Quotes about greatness

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“Gods have great power, but only humans have creativity, the power to change history.”

“Jessica: “You great drunken jackass!”
Dain: “I did not give you leave to use my Christian name.”

“There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.”

“Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure, and commitment offers one of the great luxuries of life: time. Marriage is not the end of romance, it is the beginning.”

“Five Great Charters knit the land
together linked hand and hand.
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.”

“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.”

“escape from the black widow spider
is a miracle as great as art.
what a web she can weave
slowly drawing you to her
she'll embrace you
then when she's satisfied
she'll kill you
still in her embrace
and suck the blood from you.”

“You live in a deranged age - more deranged than usual, because despite great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing.”

“There is accumulation. There is responsibility. And beyond this there is great unrest.”

“Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.”

“A feeling is not bottomless. once felt all the way through, a great peace greets you there”

“Science is still only a candle glimmering in a great pitch-dark cavern.”

“Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.”

“But as the Roman playwright Terence once wrote, From many a bad beginning great friendships have formed”

“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.”

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.”

“The good face pain. But the great — they embrace it.”

“Life would be a great deal easier if dead things had the decency to remain dead.”

“Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.”

“The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.”

“Mom and Dad were great, but being asked where I was going every time I left the house - or where I'd been every time I returned - got old quickly.”

“I think writers are the most narcissistic people. Well, I musn't say this, I like many of them, a great many of my friends are writers.”

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights. You could no more call them back then ignore the mess they left when they fell.”

“You're taking classes? That's great. Crime scene etiquette, perhaps?”

“For with slight efforts how should we obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire it.”

“Okay," Annabeth said. "What exactly do you smell?"
"Something bad," Tyson answered.
"Great," Annabeth grumbled. "That clears it up.”

“For the record, knowing when people are only pretending to like you isn't such a great skill to have.”

“The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.”

“I was a fight to the death, and I felt great.”

“It'd be great to be so famous that if I murder someone, I will never, ever, ever serve any jail time, even if it's totally obvious to everyone that I did it.”

“Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.  Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.”

“What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library?”

“I think we can all agree that sleeping around is a great way to meet people.”

“She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous.”

“All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the causes of endless strife…. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.”

“Tyson, Frank is a descendant of Poseidon."
"Brother!" Tyson crushed Frank in a hug.
Percy stifled a laugh. "Actually he's more like a great-great-… Oh, never mind. Yeah, he's your brother."
"Thanks." Frank mumbled through a mouthful of flannel.”

“I was seducing shepherdesses when you weren't a twinkle in your great-grandcestor's eyes. I think I know what I'm doing.”

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”

“I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman's feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.”

“Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels — the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.”

“Love and life belongs to great risk.”

“You know a great many things in dreams, often despite the evidence of your eyes. You just know them.”

“I like football. I find its an exciting strategic game. Its a great way to avoid conversation with your family at Thanksgiving.”

“The earth is a great piece of stupidity.”

“You have a great heart, but will only find it to be so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift…. I have endured much suffering and still remain unbitter and unclosed.”

“Max lifted his head, with great sorrow and great astonishment.
'There were stars,' He said. 'They burned my eyes.’
… from a Himmel street window, he wrote, the stars set fire to my eyes.”

“A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.”

“I just thought of a great theory that explains everything. When I went to that party, I was abducted by aliens. They have created a fake Earth and fake high school to study me and my reactions. This certainly explains cafeteria food.”

“Suddenly summoned to witness something great and horrendous, we keep fighting not to reduce it to our own smallness.”

“Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.”

“Your very flesh shall be a great poem…”

“My idea of good company… is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.'
'You are mistaken,' said he gently, 'that is not good company, that is the best.”

“The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable.”

“If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient.”

“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.”

“What nobody understood then is this: The only way that you achieve what you want and fulfill your dreams and become great is by demanding that sort of attention. You have to make it happen.”

“Three films a day, three books a week and records of great music would be enough to make me happy to the day I die.”

“I'm not a great programmer; I'm just a good programmer with great habits.”

“I'm here to be me, which is taking a great deal longer than I had hoped.”

“No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.”

“The man watched him. Real life is pretty bad?

What do you think?

Well, I think we're still here. A lot of bad things have happened but we're still here.

Yeah.

You don't think that's so great.

It's okay.”

“Some people will tell you there is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”

“You don't smoke do you?"
"No, why?"
"They're afraid of fire."
"Great, we're going to be eaten alive because neither of us smokes."
I almost laughed. He sounded so thoroughly disgusted…”

“But he was so great!' Yes, and the people who got on the Titanic thought they were going on a vacation”

“This was the Great Romance. To love at any cost.”

“There’s something
so great about this,” she whispers.
About what?” I whisper back.

About this,” she whispers.
About being outlaws.
It’s just you and me—against the world.”

“When the evening was over, Anne could not be amused…nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

“My father always used
to say that when you die,
if you've got five real friends,
then you've had a great life.”

“The great thing about being a writer is that you are always re-creating yourself.”

“In psychology (okay, Twilight) they teach you about the notion of imprinting, and I think it applies here. I reverse-imprinted with athleticism. Ours is the great non-love story of my life.”

“I've always thought tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“At the moment, he kinda knew how the male praying mantis felt when he
was approaching Ms. Mantis, knowing the sex was going to be great but he was going to gethis head bitten off.
Ah, well. Some things were worth losing your head.”

“It is about the greatness of God, not the significance of man. God made man small and the universe big to say something about himself.”

“Normality is the Great Neurosis of civilization.”

“It's natural to feel fear. All great warriors are afraid. Only the stupid and the delusional are not…”

“Nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations. The thing that is really hard and really amazing is to give up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”

“You need to screw up to learn. You need to experience to create greatness.”

“How come you don't work fourteen hours a day? Your great-great-grandparents did. How come you only work the eight-hour day? Four guys got hanged fighting for the eight-hour day for you.”

“You're off to great places. Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”

“Because a sound tree doesn't have bad roots, Amara. No enterprise of greatness
begins with treachery, with lying to the people who trust and love you”

“You will not pass!” Roman thundered.
Great. Now he had decided he was Gandalf.”

“For when the One Great Scorer comes
To mark against your name,
He writes - not that you won or lost -
But HOW you played the Game.

"Alumnus Football”

“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”

“Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious.”

“We're playing Scrabble. It's a nightmare."

"Scrabble?" He sounds surprised. "Scrabble's great."

"Not when you're playing with a family of geniuses, it's not. They all put words like 'iridiums'. And I put 'pig'.”

“Men are only as great as they are kind.”

“He doesn’t have to love your CD collection. He doesn’t have to love your shoes. But any good, mature guy better make an attempt to love your friends and family—especially when they’re great.”

“Cupid said."Great," Jason said. "Now he's spouting greeting card messages.”

“My life has been one great big joke,
A dance that's walked,
A song that's spoke,
I laugh so hard I almost choke,
When I think about myself.”

“Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers… great talkers.”

“All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths.”

“Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.”

“Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.”

“Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn'd…”

“The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.”

“Remembering is a great invention of the mind.”

“Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.”

“The sign of a great man is how you handle defeat. - Old Jack”