Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Quotation and Originality
“The memory of that great and glorious minister, who, to all succeeding ages, will be quoted as an illustrious example, how one great man, by his superior ability, could raise his drooping country from the abyss of despair to the highest pinnacle of glory, and render her honoured, respected, revered, and dreaded by the whole universe.”
Admiral George Rodney, writing in December 1779.
G. B. Mundy (ed.), The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Lord Rodney: Volume I (London: 1830), pp. 204-5.
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William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham36
British politician 1708–1778Related quotes
“God, being a great abyss, to men his depth reveals
Who climb the highest peak of the eternal hills”
Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer
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Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician
The Marquis of Lorne, Viscount Palmerston, K.G. (London: 1892), p. 235
John Hall (1829–1898) Presbyterian pastor from Northern Ireland in New York, died 1898
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 411.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1849/feb/01/address-in-answer-to-the-speech in the House of Commons (1 February 1849). <br class="br">1840s
Randolph Sinks Foster (1820–1903) American bishop
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Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India
R Jagannathan, in "Dear Priyanka, your Dad Rajiv was no angel. He let India down (2 May 2014)"
Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist
Source: The Ethics of Freedom (1973 - 1974), p. 251
Context: Man himself is exalted, and paradoxical though it may seem to be, this means the crushing of man. Man's enslavement is the reverse side of the glory, value, and importance that are ascribed to him. The more a society magnifies human greatness, the more one will see men alienated, enslaved, imprisoned, and tortured, in it. Humanism prepares the ground for the anti-human. We do not say that this is an intellectual paradox. All one need do is read history. Men have never been so oppressed as in societies which set man at the pinnacle of values and exalt his greatness or make him the measure of all things. For in such societies freedom is detached from its purpose, which is, we affirm, the glory of God.
Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed (1905–1977) the fifth President of India and a politician
Source: Great Muslims of undivided India, P.98
“Reverence for greatness dies out, and is succeeded by base envy of greatness.”
Albert Pike book Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. III : The Master, p. 67
Context: Reverence for greatness dies out, and is succeeded by base envy of greatness. Every man is in the way of many, either in the path to popularity or wealth. There is a general feeling of satisfaction when a great statesman is displaced, or a general, who has been for his brief hour the popular idol, is unfortunate and sinks from his high estate. It becomes a misfortune, if not a crime, to be above the popular level.
We should naturally suppose that a nation in distress would take counsel with the wisest of its sons. But, on the contrary, great men seem never so scarce as when they are most needed, and small men never so bold to insist on infesting place, as when mediocrity and incapable pretence and sophomoric greenness, and showy and sprightly incompetency are most dangerous.