Quotes about greatness

A collection of quotes on the topic of greatness, people, use, doing.

Lewis Carroll quote: “Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

Aristotle quote: “No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.”

John Irving quote: “It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.”

Tom Watson (Labour politician) quote: “I feel great. I feel absolutely fantastic. Chilled out, I feel like my IQ has gone up. I feel younger. It's a great feeling.”

Quotes about greatness

“Politics is a great art. It succeeds at convincing the people that they have to pay for what has been stolen from them.”

Andrzej Majewski (1966) Polish writer and photographer

Aphorisms. Magnum in Parvo (2000)

People, Art

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Source: On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

People, Democracy, Soul, Heart

“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Perseverance

“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

For women, For Men

“Reading is the greatest thing ever, I've read alot that I know what very few people know… That the stars in the night sky are suns and that there are earth-like planets orbiting those stars, meaning there are other planets like earth out there… Reading is great”

Cornelius Keagon (1996) Liberian humanitarian aid worker

Star, People, Night, Reading

“Life is good, life is great.
Alaways love and never hate.
Break the rules, stand apart.
Ignore your head, and follow your heart.”

Ashley Purdy (1984) American musician

Love, Life, Hate, Heart

“WITH GREAT POWER THERE MUST ALSO COME--GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!”

Stan Lee (1922–2018) American comic book writer

Amazing Fantasy #15 (August 1962) – The first Spider-Man story.
In later stories and adaptations, including the 2002 movie, this has appeared as "With great power comes great responsibility."
The saying pre-dates Amazing Fantasy. The phrase "with great power goes great responsibility" was spoken by J. Hector Fezandie in an 1894 graduation address at The Stevens Institute of Technology - "The Moral Influence of a Scientific Education", The Stevens Indicator, Volume 11, Page 217. The exact phrase was repeated during a speech by President Harry S. Truman in November 1950 - Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 6666 (published 1965), Page 703. A UK Member of Parliament implied in 1817 that a variant of it was already a cliché ([1817, 1227, Parliamentary Debates, Thomas C. Hansard, http://books.google.co.uk/books?lr=&output=text&as_brr=0&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1850&id=B6w9AAAAcAAJ&dq=%22great-power+*+great-responsibility%22&q=%22%22that%2Bthe%2Bpossession%2Bof%2Bgreat%2Bpower%2Bnecessarily%2Bimplies%2Bgreat%2Bresponsibility%22%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26ei%3DYX5WUqnYGaiO4wT9poCwBQ%26ved%3D0CDMQ6wEwAA%23v%3Donepage%26q%3D%22that+the+possession+of+great+power+necessarily+implies+great+responsibility%22%26f%3Dfalse%22#v=onepage&q=%22%22that%2Bthe%2Bpossession%2Bof%2Bgreat%2Bpower%2Bnecessarily%2Bimplies%22&f=false, October 10, 2013, He should, however, beg leave to remind the conductors of the press of their duty to apply to themselves a maxim which they never neglected to urge on the consideration of government—" that the possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."] The editor is quoting William Lamb (pp. 1125–1229)). The sentiment is also found in Luke 12:48: "from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked" (NIV).

“People in general, not just girls, but people who are younger are obviously extremely impressionable. And I do think it’s important. There's obviously a lot of different body images that are thrown around in society in general. Some things look like they’re more acceptable and some things are made to feel like they’re unacceptable. So, I think it’s very important that it empowers people in general. I think that anytime you can make someone who potentially might not feel as great about themselves as they should, feel better about themselves, I think that’s always a positive thing.”

Harry Styles (1994) English singer, songwriter, and actor

Interview with Polish website Plejada (25 November 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqJC-ZSseU&t=552

People, Feeling, Girl, Thinking

“Struck intensely tonight by the thought that we live in a great age. We can make music, food, pictures, art, & love with unbelievable unprecedented freedom. It's all there, there for the taking & the making, all the time.”

Tom Hiddleston (1981) English actor, producer and musical performer

Love, Age, Food, Art

“The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power. My Mother had taught me to seek all truth in the Bible.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

God, Truth

“A man's greatness is determined by his heart not by the caste and the lineage he brings.”

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (1909–1959) Nepali poet

मुनामदन (Munamadan)

Heart

“The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Suicide, Night

“This next song is only dedicated to beautiful people here tonight. That means all of you. Thank you for coming along… and making this a great occasion.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

Source: Live Aid, 1985/07/13 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22oy8dFjqc?t=12m5s

People, Beauty

“I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.”

