Cyclopedia_Of_Practical_Quotations">Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations</a></i> · <i><a href="#Dictionary_of_Burning_Words_of_Brilliant_Writers_(1895)">Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers</a></i> · <a href="#See_also">See also</a> · <a href="#External_links">External links</a> </p> </div> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="A">A</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: A"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Joyously quivers the air of the hour before dawn, the hour when Buddha cognized the greatness of Cosmos, and when the Lord Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Agni_Yoga" title="Agni Yoga">Agni Yoga</a>, <i>Leaves of Morya’s Garden II, 241</i> (1925)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime.</b> <ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell_Anderson" class="extiw" title="w:Maxwell Anderson">Maxwell Anderson</a>, referring to <a href="/wiki/George_Washington" title="George Washington">George Washington</a>, in <i>Valley Forge</i> (1937), act II, scene ii, p. 92; character of Mary Philipse</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="B">B</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: B"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Francis_Bacon" title="Francis Bacon">Francis Bacon</a>; this sentence was inscribed on one side of the Golden Door of the Transportation Building at the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893, as reported in <i>Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations</i> (1989)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Burn to be great, <br /> Pay not thy praise to lofty things alone.</b> <br /> The plains are everlasting as the hills, <br /> The bard cannot have two pursuits; aught else <br /> Comes on the mind with the like shock as though <br /> Two worlds had gone to war, and met in air. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Philip_James_Bailey" title="Philip James Bailey">Philip James Bailey</a>, <i>Festus</i> (1813), scene "Home"</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>For four thousand years the strong had been rushing on in the road of privilege and power, seeking greatness. <a href="/wiki/Christ" title="Christ">Christ</a> stood in the path, and said, " Ye seek greatness. Ye are not even in the way to it. Ye are going up, but the way to greatness is down. Let him who would be great be the love-servant of all." Greatness consists in the facility and power of going down, and not in the facility of going up. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Henry_Ward_Beecher" title="Henry Ward Beecher">Henry Ward Beecher</a>, <i>Life Thoughts</i> (1858), p. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://books.google.com/books?id=y2M9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA26">26</a></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce" title="Ambrose Bierce">Ambrose Bierce</a>, <i>The Devil's Dictionary</i> (1911).</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>For greatness after all, in spite of its <a href="/wiki/Name" class="mw-redirect" title="Name">name</a>, appears to be not so much a certain size as a certain <a href="/wiki/Quality" title="Quality">quality</a> in <a href="/wiki/Human" title="Human">human</a> <a href="/wiki/Lives" class="mw-redirect" title="Lives">lives</a>. It may be present in lives whose range is very small. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Phillips_Brooks" title="Phillips Brooks">Phillips Brooks</a>, Sermons (1879), p. 14</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Greatness by <a href="/wiki/Nature" title="Nature">nature</a> includes a <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">power</a>, but not a will to power.</b> … The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense <a href="/wiki/Activity" class="mw-redirect" title="Activity">activity</a> of his <a href="/wiki/Work" title="Work">work</a> or in the restful equipoise of his <a href="/wiki/Forces" class="mw-redirect" title="Forces">forces</a>, is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. <b>What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in <a href="/wiki/Mind" title="Mind">mind</a>, the incarnation of the <a href="/wiki/Spirit" title="Spirit">spirit</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Martin_Buber" title="Martin Buber">Martin Buber</a>, criticizing <a href="/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche" title="Friedrich Nietzsche">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>'s concept of "Will to Power," <i>Between Man and Man</i> (1965), p. 150</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Edmund_Burke" title="Edmund Burke">Edmund Burke</a>, speech on American taxation, House of Commons (April 19, 1774); reported in <i>The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1899), vol. 2, p. 65</i></li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="C">C</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: C"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: <a href="/wiki/Freedom" title="Freedom">Freedom</a>; <a href="/wiki/Justice" title="Justice">Justice</a>; <a href="/wiki/Honour" class="mw-redirect" title="Honour">Honour</a>; <a href="/wiki/Duty" title="Duty">Duty</a>; <a href="/wiki/Mercy" title="Mercy">Mercy</a>; <a href="/wiki/Hope" title="Hope">Hope</a>. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Winston_Churchill" title="Winston Churchill">Winston Churchill</a>, United Europe Meeting, Albert Hall, London (May 14, 1947). Cited in Churchill by Himself, ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs (2008), p. 26 <a href="/wiki/Special:BookSources/1586486381" title="Special:BookSources/1586486381">ISBN 1586486381</a></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>It is not wealth or ancestry</b> <br /><b>but honourable conduct and a noble disposition</b> <br /><b>that maketh men great.