“Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding his rightful place with dignity. He was the son of a serf but stood calmly before the great without hesitation or nerves. But also — and this was the highest proof of his greatness — he knew the common man, felt his problems, followed his fate.”
"On Stalin", in National Guardian (16 March 1953) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/biographies/1953/03/16.htm
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W.E.B. Du Bois 62
American sociologist, historian, activist and writer 1868–1963Related quotes

“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.”
Attributed to Carlyle in Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends And Influence People (1936), but this quotation is not found in Carlyle's known works. The first mention found in Google Books dates from 1908, where the Rev. John Timothy Stone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Timothy_Stone is quoted as claiming: 'The greatest critics of this world have been appreciators. Carlyle said, "You can discover a great man, or see a great man, by the way he treats little men.'
The quotation is subsequently found in slightly different forms, mostly in religious publications: "A great man shows his greatness by manner in which he treats little men" (1913, unattributed); The exact wording of Carnegie's quote suggests that it was taken from Stone's 1930 publication.
Disputed

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 411.

Vyasa’s curse to the first widowed wife of his half brother on the son to be born to them. His mother [Satyavati] had asked him to produce heirs to the throne with the two widows of his half-brother. The first princess closed her eyes as Vyasa was in fearful ascetic condition when he slept with her. In due time Dhritarshtra was born blind. Quoted in p. 58.
Sources, Seer of the Fifth Veda: Kr̥ṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa in the Mahābhārata

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy (1833) [Translated from the German by Andrew Bowie]
S - Z
“The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose.”
"The Big Hunger" (1952)
Context: The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose. Why must his seed fling itself starward? He knew that it must — but he lacked a reason. His grandchildren played in the twilight, played space-games, although there was not yet a starship on the planet.
Generation of Greatness (1957)
Context: I believe there are two opposing theories of history, and you have to make your choice. Either you believe that this kind of individual greatness does exist and can be nurtured and developed, that such great individuals can be part of a cooperative community while they continue to be their happy, flourishing, contributing selves — or else you believe that there is some mystical, cyclical, overriding, predetermined, cultural law — a historic determinism.
The great contribution of science is to say that this second theory is nonsense. The great contribution of science is to demonstrate that a person can regard the world as chaos, but can find in himself a method of perceiving, within that chaos, small arrangements of order, that out of himself, and out of the order that previous scientists have generated, he can make things that are exciting and thrilling to make, that are deeply spiritual contributions to himself and to his friends. The scientist comes to the world and says, "I do not understand the divine source, but I know, in a way that I don't understand, that out of chaos I can make order, out of loneliness I can make friendship, out of ugliness I can make beauty."
I believe that men are born this way — that all men are born this way. I know that each of the undergraduates with whom I talked shares this belief. Each of these men felt secretly — it was his very special secret and his deepest secret — that he could be great.
But not many undergraduates come through our present educational system retaining this hope. Our young people, for the most part — unless they are geniuses — after a very short time in college give up any hope of being individually great. They plan, instead, to be good. They plan to be effective, They plan to do their job. They plan to take their healthy place in the community. We might say that today it takes a genius to come out great, and a great man, a merely great man, cannot survive. It has become our habit, therefore, to think that the age of greatness has passed, that the age of the great man is gone, that this is the day of group research, that this is the day of community progress. Yet the very essence of democracy is the absolute faith that while people must cooperate, the first function of democracy, its peculiar gift, is to develop each individual into everything that he might be. But I submit to you that when in each man the dream of personal greatness dies, democracy loses the real source of its future strength.
Le Marquis de Pombal, p. 377
Le marquis de Pombal (1869)

Dreams and Facts (1919)
1910s