Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Quotes about greatness page 7
“Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Source: New Nationalism Speech by Teddy Roosevelt
“It's so freeing, it's beautiful in a way, to have a great failure, there's nowhere to go but up.”
David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor
“The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.”
Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: What I Believe
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
This is not a quote by Kerouac. It's a quote by CBS broadcaster Charles Kuralt who used to present a TV news segment called 'On the Road' (which is probably how the confusion arose). This particular statement by Kuralt was made in May 1996 to students of Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19960527&id=yf8yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yQcGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3106,5606314
Misattributed
“Whoever submits himself to a super-discipline can expect great triumphs.”
Samael Aun Weor (1917–1977) Colombian writer
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.”
Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist
Source: The Wealth of Nations
“The great events of the world take place in the brain…”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow book Voices of the Night
St. 7.
A Psalm of Life (1839)
Source: Voices of the Night
“At the heart of all great art is an essential melancholy.”
Federico García Lorca (1898–1936) Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director
“I didn't say I liked it Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference.”
Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
“A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”
Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer
“Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.”
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869) French Romantic composer
Le temps est un grand maître, dit-on; le malheur est qu'il soit un maître inhumain qui tue ses élèves.
Letter written in November 1856, published in Pierre Citron (ed.) Correspondance générale (Paris: Flammarion, 1989) vol. 5, p. 390; Paul Davies About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996) p. 214.
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, my cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. (p. 17)
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: Speech to the Savage Club, 9 June 1899, in Mark Twain's Speeches (1910), ed. William Dean Howells, pp. 277–278 http://books.google.com/books?id=7etXZ5Q17ngC&pg=PA277. (Possibly fabricated from a paraphrase in Aaron Watson, The Savage Club: a Medley of History, Anecdote, and Reminiscence (1907), pp. 126–129 http://books.google.com/books?id=B1cuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA63)
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Source: Leonardo's Notebooks
“When you meet someone who is truly great, he makes you believe you can be great, too.”
Sherry Argov (1977) American writer
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
Cassandra Clare book City of Bones
Clary and Jace, pg. 98
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: 1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)
en.wikiquote.org - Bertrand Russell / Quotes / 1950s / Unpopular Essays (1950)
“Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell
Variant: There is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of the hands of a clock
Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell
“It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if it wasn't always there.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
"Forgive, O Lord," In the Clearing (1962) <br class="br">First published in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (12 November 1960), p. 157 http://books.google.com/books?id=9J_lAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Forgive+O+Lord+my+little+jokes+on+Thee+And+I'll+forgive+Thy+great+big+one+on+me%22&pg=PA157#v=onepage <br class="br">1960s <br class="br">Variant: Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.
“A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.”
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer
“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“When you have a sorrow that is too great it leaves no room for any other.”
Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)
“I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
The Secret of the Sea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist
1770s, Common Sense (1776)
Context: The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.
Elisabeth Elliot (1926–2015) American missionary
Source: These Strange Ashes
“Oh great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have us to shine for?”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Stefan Zweig (1881–1942) Austrian writer
The World of Yesterday [Die Welt von Gestern] (1942), p. 10, as translated by Marion Sonnenfeld
Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4
“It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 86
The Book of Disquiet
Original: É nobre ser tímido, ilustre não saber agir, grande não ter jeito para viver.
Shiing-Shen Chern (1911–2004) mathematician (1911–2004), born in China and later acquiring U.S. citizenship; made fundamental contributio…
[1991, Surface Theory with Darboux and Bianchi, Miscellanea Mathematica, 59–69, Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-76709-8_4]
Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman
Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 142.
Other
Rich Mullins (1955–1997) American christian musician
Lufkin, Texas http://www.kidbrothers.net/words/concert-transcripts/lufkin-texas-jul1997-full.html (July 19, 1997) <br class="br">In Concert
N. R. Narayana Murthy (1946) Indian businessman
Source: Entrepreneur of the New Millenium: N.R. Narayana Murthy : Life & Times of N.R. Narayana Murthy, p. 26
Bill Finger (1914–1974) American comic strip and comic book writer
[Jim Steranko, The Steranko History of Comics, Supergraphics, Reading, Pa., 1970, ISBN 0-517-50188-0, p.44]
Variant: Robin was an outgrowth of a conversation I had with Bob. As I said, Batman was a combination of Fairbanks and Sherlock Holmes. Holmes had his Watson. The thing that bothered me was that Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking. I found that as I went along Batman needed a Watson to talk to. That's how Robin came to be. Bob called me over and said he was going to put a boy in the strip to identify with Batman. I thought it was a great idea
“God, grant us men to see in a small thing principles which are common things both small and great.”
Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
Aurelius Augustinus book Confessions
Deus, dona hominibus videre in parvo communes notitias rerum parvarum atque magnarum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lM5PQRHMNFwC&q=%22Deus+dona+hominibus+videre+in+parvo+communes+notitias+rerum+parvarum+atque+magnarum%22&pg=PR19#v=onepage
XI, 23
Confessions (c. 397)
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
Source: Regards sur le monde actuel [Reflections on the World Today] (1931), pp. 158-159
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Sometimes rendered : "They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." <br class="br">Both of these are doctored statements that have been widely disseminated as genuine on many anti-semitic websites; They are distortions derived from a statement that was attributed to Washington in Maxims of George Washington about currency speculators during the Revolutionary war, not about Jews: "This tribe of black gentry work more effectually against us, than the enemy's arms. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties, and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society, and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." More information is available at Snopes. com: "To Bigotry, No Sanction" http://www.snopes.com/quotes/thejews.htm <br class="br">This quotation is a classic anti-semitic hoax, evidently begun during or just before World War Two by American Nazi sympathizers, and since then has been repeated, for example, in foreign propaganda directed at Americans. In fact it is knitted from two separate letters by Washington, in reverse chronology, neither of them mentioning Jews. The first part of this forgery are taken from Washington's letter to Edmund Pendleton, Nov. 1, 1779 {and the original can be found in the Library of Congress's online service at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw3h/001/378378.jpg }. I have tried to reproduce Washington's spelling and punctuation exactly. In that letter Washington complains about black marketeers and others undermining the purchasing power of colonial currency:<br>: … but I am under no apprehension of a capital injury from ay other source than that of the continual depreciation of our Money. This indeed is truly alarming, and of so serious a nature that every other effort is in vain unless something can be done to restore its credit. .... Where this has been the policy (in Connecticut for instance) the prices of every article have fallen and the money consequently is in demand; but in the other States you can scarce get a single thing for it, and yet it is with-held from the public by speculators, while every thing that can be useful to the public is engrossed by this tribe of black gentry, who work more effectually against us that the enemys Arms; and are a hundd. times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in.<br>The second part of this fabricated quote is from Washington's letter to Joseph Reed, Dec. 12, 1778 {and can be found at the Library of Congress using the same URL but ending in /193192.jpg}, which again condemns war profiteers (the parenthetical list in the quotation is Washington's own words which he put there in parentheses):<br>: It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition … so well disposed to second your endeavours in bringing those murderers of our cause (the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers) to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State long ere this has not hunted them down as the pests of society, and the greatest Enemys we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious of each State was hung in Gibbets upons a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment in my opinion is too great for the Man who can build his greatness upon his Country's ruin. <br class="br">Misattributed, Spurious attributions
Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician
No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist
Olive Gilbert & Sojourner Truth (1878), Narrative of Sojourner Truth, a Bondswoman of Olden Time, page 159. ( text at sojournertruth.org http://www.sojournertruth.org/Library/Archive/LibyanSibyl.htm)
Elias James Corey (1928) American chemist
E. J. Corey, Barbara Czakó, László Kürti, Molecules and Medicine (2007). Introduction
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), I Prolegomena and General Introduction to the Book on Painting
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, First Annual Message to Congress (1901)
J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851) British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker
Quote of Turner, c. 1840's; as cited by George Walter Thornbury, in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 130
Turner did not appear to be pleased with Mr. Ruskin's superlative eulogies, according to Peter Cunningham
1821 - 1851
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax (1633–1695) English politician
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750), Moral Thoughts and Reflections
Rāmabhadrācārya (1950) Hindu religious leader
śaśāṅke kutaḥ śyāmatā jātā ।
pṛcchati jananīmatikutūhalādbālastribhuvanatrātā ॥
kṛṣṇamṛgastava śarabhayādvidhuṃ yāto naitanmātaḥ ।
kapaṭamṛgaṃ praṇihanmi nāparaṃ tasya vimohakhyātaḥ ॥
daśamukhabhayādbhuvo yātā yā vidhuṃ śyāmatā dṛṣṭā ।
kathaṃ rāhubhītoऽsau pāyānmahī mūḍhatāspṛṣṭā ॥
tvamatha vīkṣya candramasaṃ nijadayitānanarūpasamānam ।
śaśini gato śyāmaḥ kila dṛṣṭaḥ kartuṃ tadadharapānam ॥
nahi mātaḥ pīye tava stanaṃ śrutvā manujendrāṇī ।
sasmitamukhī vismitā jātā cakitā giridharavāṇī ॥
Gītarāmāyaṇam
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
"Give!" (26 March 1944)
Variant translation: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before beginning to improve the world! [...] You can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!
Tales from the Secret Annex