</b> <ul><li>Epitaph on the grave of Jack Travers Cornwell, who received the Victoria Cross for actions during the Battle of Jutland at age 16.</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and what you are, in Philadelphia, now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he who can be a good citizen while he lives here, he that can make better homes, he that can be a blessing whether he works in the shop or sits behind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his life, he who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia. <ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Conwell" class="extiw" title="w:Russell Conwell">Russell H. Conwell</a>, <i>Acres of Diamonds</i> (1915), p. 59. Conwell gave this public address more than 6,000 times from 1877 until his death in 1925. He tailored his speech to individual cities by changing Philadelphia, his home town, to the name of the city where he was speaking.</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Few men, I imagine, who become great started on their career with the <a href="/wiki/Intention" title="Intention">intention</a> of becoming so. The intention generally accompanies the unsuccessful. The secret of real greatness seems to be a happy knack of doing things as they come in your way; and they rarely present themselves in the form which careful preparation would enable you to deal with. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Mandell_Creighton" title="Mandell Creighton">Mandell Creighton</a>, <i>Heroes,</i> address given to the Social and Political Education League (4 November 1898)</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="D">D</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: D"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><i>Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous.</i> <br /> <i>Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis.</i> <br /> <b>The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.</b> <ul><li>Inscription in French, Irish, and English on a monument to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Larkin" class="extiw" title="w:James Larkin">James (Big Jim) Larkin</a> on O'Connell Street in Dublin, Ireland. Although Larkin used it in a famous speech, the slogan is usually attributed to the French revolutionary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Desmoulins" class="extiw" title="w:Camille Desmoulins">Camille Desmoulins</a>, as reported in Antoine Eugene de Genoude (abbe.), <i>Histoire de France</i> (‎1848), p. 140</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="E">E</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=5" title="Edit section: E"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Albert_Einstein" title="Albert Einstein">Albert Einstein</a>, in <i>Essential Einstein</i> (1995)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>No great deed is done <br /> By falterers who ask for <a href="/wiki/Certainty" title="Certainty">certainty</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/George_Eliot" title="George Eliot">George Eliot</a>, <i>The Spanish Gypsy</i> (1868), Book I</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson" title="Ralph Waldo Emerson">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>, "The American Scholar," oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts (August 31, 1837); in <i>Nature, Addresses and Lectures</i> (vol. 3 of The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson) (1906), p. 100</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="F">F</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=6" title="Edit section: F"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>I am destined to pass through this world, wandering like an invisible meteor. Precisely because I am superior, I will have to empty the entire cup of sorrow and distress with no joy to cheer me. But the harsh intoxication of drinking from the chalice of sorrow is a superb pleasure that only one who tears his soul to shreds by himself, with his own hands, is given to taste. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Bruno_Filippi" title="Bruno Filippi">Bruno Filippi</a>, <i>The Rebel's Dark Laughter</i> (1918)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Pour accomplir de grandes choses il ne suffit pas d'agir il faut rêver; il ne suffit pas de calculer, il faut croire.</i></li> <li><b>To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also <a href="/wiki/Dream" class="mw-redirect" title="Dream">dream</a>; not only plan, but also <a href="/wiki/Believe" class="mw-redirect" title="Believe">believe</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Anatole_France" title="Anatole France">Anatole France</a>, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal, in <i>Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française</i> — introductory speech at a session of the French Academy (24 December 1896)</li> <li>Variant translation: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="G">G</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=7" title="Edit section: G"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <figure class="mw-default-size" typeof="mw:File/Thumb"><a href="/wiki/File:Allen_C._Guelzo,_January_2013.jpg" class="mw-file-description"><img src="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg/220px-Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg" decoding="async" width="220" height="192" class="mw-file-element" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg/330px-Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg/440px-Allen_C._Guelzo%2C_January_2013.jpg 2x" data-file-width="592" data-file-height="516" /></a><figcaption>[E]ven a great <a href="/wiki/Man" title="Man">man</a> cannot be <a href="/wiki/Wise" class="mw-redirect" title="Wise">wise</a> in <a href="/wiki/Everything" class="mw-redirect" title="Everything">everything</a>. ~ <a href="/wiki/Allen_C._Guelzo" title="Allen C. Guelzo">Allen C. Guelzo</a></figcaption></figure> <ul><li>[E]ven a great man cannot be wise in everything. