Quotes about Greatness

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

There's no way to convince people of your greatness. Whatever it is that you want to be, you have to know it inside and knife-fight your way to your dream.

Worldly pleasures, such as flow from greatness, riches, honours, and sensual gratifications, are infinitely worse than none.

Aquinas is worth reading. He has stood the test of time. And even where he errs, you can learn more from the errors of a great mind than you can learn from the truths of a small mind. You can see a whole lot farther standing on the shoulders of giants.

I am the servant of all great individuals and, alas, of all failures, as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.

Ignatius of Lyon said this in the second century: "Christianity is not a matter of persuasive words. It is a matter of true greatness as long as it is hated by the world.

We must use time creatively - and forever realize that the time is always hope to do great things.

She thought: To find a feeling that would hold, as their sum, as their final expression, the purpose of all the things she loved on earth . . . To find a consciousness like her own, who would be the meaning of her world, as she would be of his... A man who existed only in her knowledge of her capacity for an emotion she had never felt, but would have given her life to experience . . . and the desire would never be satisfied, except by a being of equal greatness.

He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great.

Don't despise the middleman. He's necessary. Someone had to tell them. It takes two to make a very good career: the man who is great, and the man-almost rarer-who is great enough to see greatness and say so.

I recalled a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called "The Drum Major Instinct." In it, he talks about how, deep down, we all want to be first, celebrated for our greatness; we all want "to lead the parade." He goes on to point out that such selfish impulses can be reconciled by aligning that quest for greatness with more selfless aims. You can strive to be first in service, first in love.

If you want to have more freedom, more latitude in your job, be a more responsible, a more helpful, a more contributing employee. If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy. If you want the secondary greatness of recognized talent, focus first on primary greatness of character.