“Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great.”

Source: The Gay Science

Source: The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu

"Philip of Pokanoket : An Indian Memoir".
A more extensive statement not found as such in this work is attributed to Irving in Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (1923) edited by Roycroft Shop:
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Variant: Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above it.

Aphorisms and Reflections (1901)

Aphorism 17
Les Caractères (1688), Du mérite personnel
Context: Outward simplicity befits ordinary men, like a garment made to measure for them; but it serves as an adornment to those who have filled their lives with great deeds: they might be compared to some beauty carelessly dressed and thereby all the more attractive.

To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators of His and Mine http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1724/ <br class="br">The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1910)

Ceux qui ont eu de grandes passions se trouvent toute leur vie heureux, et malheureux, d'en être guéris.
Maxim 485.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Source: Snow White (1967), p. 106.