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Allen_C._Guelzo" title="Allen C. Guelzo">Allen C. Guelzo</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180206105723/http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/the-bicentennial-lincolns/">"The Bicentennial Lincolns"</a> (3 March 2010), <i>Claremont Review of Books</i>, California: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claremont_Institute" class="extiw" title="w:Claremont Institute">Claremont Institute</a></li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="H">H</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=8" title="Edit section: H"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet. <ul><li>Attributed to Admiral <a href="/wiki/William_F._Halsey" class="mw-redirect" title="William F. Halsey">William F. Halsey</a>; reported as unverified in <i>Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations</i> (1989), these words have not been found as spoken by Halsey, but were said by <a href="/wiki/James_Cagney" title="James Cagney">James Cagney</a>, portraying him, in the United Artists film version of Halsey's life, <i>The Gallant Hours</i>.</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Benjamin_Harvey_Hill" title="Benjamin Harvey Hill">Benjamin Harvey Hill</a>, about <a href="/wiki/Robert_E._Lee" title="Robert E. Lee">Robert E. Lee</a>, in an address before the Southern Historical Society, Atlanta, Georgia (18 February 1874), in <i>Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia; His Life, Speeches and Writings</i> (1893), p. 406</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>I am convinced that nothing will happen to me, for I know the greatness of the task for which Providence has chosen me. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Adolf_Hitler" title="Adolf Hitler">Adolf Hitler</a>, remark when running for the presidency of the Reich against Hindenburg in 1932, <i>The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922–August 1939</i>, as translated by Norman H. Baynes (1969), vol. 1, p. 193</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="J">J</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=9" title="Edit section: J"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time. The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top.—You need take no notice of these ebullitions of spleen, which are probably quite unintelligible to anyone but myself. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_James" title="William James">William James</a>, letter to Mrs. Henry Whitman (June 7, 1899), in Henry James, , ed., <i>The Letters of William James</i> (1926), vol. 2, p. 90</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jesus" title="Jesus">Jesus</a>, in <a href="/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew" title="Gospel of Matthew">Matthew</a> 20:25-27</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="K">K</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=10" title="Edit section: K"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/John_F._Kennedy" title="John F. Kennedy">John F. Kennedy</a>, remarks at a dinner honoring Nobel prize winners of the Western Hemisphere (April 29, 1962), in <i>Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962</i>, p. 347</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Four things greater than all things are,— <br /> Women and Horses and Power and War. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling" title="Rudyard Kipling">Rudyard Kipling</a>, "The Ballad of the King's Jest", stanza 5, in <i>The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling: Departmental Ditties and Barrack-Room Ballads</i> (1941, reprinted 1970), vol. 25, p. 234</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="L">L</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=11" title="Edit section: L"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we’ll put all our energies, all our talents into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Doris_Lessing" title="Doris Lessing">Doris Lessing</a> Paul Tanner, in "Free Women: 1"</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="M">M</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=12" title="Edit section: M"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>No one should be astonished if in the following discussion of completely new princedoms and of the prince and of government, I bring up the noblest examples. Because, since men almost always walk in the paths beaten by others and carry on their affairs by imitating—even though it is not possible to keep wholly in the paths of others or to attain the ability of those you imitate—a prudent man will always choose to take paths beaten by great men and to imitate those who have been especially admirable, in order that if his ability does not reach theirs, at least it may offer some suggestion of it; and he will act like prudent archers, who, seeing that the mark they plan to hit is too far away and knowing what space can be covered by the power of their bows, take an aim much higher than their mark, not in order to reach with their arrows so great a height, but to be able, with the aid of so high an aim, to attain their purpose. