“If to be great means to be good, then Denis Diderot was a little man. But if to be great means to do great things in the teeth of great obstacles, then none can refuse him a place in the temple of the Immortals.”

“The great in Evil, and the great in [Goodness|Good]]—both leave an immortal residue.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

“940. The great would have none great, and the little all little.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

“These little things are great to little man.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

“What do I mean by the Generation of Greatness?
I mean that in this age, in this country, there is an opportunity for the development of man's intellectual, cultural, and spiritual potentialities that has never existed before in the history of our species. I mean not simply an opportunity for greatness for a few, but an opportunity for greatness for the many.”

Edwin H. Land (1909–1991) American scientist and inventor

“… a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.”

George Bernard Shaw Caesar and Cleopatra

“My friend, brag not yet of our American cousins! Their quantity of cotton, dollars, industry and resources, I believe to be almost unspeakable; but I can by no means worship the like of these. What great human soul, what great thought, what great noble thing that one could worship, or loyally admire, has yet been produced there? None: the American cousins have yet done none of these things.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

“All men can do great things, if they know what great things are.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.”

Jodi Picoult book Small Great Things