Genghis Khan (1162–1227) founder and first emperor of the Mongol Empire

As quoted in Ta'Rikh-i-Jahan Gusha [History of the World Conqueror] by 'Ala-ad-Din 'Ata-Malik Juvaini (ca. 1252-1260), translated by J.A. Boyle (1958), p. 105
Context: O people, know that you have committed great sins, and that the great ones among you have committed these sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.

God

“To love in spite of all is the secret of greatness. And may very well be the greatest secret in this universe.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Love, Secret, Universe

“Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar", every "supreme leader", every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 8, Supplemental image at randi.org http://www.randi.org/images/122801-BlueDot.jpg

Love, Life, World, Religion

“There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why.”

William Barclay (1907–1978) Church of Scotland minister and academic

Birthday, Wise, Life, Life

“I was a Nazi and I remain one…The Germany of today is no longer a great nation, it has become a province of Europe.”

Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer

Interview with a French writer Peiper spoke with in 1967, quoted in The Devil's Adjutant by Michael Reynolds, page 260.

“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. ”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Success, Motivational, For women, Powerful

“I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Men, Thinking

“I have a great family, I have great friends, and my mom is like my mama bear. She's the one that's going to tell me 'no' when everyone around me says 'yes.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Family, Moms

“I was trying to figure out what I’m doing, and that was the first time I was constantly being kicked down for doing that. When I didn’t know, I just wanted to say, ‘This is what I want, this is where I am in my professional life, things changed in my personal life, things changed in my heart — everything.’ And people just thought, ‘Alright, this is what we think.’ And yeah, I made some decisions that weren’t great as well, and so did he and that’s why we went through all that to only make us better. And he has heard [the song] and he has seen the video, and it’s something that I feel like girls need hear, and it’s something I’m willing to share with people.”

Selena Gomez (1992) American singer and actress

Life, People, Feeling, Girl

“If you make it, great. If you miss it - what's there to be afraid of?”

Kobe Bryant (1978–2020) American basketball player

Making love

“France and the whole of Europe have a great culture and an amazing history. Most important thing, though, is that people there know how to live! In America they've forgotten all about it. I'm afraid that the American culture is a disaster.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

People, History

“The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

For Men, Wealth

“That was a great time, the summer of '71 - I can't remember it, but I'll never forget it!”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Time, Summer, Forgetting

“I am not a perfectionist, but still I seek perfection. I am not a great romantic, but yet I yearn 4 affection”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

Perfection

“The difficulties which would have to be overcome to make several of the preceding experiments conclusive are so great as to be almost insurmountable.”

J. J. Thomson (1856–1940) British physicist

Warning about the non-conclusiveness for the experimental foundation of electrostatic theory, in a footnote of the third edition of: [James Clerk Maxwell, A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol.1, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1891, 37]
Quotes eat me

“Most Holy Father, there are many who, on bringing their feeble judgment to bear on what is written concerning the great achievements of the Romans — the feats of arms, the city of Rome and the wondrous skill shown in the opulence, ornamentation and grandeur of their buildings — have come to the conclusion that these achievements are more likely to be fables than facts. I, however, have always seen — and still do see —things differently. For, bearing in mind the divine quality of the ancients' minds as revealed in the remains still to be seen among the ruins of Rome, I do not find it unreasonable to believe that much of what we consider impossible seemed, to them, exceedingly simple.”

Raphael (1483–1520) Italian painter and architect

Quote from a letter of Raphael Sanzio to pope Leo X (c. 1519); Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, cod. it. 37b; translated as 'The Letter to Leo X by Raphael and Baldassare Castiglione, c.1519', by Vaughan Hart and Peter Hicks, Palladio's Rome: A Translation of Andrea Palladio's Two Guidebooks to Rome; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2006, pp. 179-92

“In what terms should we think of these beings, nonhuman yet possessing so very many human-like characteristics? How should we treat them? Surely we should treat them with the same consideration and kindness as we show to other humans; and as we recognize human rights, so too should we recognize the rights of the great apes? Yes.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

"Chimpanzees - Bridging the Gap", in Paola Cavalieri, Peter Singer, The Great Ape Project: Equality Beyond Humanity (1996), p. 14

Thinking

“The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Forgiveness, Forgetting

“It would be impossible for any individual to accept the feelings, or emotions of temptation without wishing to gain something great in return.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Feeling

“The mind might become forgetful of great deeds, but the soul does not forget anything that it considers to be beautiful and good.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Forgetting, Beauty

“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”