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli" title="Niccolò Machiavelli">Niccolò Machiavelli</a>, <i>The Prince</i>, chapter 6, in <i>Machiavelli, the Chief Works and Others</i>, trans. Allan Gilbert (1965), vol. 1, p. 24–25</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Are not great <br /> Men the models of nations? <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Owen_Meredith" class="mw-redirect" title="Owen Meredith">Owen Meredith</a> (Lord Lytton), <i>Lucile</i> (1860), Part II, Canto VI, Stanza 29</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="N">N</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=13" title="Edit section: N"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><b>Of what is great one must either be <a href="/wiki/Silent" class="mw-redirect" title="Silent">silent</a> or speak with greatness.</b> With greatness — that means <a href="/wiki/Cynically" class="mw-redirect" title="Cynically">cynically</a> and with <a href="/wiki/Innocence" title="Innocence">innocence</a>. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche" title="Friedrich Nietzsche">Friedrich Nietzsche</a>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Will_to_Power_(manuscript)" class="extiw" title="w:The Will to Power (manuscript)">The Will to Power</a></i>, Preface (1888)</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="P">P</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=14" title="Edit section: P"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>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. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Blaise_Pascal" title="Blaise Pascal">Blaise Pascal</a>, <i>Pascal's Pensées</i>, trans. Martin Turnell (1962), part 1, section 6, p. 164</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="R">R</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=15" title="Edit section: R"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Satan" title="Satan">Satan</a> unavoidably reminds us of <a href="/wiki/Prometheus" title="Prometheus">Prometheus</a>, and although there are essential differences, we are not made to feel them essential. His very situation as the fearless antagonist of <a href="/wiki/Omnipotence" title="Omnipotence">Omnipotence</a> makes him either a fool or a hero, and <a href="/wiki/John_Milton" title="John Milton">Milton</a> is far indeed from permitting us to think him a fool. The nobility and greatness of his bearing are brought home to us in some half-dozen of the finest poetic passages in the world. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Walter_Raleigh_(professor)" title="Walter Raleigh (professor)">Walter Raleigh</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031297644;view=1up;seq=149"><i>Milton</i></a> (1900), p. 133</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt" title="Theodore Roosevelt">Theodore Roosevelt</a>, governor of New York, speech before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois (April 10, 1899); in <i>The Strenuous Life</i> (vol. 13 of The Works of Theodore Roosevelt, national ed.) (1926), chapter 1, p. 322</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>As if Misfortune made the throne her seat, <br /> And none could be unhappy but the great. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Nicholas_Rowe" title="Nicholas Rowe">Nicholas Rowe</a>, <i>The Fair Penitent</i> (1703), Prolog</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="S">S</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=16" title="Edit section: S"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>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 estimate of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/John_Campbell_Shairp" title="John Campbell Shairp">John Campbell Shairp</a>, <i>Robert Burns</i> (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879), Ch. I: "Youth in Ayrshire", p. 1</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Greatness knows itself.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <a href="/wiki/Henry_IV,_Part_1" title="Henry IV, Part 1"><i>Henry IV</i>, Part I</a> (c. 1597), Act IV, scene 3, line 74</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>I have touched the highest point of all my greatness: <br /> And, from that full meridian of my glory, <br /> I haste now to my setting. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Henry_VIII_(play)" title="Henry VIII (play)">Henry VIII</a></i> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_(play)#Date" class="extiw" title="w:Henry VIII (play)">c. 1613</a>), Act III, scene 2, line 223</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness! <br /> This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth <br /> The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, <br /> And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: <br /> The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, <br /> And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely <br /> His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, <br /> And then he falls, as I do. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Henry_VIII_(play)" title="Henry VIII (play)">Henry VIII</a></i> (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_(play)#Date" class="extiw" title="w:Henry VIII (play)">c. 1613</a>), Act III, scene 2, line 351</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world <br /> Like a Colossus, and we petty men <br /> Walk under his huge legs and peep about <br /> To find ourselves dishonorable graves. