Greatness Quotes

Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.

To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; and to forgo even ambition when the end is gained – who can say this is not greatness?

Somewhere in the world there is defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.

Great men are not born great, they grow great.

The history books do not remember the men who almost achieved greatness.

Produce great Persons, the rest follows.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

Men in power are only grateful for the performance of impossibilities. ‘If it had been possible,’ they say, I would have done it myself.’[Les grands ne sont reconnaissants que lorsque l’on fait pour eux l’impossible. « Si c’eût été possible, nous disent-ils, je l’eusse fait moi-même. » et les grands ont raison.]

It was better for me when I could imagine greatness in others, even if it wasn’t always there.

It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.[Es ist das Vorrecht der Grösse, mit geringen Gaben hoch zu beglücken.]

It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations.[Le propre d’un grand homme est de dérouter les calculs ordinaires.]

He is great who is what he is from Nature, and who never reminds us of others.