Great Men Quotes - Page 13

• Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown . . . Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of men.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Hero, Men, Roots

  Thomas Carlyle (1840). “On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History”, p.14, CUP Archive

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• The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere!

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Law, One Day

  Thomas Carlyle (1871). “The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.218

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• Great art is precisely that which never was, nor will be taught, it is preeminently and finally the expression of the spirits of great men.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Men, Expression

  John Ruskin, Louisa Caroline Tuthill (1860). “The True and the Beautiful in Nature, Art, Morals and Religion: Selected from the Works of John Ruskin...”, p.225

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• To follow art for the sake of being a great man, and therefore to cast about continually for some means of achieving position or attracting admiration, is the surest way of ending in total extinction.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Mean, Men

  John Ruskin (1935). “Modern Painters”

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• Depend upon it, the first universal characteristic of all great art is Tenderness, as the second is Truth. I find this more and more every day: an infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheritance of all the truly great men. It is sure to involve a relative intensity of disdain towards base things, and an appearance of sternness and arrogance in the eyes of all hard, stupid, and vulgar people

  John Ruskin

  Art, Stupid, Eye

  John Ruskin (1872). “The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art, and Its Application to Decoration and Manufacture, Delivered in 1858-9”, p.38

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• To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man -- these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity. History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.

  Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

  Hero, Men, Average

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• Great men too make mistakes, and many among them do it so often that one is almost tempted to call them little men.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Mistake, Greatness, Men

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• A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character.

  George Santayana

  Character, Greatness, Men

  George Santayana (2014). “Winds of Doctrine: Studies in Contemporary Opinion”, p.19, The Floating Press

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• There are big men, men of intellect, intellectual men, men of talent and men of action; but the great man is difficult to find, and it needs --apart from discernment --a certain greatness to find him.

  Margot Asquith

  Greatness, Men, Intellectual

  Margot Asquith (1920). “The Autobiography of Margot Asquith”

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• To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Greatness, Men, Mediocre

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• Greatness brings no profit to people. God indeed, when in anger, brings greater ruin to great mens houses.

  Euripides

  Greatness, People, House

  Euripides (2012). “Medea”, p.5, Courier Corporation

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• Certainly there are great men whose age circumscribes them so completely that we lose interest.

  Haniel Long

  Men, Age, Interest

  Haniel Long (1950). “A letter to St. Augustine: after re-reading his confessions”

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• Do not expect to be acknowledged for what you are, much less for what you would be; since no one can well measure a great man but upon the bier.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Appreciation, Men, Would Be

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans”, p.401

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• Great men too often have greater faults than little men can find room for.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Greatness, Men, Littles

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “Imaginary Conversations of Greeks and Romans”, p.110

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• Strike at a great man, and you will not miss.

  Sophocles

  Men, Missing, Strikes

  Sophocles (2013). “Sophocles II: Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes, The Trackers”, p.24, University of Chicago Press

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• The possession of a great many things, even the best of things, tends to blind one to the real value of anything.

  Holbrook Jackson

  Real, Blind, Possession

  Holbrook Jackson (1912). “All Manner of Folk: Interpretations and Studies”, p.31, Ardent Media

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• Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties -- busybodies -- can prevent mutual accommodations by others.

  Thomas Sowell

  Party, Mean, Equality

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.225, Hoover Press

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• A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

  Mark Strand

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking wounded among the great many of us.

  Studs Terkel

  Survival, Triumph, Enough

  Studs Terkel (2013). “The Studs Terkel Reader: My American Century”, p.262, The New Press

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• One tends to overlook the fact that all during the 30's and actually during the late 40's I was a highly successful writer and a great many properties accumulated during that period of time.

  L. Ron Hubbard

  Successful, Facts, Periods

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• The lessons of great men and women are lost unless they reinforce upon our minds the highest demands which we make upon ourselves; they are lost unless they drive our sluggish wills forward in the direction of their highest ideas.

  Jane Addams

  Wisdom, Men, Ideas

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• Our job in physics is to see things simply, to understand a great many complicated phenomena in a unified way, in terms of a few simple principles.

  Steven Weinberg

  Jobs, Science, Simple

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• There have been great men with little of what we call education. There have been many small men with a great deal of learning. There has never been a great people who did not possess great learning.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Education, Science, Men

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Price of Freedom: Speeches and Addresses”, p.58, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• Manchester is a city which has witnessed a great many stirring episodes, especially of a political character. Generally speaking, its citizens have been liberal in their sentiments, defenders of free speech and liberty of opinion.

  Emmeline Pankhurst

  Character, Cities, Political

  Emmeline Pankhurst (2015). “My Own Story: Top Biography”, p.4, 谷月社

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• We have more to learn today from the spectacle of a great man at a great moment than from any number of monographs on ancient wage levels.

  C. V. Wedgwood

  Men, Numbers, Heroism

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