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(play)" title="Julius Caesar (play)">Julius Cæsar</a></i> (1599), Act I, scene 2, line 135</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Are yet two Romans living such as these? <br /> The last of all the Romans, fare thee well! <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Julius_Caesar_(play)" title="Julius Caesar (play)">Julius Cæsar</a></i> (1599), Act V, scene 3, line 98</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy, <br /> <a href="/wiki/Nature" title="Nature">Nature</a> and <a href="/wiki/Fortune" title="Fortune">Fortune</a> join'd to make thee great. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/King_John" title="King John">King John</a></i> (1598), Act III, scene 1, line 51</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Your name is great <br /> In mouths of wisest censure.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Othello" title="Othello">Othello</a></i> (c. 1603), Act II, scene 3, line 192</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>They that stand high have many blasts to shake them; <br /> And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Richard_III_(play)" title="Richard III (play)">Richard III</a></i> (c. 1591), Act I, scene 3, line 259</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Twelfth_Night" title="Twelfth Night">Twelfth Night</a></i> (c. 1601-02), Act II, scene 5, line 157</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Shakespeare" title="William Shakespeare">William Shakespeare</a>, <i><a href="/wiki/Twelfth_Night" title="Twelfth Night">Twelfth Night</a></i> (c. 1601-02), Act II, scene v, lines 155–59, Malvolio speaking</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>There are two alternatives, and only two, before us.</b> First, which is unlikely, is that we unscramble our modern interdependent <a href="/wiki/Culture" title="Culture">culture</a>, returning to separate and isolationist lives … Such a <a href="/wiki/World" title="World">world</a> would not demand greatness. The other alternative is to so expand our spiritual powers that we vastly increase the range of our <a href="/wiki/Understanding" title="Understanding">understanding</a> and <a href="/wiki/Sympathy" title="Sympathy">sympathy</a>. <b>There is no middle way. It is greatness — <a href="/wiki/Universalism" title="Universalism">universalism</a> — or perish.</b> <ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Skinner_(minister)" class="extiw" title="w:Clarence Skinner (minister)">Clarence Skinner</a>, <i>The Universalist Leader</i>, Vol. 125, Issue 24 (1943), p. 748</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>There is but one method, and that is hard labour</b>;[…] there is but one mode of being intellectually great. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Sydney_Smith" title="Sydney Smith">Sydney Smith</a>, <i>Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy</i> (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1850), Lecture IX: "On the Conduct of the Understanding", p. 97.</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="T">T</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=17" title="Edit section: T"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb" title="Nassim Nicholas Taleb">Nassim Nicholas Taleb</a>, <i>The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms</i> (2010) The Sage, the Weak, and the Magnificent, p. 94.</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers—and it was not there … in her fertile fields and boundless forests—and it was not there … in her rich mines and her vast world commerce—and it was not there … in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution—and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. <ul><li>Attributed to <a href="/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville" title="Alexis de Tocqueville">Alexis de Tocqueville</a> by Dwight D. Eisenhower in his final campaign address in Boston, Massachusetts (November 3, 1952); reported as unverified in <i>Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations</i> (1989). The last two sentences are attributed to de Tocqueville's Democracy in America by Sherwood Eddy, <i>The Kingdom of God and the American Dream</i> (1941), chapter 1, p. 6. This appears with minor variations in Ralph L. Woods, ed., <i>A Third Treasury of the Familiar</i> (1970), p. 347, as "attributed to de Tocqueville but not found in his works".</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="V">V</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=18" title="Edit section: V"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>This is the bare chronology of as great an American as ever lived. Ten thousand pages would be required to fill in the full story of his talents, his genius and his impact upon the foundation of America. He was ever the subject of white-heat controversy—in death even as in life. But for myself, summing it all up, I say that five words might be his epitaph: THE REPUBLIC IS HIS MONUMENT. <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Arthur_H._Vandenberg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Arthur H. Vandenberg (page does not exist)">Arthur H. Vandenberg</a>, "Story of Alexander Hamilton as Told by Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg", <i>The Sons of the American Revolution Magazine</i> (February 1950), p. 9. Also <i>Congressional Record</i> (February 24, 1950), vol. 96, Appendix, p. A1378</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="W">W</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=19" title="Edit section: W"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Charles_Dudley_Warner" title="Charles Dudley Warner">Charles Dudley Warner</a>, "Comments on Canada," section 3, <i>Studies in the South and West with Comments on Canada</i> (1889), p. 483</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Y">Y</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=20" title="Edit section: Y"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <ul><li>High stations, tumult, but not bliss, create; <br /> None think the great unhappy, but the great. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Edward_Young" title="Edward Young">Edward Young</a>, <i>Love of Fame</i> (1725-28), Satire I, line 237</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Hoyt's_New_Cyclopedia_Of_Practical_Quotations"><span id="Hoyt.27s_New_Cyclopedia_Of_Practical_Quotations"></span><i>Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations</i></h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=21" title="Edit section: Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <dl><dd><small>Quotes reported in <i><a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hoyt%27s_New_Cyclopedia_Of_Practical_Quotations_(1922)" class="extiw" title="wikisource:Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)">Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations</a></i> (1922), p. 340-42.</small></dd></dl> <ul><li>Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven; <br /> No pyramids set off his memories, <br /> But the eternal substance of his greatness,— <br /> To which I leave him. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Beaumont_and_Fletcher" title="Beaumont and Fletcher">Beaumont and Fletcher</a>, <i>The False One</i>, Act II, scene 1</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle" title="Thomas Carlyle">Thomas Carlyle</a>, <i>Sartor Resartus</i>, <i>The Everlasting Yea</i>, Book II, Chapter IX</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>We have not the <a href="/wiki/Love" title="Love">love</a> of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle" title="Thomas Carlyle">Thomas Carlyle</a>, <i>Essays</i>, Characteristics, Volume III</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Nemo vir magnus aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit.</i> <ul><li>No man was ever great without divine inspiration.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Cicero" title="Cicero">Cicero</a>, <i>De Natura Deorum</i>, II. 66</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Isaac_D%27Israeli" title="Isaac D'Israeli">Isaac D'Israeli</a>, <i>The Literary Character, Illustrated by the History of Men of Genius</i> (1795-1822), Chapter XV</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>So let his name through Europe ring! <br /> A man of mean estate, <br /> Who died as firm as Sparta's king, <br /> Because his soul was great. <ul><li>Sir <a href="/w/index.php?title=Francis_Hastings_Doyle&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Francis Hastings Doyle (page does not exist)">Francis Hastings Doyle</a>, <i>The Private of the Buffs</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>He is great who is what he is from <a href="/wiki/Nature" title="Nature">Nature</a>, and who never reminds us of others. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson" title="Ralph Waldo Emerson">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>, <i>Essays</i>, Second Series. Uses of Great Men</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Nature never sends a great man into the planet, without confiding the secret to another <a href="/wiki/Soul" title="Soul">soul</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson" title="Ralph Waldo Emerson">Ralph Waldo Emerson</a>, <i>Uses of Great Men</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>He who comes up to his own idea of greatness, must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Hazlitt" title="William Hazlitt">William Hazlitt</a>, <i>Table Talk</i>, Whether Genius is Conscious of its own Power</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>No really great man ever thought himself so. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Hazlitt" title="William Hazlitt">William Hazlitt</a>, <i>Table Talk</i>, Whether Genius is Conscious of its own Power</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Ajax the great * * * <br /> Himself a host. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Homer" title="Homer">Homer</a>, <i>The Iliad</i>, Book III, line 293, as translated by <a href="/wiki/Alexander_Pope" title="Alexander Pope">Alexander Pope</a></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>For he that once is <a href="/wiki/Good" class="mw-redirect" title="Good">good</a>, is ever great.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Ben_Jonson" title="Ben Jonson">Ben Jonson</a>, <i>The Forest</i>, <i>To Lady Aubigny</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Urit enim fulgore suo qui prægravat artes <br /> Intra se positas; extinctus amabitur idem.</i> <ul><li><b>That man scorches with his brightness, who overpowers inferior capacities, yet he shall be revered when dead.</b></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Horace" title="Horace">Horace</a>, <i>Epistles</i>, II. 1. 13</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Greatnesse on goodnesse loves to slide, not stand, <br /> And leaves, for fortune's ice, vertue's firme land. <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Richard_Knolles&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Richard Knolles (page does not exist)">Richard Knolles</a>, <i>Turkish History</i>. Under a portrait of Mustapha I, line 13</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Great is advertisement! 