Quotes about greatness
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“Believe in yourself and you can achieve greatness in your life.”

Judy Blume (1938) American children's writer

“Have your adventures, make your mistakes, and choose your friends poorly -- all these make for great stories.”

Chuck Palahniuk (1962) American novelist, essayist

“The devil frequently fills our thoughts with great schemes, so that instead of putting our hands to what work we can do to serve our Lord, we may rest satisfied with wishing to perform impossibilities.”

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582) Roman Catholic saint

Source: Interior Castle

“I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.”

Lois McMaster Bujold book Mirror Dance

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Mirror Dance (1994)

Perfection

“Leo had seen Tia Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let's unleash her rage. Great idea.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Idea, Rage, Baby

“All great truths begin as blasphemies.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Annajanska (1919)
1910s
Source: Annajanska the Bolshevik Empress

Truth

“There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and to have recovered hope.”

George Eliot book Adam Bede

Adam Bede (1859)

Sad, Depressing, Hope, Suffering

“Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging

Hope, Soul

“Self-destruction would be a brief, almost autoerotic free-fall into a great velvet darkness.”

Mark Mirabello (1955) American writer

Source: The Cannibal Within

“I felt like time was a great sea, and I was floating on the back of a turtle, and no sails broke the horizon.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Time, Sea

“Death is a great tragedy…a profound loss…I don’t accept it…I think people are kidding themselves when they say they are comfortable with death.”

Ray Kurzweil (1948) Author, scientist, inventor, and futurist

Death, People, Thinking, Loss

“Waiting patiently doesn't suit you. I can see you have a great deal of water in your personality. Water never waits. It changes shape and flows around things, and finds the secret paths no one else has thought about.
[Mameha]”

Arthur Golden book Memoirs of a Geisha

Source: Memoirs of a Geisha

Secret, Water, Change, Waiting

“A great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees
A forest of apologies.”

J. Patrick Lewis (1942) American children's writer and poet

Books, Home, Tree

“It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Hostility

“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people… Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

People, Learning

“Our great mistake is to try to exact from each person virtues which he does not possess, and to neglect the cultivation of those which he has.”

Marguerite Yourcenar book Memoirs of Hadrian

Source: Memoirs of Hadrian

Personality

“A great thirst is a great joy when quenched in time.”

Edward Abbey book Desert Solitaire

"Water", p. 104
Source: Desert Solitaire (1968)

Time, Joy

“There is nothing I detest so much as the contortions of these great time-and-lip servers, these affable dispensers of meaningless embraces, these obliging utterers of empty words, who view every one in civilities”

Molière The Misanthrope

Source: The Misanthrope

Time

“You would make a great teacher. (Grace)
Commander to teacher. Why not call me Cato the Elder, and really insult me while you’re at it? (Julian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon Fantasy Lover

Source: Fantasy Lover

Teachers

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”

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

Inspirational, Motivational, Wise, Deep

“Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty even in times of great distress.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Two: Soul and Body, p 49

Life, Law, Beauty, Time

“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

“Wouldn't it be great if people could get to live suddenly as often as they die suddenly?”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

People

“Great," I said. "Another conference call. I havegot to start blocking your number.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

“It would be so great if it were possible to go through life without making a single mistake but there is no such path. Falling, tripping, losing the way, making mistakes, little by little, walking one step at a time, this is the only way.”

Natsuki Takaya (1973) Manga artist

Life, Way, Time

“The Human Species could have been great but instead we became satisfied with lights on our tennis shoes.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Shoe, Light

“It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.”

Sarah Dessen book Just Listen

Source: Just Listen

Imagination, Freedom

“I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.”

Natalie Goldberg (1948) American writer

Source: Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking

“Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I, lines 159–172.
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Context: A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.

Madness

“It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby

Source: The Great Gatsby

People, Drink, Time

“It took him a long, miserable time before he realized the truth of things: There is a great deal of difference between a penis and a heart.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear

Truth, Time, Heart

“We always have a tendency to see those things that do not exist and to be blind to the great lessons that are right there before our eyes.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Pilgrimage: A Contemporary Quest for Ancient Wisdom

“Andrea: "…. I think a dog is a great idea. I just never pictured you with a mutant poodle.”
Kate: “He isn’t a poodle. He’s a Doberman mix."
Andrea: “Aha. Keep telling yourself that.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bleeds

Dogs, Idea, Thinking

“A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Source: A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays

Pain, Pleasure, Imagination

“Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy”

Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) writer and poet

Life, Marriage, Happiness

“To have great poets,
there must be great audiences.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“may I be I is the only prayer--not may I be great or good or beautiful or wise or strong.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Beauty, Strong

“I have not led an ordinary life, nor a life that would suit everyone. I took great risks, but because I did, I also earned great reward. I found the way to show my true face freely, without fear. Because of this, I found true love.”

