Quotes about greatness

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“If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule—a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.”

“Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one's sights and pushing toward the horizon.”

“With great power comes a great need to take a nap.”

“There is a great deal of unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account in an explanation of our gusts and storms.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m actually on the wrong planet. It’s great when I’m in my garden, but the minute I go out the gate I think, ‘What the hell am I doing here?”

“Don't sulk. For someone with all the grace and coordination of a pregnant wildebeest, you did great.”

“All great discoveries… are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.”

“Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.”

“The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.”

“There's only one great evil in the world today. Despair.”

“Sometimes I imagine myself looking back on right now and I think like where will I be standing when I look back Will right now look like the beginning of a great life or… or what”

“When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.”

“Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic?… Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.”

“You hold on to old experiences: injuries, injustices, and great love affairs, too. And you hold them in your joints and your organs, and wear them on your skin.”

“Great necessities call forth great leaders.”

“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.”

“For, in the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.”

“Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,--a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”

“Our attachments are our temple, what we worship, no? What we give ourselves to, what we invest with faith…. Attachments are of great seriousness. Choose your attachments carefully. Choose your temple of fanaticism with great care.”

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.”

“The community of the Giver had achieved at such great price. A community without danger or pain. But also, a community without music, color or art. And books.”

“Great opportunities may come once in a lifetime, but small opportunities surround us every day.”

“Have a little faith in me, Volger."
"I have great faith, tempered with vast annoyance.”

“Greatness is best measured by how well an individual responds to the happenings in life that appear to be totally unfair, unreasonable, and undeserved.”

“Men love a submissive woman, Damon said simply. Even when they say the don't. There's just something about a beautiful, soft woman looking to them to protect and take care of them that inspires a man to greatness.”

“Great Music, it said, and Great Poetry would like quieten Modern Youth down and make Modern Youth more Civilized. Civilized my syphilised yarbles.”

“Great, I thought. We just blowtorched a national monument.”

“The great corporation which employed you lied to you, and lied to the whole country—from top to bottom it was nothing but one gigantic lie.”

“Words are like eggs dropped from great heights; you can no more call them back than ignore the mess they leave when they fall.”

“There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.”

“… and the great advantage of being a literary woman, was that you could go everywhere and do everything.”

“Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature's profligate generosity.”

“How is Eric?'
'Very tightly wound. Plus, a lot of stuff happened that he'll tell you about.'
'Thanks for the warning. I'll go to the house now. You're my favorite breather.'
'Oh. Well… great.'
She hung up.”

“Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.”

“We ordinary people might lack your great speed or your X-Ray vision, Superman, but never underestimate the power of the human mind. We carry the most dangerous weapon on Earth inside these thick skulls of ours.”

“Small facts lead to great knowing.”

“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it”

“Great poetry needs no interpreter other than a responsive heart.”

“You can only become great at something you are willing to sacrifice for”

“Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.”

“Character is higher than intellect…A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.”

“And the great spirit of darkness spread a shroud over me… everything was silent-everything. But upon the heights soughed the everlasting song, the voice of the air, the distant, toneless humming which is never silent.”

“… will you be so kind as to provide me with a few places where I might look for a murderer?"
"The mirror's a great place to start”

“Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.”

“In the beginning, the price of giving great love is risking that it won't be returned. Until you understand, of course, that great love is always returned. With interest.”

“I hadn't seen my dad get violent since the Great Spatula Incident, and I wasn't anxious to see a repeat of that.”

“Sebastian lay a few feet away from her, on his back. There was a great blackened hole across the front of his chest. He turned his head toward her, his face taut and white with pain, and her heart contracted.
His eyes were green.”

“Woman work a great many miracles.”

“Guys are great before you know who they are,' said Lucy. 'They're great when you're still with who they might be.”

“A truly great artist has many talents.”

“Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

“One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”

“Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never.”

“Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.”

“Great. Lookout. I'm a lookout. Another thing to put on my college applications. What do I do if I see someone?"
Val looked back. "I'm not sure, actually.”

“great men burn bridges before they come to them”

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.”

“If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.”

“Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others…
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

“Great,” Simon said. “Maybe I’ll even make it back before my mother notices I’m gone. What’s the time difference between here and Manhattan?”
“You have a mother?” Aline looked amazed.”

“In all ages the people have honored those who dishonored them. They have worshiped their destroyers; they have canonized the most gigantic liars, and buried the great thieves in marble and gold. Under the loftiest monuments sleeps the dust of murder.”

“She might be a great person, but life's so much bigger than just loving someone.”

“Every day has its great grief or its small anxiety…. One cloud is dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day in a hundred of real joy and bright sunshine.”

“.. I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.”

Jessica took a long swallow of her cognac. “This is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.”

“Then use a harpoon.”

“So all life is a great chain, the nature of which is known whenever we are shown a link of it.”

“The great task of life is to learn the will of the Lord and then do it.”

“Our Generation has had no Great war, no Great Depression. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives.”

“The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.”

“I know that I'm not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don't know how not to.”

“Why do you think the old stories tell of men who set out on great journeys to impress the gods? Because trying to impress people just isn't worth the time and effort.”

“So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.”

“There was often a great deal of grown-up fuss that seemed disproportionate to causes.”

“You are a great deal of trouble, Jace Herondale”

“I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.”

“God created us for this: to live our lives in a way that makes him look more like the greatness and the beauty and the infinite worth that he really is. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.”

“For I have had too much
Of apple-picking:I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.”

“Statistically speaking, there's a better chance that some part of me will go on to greatness somewhere in the world. I'd rather be partly great than entirely useless.”

“You're an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I'm an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I'm in an ideal position to appreciate it.”

“When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.”

“… our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding.”

“It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.”

“Great sex is apocalyptic. There is no such thing as great sex unless you have an apocalyptic moment.”

“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

“my sword reappeared in my pocket.
yeah, great timing. now i could attack the walls all i wanted. my cell had no bar, no window, not even a door”

“Oh, that's just great. I come all the way back here, risking major brain cell burnout, and you don't even believe me? I'm basically guaranteeing myself a lifetime of heartbreak, and all you have to say is that you think I'm not right in the head?”

“A computer does not smell… if a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better… And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn’t do that for you. I’m sorry.”

“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn”

“We are a sum total of what we have learned from all who have taught us, both great and small.”

“The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend worth dying for.”

“I have all these great genes, but they're recessive. That's the problem here.”

“She couldnt let that happen again. She would have to be strong. Fearless. Gird
herself with righteous armor.
She jumped when the door clicked shut. Oh great, that was real fearless of her.”

“You have understood what all great painters understand: in order to forget the rules, you must know them and respect them.”

“One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. So now people assume that religion and morality have a necessary connection. But the basis of morality is really very simple and doesn't require religion at all.”

“The silence was always the greates temptation.”

“Someday you're really going to have to describe to me in more detail what life is like on the planet you live on. Because it sounds really great, and I'd like to visit there one day.”

“I’ve had a tense couple of days. And I’ve got to tell you, burning someone’s face off sounds like a great way to relax.”

“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”

“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.”

“Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.”