Quotes about greatness

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“If you don’t give up, You still have a Chance to Win. Giving up is a Great Failure.”

“Another illustration. When for the first time I met Mister Clay, the other day in the cars, in front of us sat an old gentleman with an enormous wen upon his neck. Everybody would say the wen was a great evil, and would cause the man's death after a while. But you couldn't cut it out, for he'd bleed to death in a minute. But would you engraft the seeds of that wen on the necks of sound and healthy men? He must endure and be patient, hoping for possible relief. The wen represents slavery on the neck of this country. This only applies to those who think slavery is wrong. Those who think it right would consider the snake a jewel, and the wen an ornament.”

“Doing what is for the good of the people, this must be the truest criterion of right government, in accordance with which the wise and good man will govern the affairs of his subjects. Just as the captain of a ship keeps watch for what is at any moment for the good of the vessel and the sailors, not by writing rules, but by making his science his law, and thus preserves his fellow voyagers, so may not a right government be established in the same way by men who could rule by this principle, making science more powerful than the laws? And whatever the wise rulers do, they can commit no error, so long as they maintain one great principle and by always dispensing absolute justice to them with wisdom and science are able to preserve the citizens and make them better than they were, so far as that is possible.”

“Genius does not seem to derive any great support from syllogisms. Its carriage is free; its manner has a touch of inspiration. We see it come, but we never see it walk.”

“There is a great analogy between grace and genius, for genius is a grace. The real man of genius is the one who acts by grace or by impulsion, without ever contemplating himself and without ever saying to himself: Yes! It is by grace that I act.”

“Men never respect what they have made themselves. This is why an elective king never possesses the moral power of a hereditary sovereign, because he is not noble enough, that is to say he does not possess that kind of greatness independent of men and that is the work of time.”

“The very fact of our existence - a miracle arousing surprise of the great minds.”

“If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things you fall short of. If you don't have it, no matter what else there is, it's not enough.”

“Do not underestimate emptiness, because, all great things are made out of nothing.”

“Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can.
There is never too much colour…”

“Love for humankind can do great things.”

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

“The silence of a great writer says more than the writing of the greatest dilettante.”

“For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God”

“A great man is always willing to be little.”

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

“We're all damaged somehow."-A Great and Terrible Beauty”

“He said there are thousands of Shadowhunters, but great love comes once in a lifetime if one is lucky, and one would be a fool to let it go.”

“Great stories happen to those who can tell them”

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss other people. Life's too short to worry about what other people do or don't do. Tend your own backyard, not theirs, because yours is the one you have to live in.”

“To be loved to madness--such was her great desire. Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.”

“Great griefs exhaust. They discourage us with life. The man into whom they enter feels something taken from him. In youth, their visit is sad; later on, it is ominous.”

“And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, the thought.”

“O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
and perfect our lives”

“Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.”

“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves…”

“But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading.”

“Great loves have legs and wings. They are substantial. They do not dissapate so easily… Great loves have staying power. Or so I told myself.”

“Read the great stuff, but read the stuff that isn't so great, too. Great stuff is very discouraging. If you read only Beckett and Chekhov, you'll go away and only deliver telegrams for Western Union.”

“I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away”

“If you have endured a great despair, then, you did it alone.”

“I believe in the goodness of fellow human beings. We have a true desire for greatness and genuine good intention to be helpful to others. That's enough. Change is possible.”

“Literature offers the thrill of minds of great clarity wrestling with the endless problems and delights of being human. To engage with them is to engage with oneself, and the lasting rewards are not confined to specific career paths.”

“What's the point of having great knowledge and keeping them all to yourself?”

“Sire, you are looking at a plain man, and I am looking at a great man. Each of us may benefit.”

“What are you doing here anyway?"
"'Here' as in your bedroom or 'here' as in the great spiritual question of our purpose here on this planet?"
-Clary & Jace, pg.306-”

“All of us have theories about the world and about ourselves. We will go to great lengths to prove ourselves right because it keeps the world in our head coherent and understandable.”

