Quotes about greatness
page 20

“The great need in the world today is for for nations to so define their national interest that it makes for greater harmony, greater equality and justice and greater stability in the world.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Source: 1980 to Roy Jenkins < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHk9zoG6PXw

Justice, World

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

Jack Ma (1964) Chinese businessman

Source: Jack Ma Quotes That Will Change Your Life Forever https://www.yourselfquotes.com/jack-ma-quotes/

Chance, 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.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Speech at Hartford (1860)

Country, Thinking, Death, Men

“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.”

Plato book Statesman

296d-297b
Statesman

Wisdom, Men, People, Way

“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.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Tenth Dialogue"
St. Petersburg Dialogues (1821)

Support

“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.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Experiment and of the Genius of Discoveries," p. 37
An Examination of the Philosophy of Francis Bacon (1836)

“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.”

Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821) Savoyard philosopher, writer, lawyer, and diplomat

"Of Founders and the Political Constitution," p. 72
Against Rousseau (1795)

Time, Men

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

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

“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.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life, Love

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

Yusuf Cornelius Otijenu

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

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Painting, Life

“Love for humankind can do great things.”

Zafar Mirzo (1972)

Love

“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.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Incorrectly attributed to Tolkien. It is a line from the Hobbit movie that did not appear in the books.

Evil, Love

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

Teodor Burnar

Silence

“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”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

God

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Compensation
Context: Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

Success, For Men

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

People

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

Libba Bray (1964) American teen writer

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.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Love, Fools

“Great stories happen to those who can tell them”

Ira Glass (1959) American radio personality

“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.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Infamous

Life, People, Idea

“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.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Return of the Native

Love, Lovers, Passion, Loneliness

“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.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life, Youth, Sadness, Feeling

“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.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

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

Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors

An American Prayer (1978)
Context: O great creator of being
grant us one more hour to
perform our art
and perfect our lives The moths & atheists are doubly divine
& dying
We live, we die
and death not ends it

Art, Perfection

“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.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Caesar and Christ

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

Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism

Food

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

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Source: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Fear

“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.”

Elizabeth von Arnim book In the Mountains

Source: In the Mountains

Books, 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.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Source: Sappho's Leap

Love

“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.”

Edward Albee (1928–2016) American playwright

Reading

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

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

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

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Despair

“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.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Change: Realizing Your Greatest Potential

Change, Help

“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.”

Jonathan Stroud (1970) British writer of fantasy fiction

Literature, Problem

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

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Source: Why We Want You To Be Rich: Two Men, One Message

Knowledge

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

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“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-”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Question

“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.”

Marya Hornbacher (1974) American journalist

World, Understanding

“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.”

James Baldwin book Giovanni's Room

Pt. 1, Ch. 1 - p.4-5 [Page numbers per the 2007 Penguin Books paperback edition.]
Source: Giovanni's Room (1956)

Parent, Lovers, People, Life

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

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Love, Hope

“All great art is a form of complaint”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Art

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

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Religion, Art, Color, Wealth

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

Henry Miller book Tropic of Capricorn

Source: Tropic of Capricorn

Time

“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.”

Brandon Sanderson Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

Source: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

People, Effort

“Great victory requires great risk.
-Hera”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

Victory

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

Joseph Conrad book Under Western Eyes

Pt. I
Source: Under Western Eyes (1911)
Context: Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. I have been for many years a teacher of languages. It is an occupation which at length becomes fatal to whatever share of imagination, observation, and insight an ordinary person may be heir to. To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

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.”

Jess Walter book Beautiful Ruins

Source: Beautiful Ruins

Disappointment, Wine, Sea

“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”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Cerulean Sins

Source: Cerulean Sins

Decision

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

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Optimism

“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.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Courageous, Hope, Love, Hope

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Wisdom

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

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Books, Smile, Reading

“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.”

Guy De Maupassant (1850–1893) French writer

"The Englishman of Etretat"

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.”

Jasper Fforde (1961) British novelist

Source: Shades of Grey

Hope

“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.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Blue-Eyed Devil

Death, Marriage

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

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

As quoted in Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World‎ (2006) by Leo Parvis, p. 54

Hate

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

Ngaio Marsh (1895–1982) New Zealand writer

Source: Death on the Air and Other Stories

Reading, Success

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

F. Scott Fitzgerald book This Side of Paradise

Source: This Side of Paradise

Love, People, Way, Selfishness

“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.”

John Fowles book The Collector

Source: The Collector

Thinking

“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.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Dreams, Waiting

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

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Pleasure

“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.”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

Intelligence, Nature

“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.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Source: Catching Fire

Kiss, Time, Baby

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

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Love, Feeling

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

Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature

“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.”

Milan Kundera book Encounter

Source: Encounter

Truth, Understanding

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

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good To Great And The Social Sectors, 2005, p. 1

Business

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Source: Self-Reliance

Solitude, Perfection

“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.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Men

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

Quentin Tarantino (1963) American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor

Time

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

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 26; translated by W. K. Marriot

“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.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

World, Housing

“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?”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

On Shakespeare (1630)
Source: The Complete Poetry

Age, Star, Memory

“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!”

Lev Grossman The Magician King

Source: The Magician King

World

“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.”

E.M. Forster book A Room with a View

Source: A Room with a View

Time

“… 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.”

Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence

Source: The Age of Innocence

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

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Source: Paradise Lost

Love, Strong, Happiness

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

For Men

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

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Books

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

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: On the Road: The Original Scroll

Dreams, Star

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

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Motivational, For women, Success, Deep

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

Bell Hooks book All About Love: New Visions

Source: All About Love: New Visions

Love, People, Disappointment, 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.”

L.J. Smith The Forbidden Game

Source: The Forbidden Game

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

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Source: Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

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

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Literature

“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.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Beauty

“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.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Komarr

Source: Komarr

Time, Parting

“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.”

Amy Chua book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Source: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Love, People

“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.”

Rachel Cohn (1968) American writer

Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

World

“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.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Life, Death

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

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: The Angel Experiment

Pain, Feeling

“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.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Life, People, World, Hope

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

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Variant: My point is that love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love.
Source: The Lost Hero

Love, World, Motivation