'tis almost fate; <br /> But, little mushroom-men, of puff-ball fame. <br /> Ah, do you dream to be mistaken great <br /> And to be really great are just the same? <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Richard_Le_Gallienne" title="Richard Le Gallienne">Richard Le Gallienne</a>, <i>Alfred Tennyson</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Il n'appartient qu'aux grands hommes d'avoir de grands défauts.</i> <ul><li>It is the prerogative of great men only to have great defects.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_La_Rochefoucauld" title="François de La Rochefoucauld">François de La Rochefoucauld</a>, <i>Maximes</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>The great man is the man who can get himself made and who will get himself made out of anything he finds at hand.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Gerald_Stanley_Lee" title="Gerald Stanley Lee">Gerald Stanley Lee</a>, <i>Crowds</i> (1913), Book II, Chapter XV</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Great men stand like solitary towers in the city of <a href="/wiki/God" title="God">God</a>. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Henry_Wadsworth_Longfellow" title="Henry Wadsworth Longfellow">Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</a>, <i>Kavanagh: A Tale</i> (1849), Chapter I</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/James_Russell_Lowell" title="James Russell Lowell">James Russell Lowell</a>, <i>My Study Windows</i>, <i>Garfield</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Horace_Mann" title="Horace Mann">Horace Mann</a> Journal entry (29 October 1838)</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>The great man is he who does not lose his <a href="/wiki/Child" class="mw-redirect" title="Child">child</a>'s <a href="/wiki/Heart" title="Heart">heart</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Mencius" title="Mencius">Mencius</a>, <i>Works</i>, Book IV, Part II, Chapter XII</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>That man is great, and he alone, <br /> Who serves a greatness not his own, <br /> For neither praise nor pelf: <br /> Content to know and be unknown: <br /> Whole in himself.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Owen_Meredith" class="mw-redirect" title="Owen Meredith">Owen Meredith</a> (Lord Lytton), A Great Man</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Les grands ne sont grands que parceque nous, les portons sur nos épaules; nous n'avons qu' à les secouer pour en joncher la terre. <ul><li>The great are only great because we carry them on our shoulders; when we throw them off they sprawl on the ground.</li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_de_La_Rochefoucauld,_marquis_de_Montendre" class="extiw" title="w:François de La Rochefoucauld, marquis de Montendre">François de La Rochefoucauld, marquis de Montendre</a>, <i>Point de l'Ovale</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Lives obscurely great. <ul><li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Henry_J._Newboldt&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Henry J. Newboldt (page does not exist)">Henry J. Newboldt</a>, <i>Minora Sidera</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Les grands ne sont grands que parceque nous sommes à genoux: relevons nous.</i> <ul><li>The great are only great because we are on our knees. Let us rise up.</li> <li><a href="/w/index.php?title=Louis-Marie_Prudhomme&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Louis-Marie Prudhomme (page does not exist)">Louis-Marie Prudhomme</a>, <i>Révolutions de Paris</i>, Motto</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Es ist der Fluch der Hohen, dass die Niedern <br /> Sich ihres offnen Ohrs bemächtigen.</i> <ul><li>The curse of greatness: <br /> Ears ever open to the babbler's tale.</li> <li><a href="/wiki/Friedrich_Schiller" title="Friedrich Schiller">Friedrich Schiller</a>, <i>Die Braut von Messina</i>, I</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><i>Si vir es, suspice, etiam si decidunt, magna </i>conantes. <ul><li><b> If thou art a man, admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.</b></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger" title="Seneca the Younger">Seneca the Younger</a>, <i>De Brevitate</i>, XX</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Not that the heavens the little can make great, <br /> But many a man has lived an age too late. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Richard_Henry_Stoddard" title="Richard Henry Stoddard">Richard Henry Stoddard</a>, <i>To Edmund Clarence Stedman</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Jonathan_Swift" title="Jonathan Swift">Jonathan Swift</a>, <i>Thoughts on Various Subjects</i></li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>The <a href="/wiki/World" title="World">world</a> knows nothing of its greatest men.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Henry_Taylor" title="Henry Taylor">Henry Taylor</a>, <i>Philip Van Artevelde</i>, Act I, scene 5</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>He fought a thousand glorious wars, <br /> And more than half the world was his, <br /> And somewhere, now, in yonder stars, <br /> Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/William_Makepeace_Thackeray" title="William Makepeace Thackeray">William Makepeace Thackeray</a>, <i>The Chronicle of the Drum</i>, last verse</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>O, happy they that never saw the court, <br /> Nor ever knew great men but by report! <ul><li><a href="/wiki/John_Webster" title="John Webster">John Webster</a>, <i>The White Devil; or, Vittoria Corombona</i>, Act V, scene VI</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li>Great let me call him, for he conquered me. <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Edward_Young" title="Edward Young">Edward Young</a>, <i>The Revenge</i>, Act I, scene 1</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Dictionary_of_Burning_Words_of_Brilliant_Writers_(1895)"><span id="Dictionary_of_Burning_Words_of_Brilliant_Writers_.281895.29"></span><i>Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers</i> (1895)</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=22" title="Edit section: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <p><small>Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, <i>Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers</i> (1895).