Démosthenés (-384–-322 BC) ancient greek statesman and orator

Attitude

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Variant: But if I’m not the same, the next question is, ‘Who in the world am I?’ Ah, that’s the great puzzle!
Source: Alice in Wonderland

World

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author

“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author

Attributed

Life

“When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds: Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great, and wonderful world. Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and your discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

As quoted by Wayne Dyer http://n-spire.com/archives/011802.html <br class="br">The Mahābhāṣya

World, Dreams, Personality

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

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

Variant: Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You do not have to have a college degree to serve. You do not have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

Love, Soul, Heart

“Behind every great man is not a woman, she is beside him, she is with him, not behind him”

Tariq Ramadan (1962) Swiss muslim scholar

“A great revolution in just one single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a society and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of humankind.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Variant: A great human revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, can even enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.
Source: The Human Revolution

Change, Help

“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

People, Lie, Wealth

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

Truth, World, Boy, Appearance

“You could spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future but all there will ever be is what's happening here and the decisions we make in this moments which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never dared the universe for it. I'm saying I'm the proof that you can ask the universe for it. My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that that was possible for him and so he made a conservative choice instead, he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was 12 years old he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could do to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you could fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Jim Carrey (1962) Canadian-American actor, comedian, and producer

Love, Life, Fear, Family

“So you know cats are interesting. They are kind of like girls. If they come and talk to you it's great. But if you try to talk to them it doesn't always go so well.”

Shigeru Miyamoto (1952) Japanese video game designer and producer

Source http://kotaku.com/5564576/live-from-nintendos-e3-briefing

Girl, Cats

“Yeah, I’m a great kisser.”

Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor

On a San Diego-based radio show Johnjay & Rich, as quoted by Hollywood Life http://hollywoodlife.com/2010/05/19/justin-bieber-is-a-great-kisser/, May 2010

“As there are misanthropists, or haters of men, there are also misologists or haters of ideas, and both spring from the same cause, which is ignorance of the world. Misanthropy arises from too great confidence of inexperience; you trust a man and think him altogether true and good and faithful, and then in a little while he turns out to be false and knavish; and then another and another, and when this has happened several times to a man, especially within the circle of his most trusted friends, as he deems them, and he has often quarreled with them, he at last hates all men, and believes that no one has any good in him at all. …The reason is that a man, having to deal with other men, has no knowledge of them; for if he had knowledge he would have known the true state of the case, that few are the good and few the evil, and that the great majority are in the interval between them.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Men, Hate, World, Faith

“Jesus was a great worker, and His disciples must not be afraid of hard work.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 128.

“Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.”

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer

Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)

Imagination, Lovers, Nature

“Great achievements require gigantic efforts, without which our progress sounds to be slow.”

Fatima Jinnah (1893–1967) Pakistani dental surgeon, biographer, stateswoman and one of the leading founders of Pakistan

Message to the Nation of Pakistan, 14 August 1950 [citation needed]

Effort

“One day I went alone to the river to enjoy myself as usual. When I was a short distance from the masonry, however, I was horrified to observe that the water had risen and was carrying me along swiftly.… The pressure against my chest was great and I was barely able to keep my head above the surface.… Slowly and gradually I became exhausted and unable to withstand the strain longer. Just as I was about to let go, to be dashed against the rocks below, I saw in a flash of light a familiar diagram illustrating the hydraulic principle that the pressure of a fluid in motion is proportionate to the area exposed and automatically I turned on my left side. As if by magic, the pressure was reduced.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Light, Water

“A very great vision is needed, and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky.”

Crazy Horse (1840–1877) Oglala Sioux chief

As quoted in To Be Just Is to Love : Homilies for a Church Renewing‎ (2001) by Walter J. Burghardt, p. 214

“You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are! But I tell you that you must take good care not to judge me wrongly, because you will put yourself in great danger.”

Joan of Arc (1412–1431) French folk heroine and Roman Catholic saint

Jeanne's warning to Bishop Cauchon (15 March 1431)
Trial records (1431)
Context: You say that you are my judge. I do not know if you are! But I tell you that you must take good care not to judge me wrongly, because you will put yourself in great danger. I warn you, so that if God punishes you for it, I would have done my duty by telling you!

“We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human…. Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

World, Hate, People, Country

“Silence is a source of great strength.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

Silence

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

Harriet Tubman (1820–1913) African-American abolitionist and humanitarian

Inspirational, Success, Motivational, Hope

“Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

As quoted in Networking the Kingdom: A Practical Strategy for Maximum Church Growth (1990) by O. J. Bryson, p. 187; this is the earliest source yet found for this attribution.
Disputed

Inspirational, Love

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Malvolio, Act II, scene v.
Variant: Some are born great, others achieve greatness.
Source: Twelfth Night (1601)

“God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.”

Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) Jamaica-born British political activist, Pan-Africanist, orator, and entrepreneur

God, Law, Nature

“you don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.”

Les Brown (1945) American politician

Variant: you don't have to be great to get started but you have to to get started to be great

“Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. They say he give them but two words. "More weight," he says. And died.”

Arthur Miller The Crucible

Source: The Crucible

“There could be whole antiworlds and antipeople made out of antiparticles. However, if you meet your antiself, don’t shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

Source: A Brief History of Time

Light

“The personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of Lords, whose name is Cublay, is such as I shall now tell you.”

Marco Polo (1254–1324) Venetian explorer and merchant noted for travel to central and eastern Asia

Source: The Travels

Appearance, Personality

“Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.”

Cher (1946) American singer and actress

“There are two Mustafa Kemals: One is me, the flesh-and-blood, mortal Mustafa Kemal … The second Mustafa Kemal,… I can not express it with the word “me”, it is not “me”, it is “we”. That is an intellectual and challenging society, struggling in every corner of the homeland for new ideas, new life and the great ideal. I represent their dream. My attempts are to satisfy the things they long. That Mustafa Kemal is you, all of you. That is the non provisional Mustafa Kemal that must live and succeed.”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

İki Mustafa Kemal vardır: Biri ben, et ve kemik, geçici Mustafa Kemal... İkinci Mustafa Kemal, onu "ben" kelimesiyle ifade edemem; o, ben değil, bizdir! O, memleketin her köşesinde yeni fikir, yeni hayat ve büyük ülkü için uğraşan aydın ve savaşçı bir topluluktur. Ben, onların rüyasını temsil ediyorum. Benim teşebbüslerim, onların özlemini çektikleri şeyleri tatmin içindir. O Mustafa Kemal sizsiniz, hepinizsiniz. Geçici olmayan, yaşaması ve başarılı olması gereken Mustafa Kemal odur.
As quoted in Ataturk: First President and Founder of the Turkish Republic (2002) by Yüksel Atillasoy, p. 19

Life, Dreams, Idea

“I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Letter to Leopold Mozart (Mannheim, 2 February 1778), from The letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1769-1791, translated, from the collection of Ludwig Nohl, by Lady [Grace] Wallace (Oxford University Press, 1865, digitized 2006) vol. I, # 91 (p. 164) http://books.google.com/books?vid=0SGwLiCNxu7qZ5ch&id=KEgBAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&dq=%22The+letters+of+Wolfgang+Amadeus+Mozart,+1769-1791%22&hl=en#PRA1-PA164,M1

People, World, Religion, Travel

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”

Francis Drake (1540–1596) English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era

Letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, from off Cape Sagres, Portugal (17 May 3067)

“Letters are signs of things, symbols of words, whose power is so great that without a voice they speak to us the words of the absent; for they introduce words by the eye, not by the ear.”
Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.

Isidore of Seville book Etymologiae

Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae

“The company, then, were feasting in silence, as though some one in authority had commanded them to do so, when Philip the buffoon knocked at the door and told the porter to announce who he was and that he desired to be admitted; he added that with regard to food he had come all prepared, in all varieties—to dine on some other person's,—and that his servant was in great distress with the load he carried of—nothing, and with having an empty stomach. Hearing this, Callias said, “Well, gentlemen, we cannot decently begrudge him at the least the shelter of our roof; so let him come in.” With the words he cast a glance at Autolycus, obviously trying to make out what he had thought of the pleasantry. But Philip, standing at the threshold of the men's hall where the banquet was served, announced: “You all know that I am a jester; and so I have come here with a will, thinking it more of a joke to come to your dinner uninvited than to come by invitation.””

Xenophon Symposium

“Well, then,” said Callias, “take a place; for the guests, though well fed, as you observe, on seriousness, are perhaps rather ill supplied with laughter.”
Symposium, 1.11-13

Men, Food, Thinking, Laughter

“What is man’s life but love, love of self;
Man is dust, dust as his passion, dust as the beloved.Death, it is your great act of piety for man –
You take him to your house or he’d be left to himself.Death is a covenant between the lover and the beloved;
Death is a secret wedlock between being and non-being.Death harbors the hidden port of life’s ocean;
Death is helpless and a vision of beauty to itself.Death is the only witness of my life and your grace,
And O strange lord, of night and the crescent.”