Cameron Dokey (1956) American writer

Source: The Wild Orchid: A Retelling of The Ballad of Mulan

Love, Life, Fear, Way

“You cannot be the person they know and the great, glorious person you want to become. Not at the same time.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Haunted

Source: Haunted

Time, Personality

“I'm a godmother, that's a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that's cute, I taught her that.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Ellen DeGeneres, My Point...And I Do Have One

God

“It is best not to go on for great quest for truth, it will only make you miserable”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

Truth

“Great boldness is seldom without some absurdity.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

“Each day is a new opportunity. I chose to make this day a great one.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“I turned to Annabeth and shook my head in exasperation. “Always Hercules. What is it with Hercules?”

Annabeth shrugged. “He had a great publicist.”

Rick Riordan book The Demigod Diaries

Source: The Demigod Diaries

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

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

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Circles

“Great balls of fire. Don't bother me anymore, and don't call me sugar.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

“I suppose that each of us may have a great moment in our life, a month, a week a year, when we are most fully what we are meant to be”

Sebastian Faulks (1953) British journalist and novelist

Life

“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can't produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Women, Effort, Time, Baby

“Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English--but are great in remembering signs”

Karl Lagerfeld (1933–2019) German fashion designer

People, World, Reading, Parting

“Is it possible to specialize in more than one element?"
She laughed and shook her head. "No. Too much power. No one could handle all that magic, not without losing her mind."
Oh. Great.”

Richelle Mead Vampire Academy

Source: Vampire Academy

“How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?”

Julia Child (1921–2004) American chef

Origins of attribution could be a New York Times Magazine article by Joan Barthel ("How to Avoid TV Dinners While Watching TV" 7 August 1966, p. 34): "'The French Chef'...the program that can be campier than 'Batman,' farther-out than 'Lost in Space' and more penetrating than 'Meet the Press' as it probes the question: Can a Society be Great if its bread tastes like Kleenex?" Article quoted in for Life: The Biography of Julia Child http://books.google.com/books?id=GDDYYhUS4i0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=kleenex&f=false|Appetite (Noël Riley Fitch. Doubleday, 1997, p. 308) <br class="br">Attributed

“I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I will be with the people.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Source: The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America

People

“Mahoney: "Thirty-seven seconds. Great, well done; now we wait."

Mr. Magorium: "No, we breathe, we pulse, we regenerate. our hearts beat, our minds create, our souls ingest. Thirty-seven seconds well used is a lifetime.”

Suzanne Weyn book Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Source: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Soul, Waiting, Heart

“You know what’s a great metaphor for love? Sleeping beauty. Because you have to plow through this incredible thicket of thorns in order to get to beauty, and even then, when you get there, you still have to wake her up.
— Tiny Cooper”

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Love, Beauty, Sleep

“Where God tears great gaps we should not try to fill them with human words.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

God, Tear

“Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in few!”

Pythagoras (-585–-495 BC) ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher

Wise

“If a story is not about the hearer he [or she] will not listen… A great lasting story is about everyone or it will not last. The strange and foreign is not interesting--only the deeply personal and familiar.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Personality

“Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: (1776), Book V, Chapter I, Part II, p. 770.
Source: The Wealth of Nations

“I'm leaving!" she said, with, in her opinion, great drama and resolve.
But he just answered her with a sly half smile, and said, "I'm following."
And the bloody man remained two strides behind her the entire way home.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: An Offer From a Gentleman

Smile, Way, Home

“I could read the great books but the great books don't interest me.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Books, Reading

“nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Love

“To photograph is to hold one's breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It's at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) French photographer

Source: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers

Reality, Joy

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen, professor emeritus of philosophy at the College of the City of New York, defending the appointment of Bertrand Russell to a teaching position (19 March 1940).
1940s
Variant: Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.

Courage, Understanding

“They never fail who die
In a great cause.”

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

Marino Faliero, Act II, Scene 2, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one's children just because they are one's children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love, Friendship, Children

“Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 421 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=449&itemID=F391&viewtype=image, in the sixth (1872) edition

History, Science