</small> </p> <ul><li><b>The greatest man is he who chooses the right with the most invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptation from within and without; who bears the heavest burdens cheerfully; who is calmest in <a href="/wiki/Storms" class="mw-redirect" title="Storms">storms</a>, and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on <a href="/wiki/Truth" title="Truth">truth</a>, on <a href="/wiki/Virtue" title="Virtue">virtue</a>, and on <a href="/wiki/God" title="God">God</a> is most unfaltering.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger" title="Seneca the Younger">Seneca the Younger</a>, p. 292</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the using of strength.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Henry_Ward_Beecher" title="Henry Ward Beecher">Henry Ward Beecher</a>, p. 292</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>True greatness does not consist so much in doing extraordinary things, as in conducting ordinary affairs with a noble demeanor and from a right motive.</b> It is necessary and most profitable to remember the advice to Titus, "Showing all good fidelity in all things." <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Elias_Lyman_Magoon" title="Elias Lyman Magoon">Elias Lyman Magoon</a>, p. 292</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Daniel_Webster" title="Daniel Webster">Daniel Webster</a>, p. 292</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>He who does the most <a href="/wiki/Good" class="mw-redirect" title="Good">good</a> is the greatest man.</b> <a href="/wiki/Power" title="Power">Power</a>, <a href="/wiki/Authority" title="Authority">authority</a>, <a href="/wiki/Dignity" title="Dignity">dignity</a>; honors, <a href="/wiki/Wealth" title="Wealth">wealth</a>, and station,— these are so far valuable as they put it into the hands of men to be more exemplary and more useful than they could be in an obscure and private life. <b>But then these are means conducting to an <a href="/wiki/End" title="End">end</a>, and that end is goodness.</b> <ul><li>Bishop Jortin, p. 293</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>A great man, I take it, is a man so inspired and permeated with the ideas of <a href="/wiki/God" title="God">God</a> and the Christly <a href="/wiki/Spirit" title="Spirit">spirit</a> as to be too magnanimous for <a href="/wiki/Vengeance" class="mw-redirect" title="Vengeance">vengeance</a>, and too unselfish to seek his own ends.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/David_Thomas_(born_1813)" title="David Thomas (born 1813)">David Thomas</a>, p. 293</li></ul></li></ul> <ul><li><b>It is, in a great measure, by raising up and endowing great minds that <a href="/wiki/God" title="God">God</a> secures the advance of human affairs, and the accomplishment of His own plans on <a href="/wiki/Earth" title="Earth">earth</a>.</b> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Albert_Barnes" title="Albert Barnes">Albert Barnes</a>, p. 293</li></ul></li></ul> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=23" title="Edit section: See also"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r3507533">@media all and (max-width:720px){.mw-parser-output table.multicol>tr>td,.mw-parser-output table.multicol>tbody>tr>td{display:block!important;width:100%!important;padding:0!important}}.mw-parser-output table.multicol{border:0;border-collapse:collapse;background-color:transparent;padding:0}.mw-parser-output table.multicol>tr>td,.mw-parser-output table.multicol>tbody>tr>td{vertical-align:top}</style> <table class="multicol" style="width: 100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="50%" align="left" valign="top"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Excellence" title="Excellence">Excellence</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Goodness" title="Goodness">Goodness</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Humility" title="Humility">Humility</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Merit" title="Merit">Merit</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Nobility" title="Nobility">Nobility</a></li></ul> </td> <td width="50%" align="left" valign="top"> <ul><li><a href="/wiki/Virtue" title="Virtue">Virtue</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Worth" title="Worth">Worth</a></li> <li><a href="/wiki/Category:Virtues" title="Category:Virtues">List of virtues</a></li></ul> <p>  </p> </td></tr></tbody></table> <div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="External_links">External links</h2><span class="mw-editsection"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">[</span><a href="/w/index.php?title=Greatness&action=edit&section=24" title="Edit section: External links"><span>edit</span></a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket">]</span></span></div> <div class="noprint" style="clear: right; 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