Ghani Khan (1914–1996) Pakistani poet

Death, st. 8-12

Love, Life, Death, Secret

“Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.”

Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda

Quoted in The Evil 100 (2004) by Martin Gilman Wolcott, p. 78.
Attributed

People

“Wherever they found magnificent temples of the Hindus ever since the establishment of Sayyid Salar Mas'ud Ghazi's rule, the Muslim rulers in India built mosques, monasteries and inns, appointed mu'azzins, teachers, and store-stewards, spread Islam vigorously and vanquished the Kafirs. Likewise, they cleared up Faizabad and Avadh, too, from the filth of reprobation (infidelity), because it was a great centre of worship and capital of Rama's father. Where there stood the great temple (of Ramjanmasthan), there they built a big mosque, and where there was a small mandap (pavilion), there they erected a camp mosque (masjid-i-mukhtasar-i-qanati). The Janmasthan temple is the principal place of Rama's incarnation, adjacent to which is the Sita ki Rasoi. Hence, what a lofty mosque was built there by king Babar in AH 923 (AD 1528) under the patronage of Musa Ashiqan! The mosque is still known far and wide as the Sita ki Rasoi mosque. And that temple is extant by its side”

Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor

aur pahlu mein wah dair baqi hai
Hadiqah-i-Shuhadã by Mîrza Alî Jãn,, cited by Dr. Harsh Narain, "Rama-Janmabhumi Temple: Muslim Testimony", 1990, and quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu Temples - What Happened to them.
Quotes from Muslim histories of early modern era

Teachers

“Ever since I was a little boy, I would study composition. And it was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most. If you take an album like Nutcracker Suite, every song is killer, every one. So I said to myself, 'Why can't there be a pop album where every…' — People used to do an album where you'd get one good song, and the rest were like B-sides, they'd call them "album songs" — and I'd say to myself 'Why can't every one be like a hit song? Why can't every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you could release it as a single?. So I always tried to strive for that. That was the purpose for the next album.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On musical influences
Ebony interview (2007)

People, Boy, Study

“Being an atheist must be like living in a closed cell with no windows. I’d hate to live like that, wouldn’t you? We see them, mind you, on television today, many brilliant people who are professional atheists who say they know for a fact that it’s insanity to have a God or to believe in religion. Well, OK, God bless them for feeling that way and I hope they’re happy. But I couldn’t live with that certainty, and I wonder about some of them: why are they protesting so much? How are they so sure of what is out there? And who am I to refute the beliefs of so many great philosophers and martyrs all the way down the years?”

Anthony Hopkins (1937) Welsh stage and television actor

"Sir Anthony Hopkins: I couldn't be an atheist". https://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/02/11/sir-anthony-hopkins-i-couldnt-be-an-atheist/ (February 11, 2011)

God, Hate, People, Religion

“I have great respect for human life. My decision to take human life at the Murrah Building – I did not do it for personal gain. I ease my mind in that… I did it for the larger good.”

Timothy McVeigh (1968–2001) American army soldier, security guard, terrorist

Interview for American Terrorist (2001) by Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck
2000s

Life, Decision, Personality

“Every day, you know, you learn something new about someone. I think that's what life is about, it's about learning something new every day. A partner for me that will be lifetime. She's just a great individual and incredibly powerful woman.”

Serena Williams (1981) American tennis player

usopen.org http://www.usopen.org/en_US/news/interviews/2014-08-30/201408301409438446669.html

Life, Thinking, Learning

“The great thing about people with intellectual disabilities is that they’re not people who discuss philosophy… What they want is fun and laughter, to do things together and fool around, and laughter is at the heart of community.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

The Gift of Living With the Not Gifted http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gift-of-living-with-the-not-gifted-1428103079 Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2015 <br class="br">From interviews and talks

People, Fools, Communication, Laughter

“Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.”

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) Italian criminologist

Source: The Man of Genius (1891), p. x.

Men, Travel, Sense

“That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.”

Robert Browning Men and Women

"A Grammarian's Funeral", line 115.
Men and Women (1855)
Context: That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it.
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding one to one,—
His hundred's soon hit;
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That has the world here—should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.

“It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state…”

James Clerk Maxwell book A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1873), Preface, p. xiii.