“People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.”

“I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.”

“All great art is a form of complaint”

“Art is the great democrat, calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color”

“For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter.”

“People can do great things. However, there are some things they just CAN'T do. I, for instance, have not been able to transform myself into a Popsicle, despite years of effort.”

“Great victory requires great risk.
-Hera”

“Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.”

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”

“Why is everything always my decision?" I asked.
Because you will not tolerate anything else."
Oh, I remembered now. "Great", I whispered.
- Anita to Jean-Claude”

“I see America has infused you with the optimism that has made her so great”

“My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.”

“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”

“You cannot be afraid, Read the book. Smile at it. It's a great book-the greatest book you've ever read.”

“Great minds that are healthy are never considered geniuses, while this sublime qualification is lavished on brains that are often inferior but are slightly touched by madness.”

“The safest course was actually the simplest-do nothing at all and hope everything turned out for the best. It wasn't a great plan, but it had the benefits of simplicity and a long tradition.”

“Bad divorce?" Hardy asked, his gaze falling to my hands. I realized I was clutching my purse in a death grip.

“No, the divorce was great,” I said. “It was the marriage that sucked.”

“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”

“Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.”

“Selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.”

“I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.”

“Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be left waiting for us in our graves-or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.”

“I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.”

“Anna spoke not only naturally and intelligently, but intelligently and casually, without attaching any value to her own thoughts, yet giving great value to the thoughts of the one she was talking to.”

“He puts the chain with the locket around my neck, then rests his hand over the spot where our baby would be. “You’re going to make a great mother, you know,” he says. He kisses me one last time and goes back to Finnick.”

“The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

“All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual.”

“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.”

“A culture of discipline is not a principle of business, it is a principle of greatness.”

“the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

“I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.”

“I was kind of excited to go to jail for the first time and I learnt some great dialogue.”

“Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.”

“Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind.”

“What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?”

“You’re all so obsessed with other worlds, you’re so convinced that this one is crap and everywhere else is great, but you’ve never bothered to figure out what’s going on here!”

“At times our need for a sympathetic gesture is so great that we care not what exactly it signifies or how much we may have to pay for it afterwards.”

“… It was one of the great livery-stableman's most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.”

“Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all
Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command!”

“No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”

“The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream.”

“Think like a queen. A queen if not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness.”

“Young people are cynical about love. Ultimately, cynicism is the great mask of the disappointed and betrayed heart.”

“Don't worry about it, Mikey," Dee said comfortingly. "You'll probably be next, so you won't be here when our Great Deception comes crashing down.”

“(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust.”

“All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”

“There is more beauty than our eyes can bear, precious things have been put into our hands and to do nothing to honor them is to do great harm.”

“All the geniuses I ever met were so just part of the time. To qualify, you only have to be great once, you know. Once when it matters.”

“But just because you love something, I added to myself, doesn't mean you'll ever be great. Not if you don't work. Most people stink at the things they love.”

“There are just lots of possibilities in the world… I need to keep my mind open for what could happen and not decide that the world is hopeless if what I want to happen doesn't happen. Because something else great might happen in between.”

“This is a great fact: strength is life; weakness is death. Strength is felicity, life eternal, immortal; weakness is constant strain and misery, weakness is death.”

“I feel like, like pudding," Iggy groaned. "Pudding with nerve endings. Pudding in great pain.”

“Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon?… The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.”

“Love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest and bravest acts are done for love.”

“It is of great importance, when we begin to practise prayer, not to let ourselves be frightened by our own thoughts.”

“I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons- but one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons!”

“Friend is a very small word,
A little sound we make,
For one who is true, one who will do,
Great deeds for friendship's sake.”

“By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.”

“If, for example, you are miserly by nature, you will never go beyond a certain limit; only generous souls attain greatness.”

“I could have been a great many things.”