Science, Reading

“This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Anarchism or Socialism (1906)
Context: We are not the kind of people who, when the word "anarchism" is mentioned, turn away contemptuously and say with a supercilious wave of the hand: "Why waste time on that, it's not worth talking about!" We think that such cheap "criticism" is undignified and useless.
Nor are we the kind of people who console themselves with the thought that the Anarchists "have no masses behind them and, therefore, are not so dangerous." It is not who has a larger or smaller "mass" following today, but the essence of the doctrine that matters. If the "doctrine" of the Anarchists expresses the truth, then it goes without saying that it will certainly hew a path for itself and will rally the masses around itself. If, however, it is unsound and built up on a false foundation, it will not last long and will remain suspended in mid-air. But the unsoundness of anarchism must be proved.
Some people believe that Marxism and anarchism are based on the same principles and that the disagreements between them concern only tactics, so that, in the opinion of these people, no distinction whatsoever can be drawn between these two trends.
This is a great mistake.
We believe that the Anarchists are real enemies of Marxism. Accordingly, we also hold that a real struggle must be waged against real enemies.

“Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love…. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007) by Brian Kolodiejchuk
2000s

Love

“And before the stars were born.
The greatest gift you can offer anyone is their complete freedom.
Freedom to love, to laugh, to cry, to feel scared, angry, insecure, full of doubt or full of joy.
To hold them in that safe and sacred space.
You don't exist to make anyone else happy.
But you can be present.
Present to their unhappiness, their excitement.
Present to the life that moves in them.
And you can invite them to a deeper Happiness.
The Happiness of Being itself.
The Happiness that holds them exactly as they are.
The way you hold them now.
The way the ground holds the flowers, the trees, the great mountain ranges.
The way you were held as a little one.
And before the stars were born.”

Джефф Фостер (1977) American basketball player

Love, Life, Way, Feeling

“Basketball isn't easy. All my life I've been striving to make myself better. It's a full time commitment. To be the best, you have to work the hardest. You have to chase what seems impossible over and over and over again, because giving up is not an option, and when you feel like you've reached your limit, it's only the beginning, that's when the time to dig deep, to find the courage to push some more, because if you've got the drive, the discipline, and the resolve to do what it takes to make yourself great, then the rewards are endless.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player

Courage, Time, Life, Making love

“When travel outside the city is desired, computer-guided vehicles for land, sea, air, space and beyond can transport passengers and freight. For rapid movement of passengers on land across via ducts, bridges, and tunnels, high-speed mag-lev trains span great distances and will efficiently replace most aircraft transportation.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Designing the Future (2007)

Training, Travel, Sea, Speed

“I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time. I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film - after that, they can go away and say that was great, and go back to their problems. I don't want to change the world with our music. There are no hidden messages in our songs, except for some of Brian's.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

"The Man Who Would Be Queen" in Melody Maker (2 May 1981).

Time, People, Music, Problem

“Having faith is great, but beliefs are so dangerous. Some people end up selling their souls to the religions.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Soul, Faith, Religion, People

“In a socialist society, people are always motivated to achieve unity and the truest form of freedom— Organising themselves and coming to help those who are in need. You will find organisations such as social welfare, that take great care and give support to the poor, unemployed, old people, widows, etc.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Freedom, People, Motivation, Support

“Those who are confused and refer to Jesus as a god, there is no doubt that Jesus was a great man of God sent to carry the message to the lost sheep.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God

“To be great, be whole; don't exaggerate
Or leave out any part of you,
Be complete in each thing. Put all you are
Into the least of your acts.
So too in each lake, with its lofty life,
The whole moon shines.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Para ser grande, sê inteiro: nada
Teu exagera ou exclui.
Sê todo em cada coisa. Põe quanto és
No mínimo que fazes.
Assim em cada lago a lua toda
Brilha, porque alta vive.
Ricardo Reis (heteronym), Ode (14 February 1933), in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)
Source: Poems of Fernando Pessoa

Life, Parting

“I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

World, Feeling, Question, Thinking

“It takes great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.”

Oscar Wilde An Ideal Husband

Variant: It takes great courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it. And even more courage to see it in the one you love
Source: An Ideal Husband

Love, World, Courage

“All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

A Means for Furthering Peace (1905)
Context: It is not a dream, it is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world!... Humanity is not yet sufficiently advanced to be willingly led by the discover's keen searching sense. But who knows? Perhaps it is better in this present world of ours that a revolutionary idea or invention instead of being helped and patted, be hampered and ill-treated in its adolescence — by want of means, by selfish interest, pedantry, stupidity and ignorance; that it be attacked and stifled; that it pass through bitter trials and tribulations, through the heartless strife of commercial existence. So do we get our light. So all that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

Past