Greatness Quotes - Page 3

• To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Achieve, Should, Dies

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• Greatness is never free; it must be earned.

  Barack Obama

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• If we cannot see the possibility of greatness, how can we dream it?

  Lee Strasberg

  Dream, Possibility, Ifs

  42 Copy quote

• When in doubt, choose greatness.

  Cyril Connolly

  Doubt, When In Doubt

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• The essence of greatness is neglect of the self.

  James Anthony Froude

  Acceptance, Self, Essence

  36 Copy quote

• Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Inspirational, Success, Determination

  Charles de Gaulle (1960). “The Edge of the Sword”, New York : Criterion Books

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• Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.

  Khalil Gibran

  Poverty, Faces, Covering

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• A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

  Eric Hoffer

  Time, Good Luck, Men

  Eric Hoffer (1996). “The Passionate State of Mind”

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• When the legends die, the dreams end; there is no more greatness.

  Tecumseh

  Dream, Legends, Dies

  "Inspire! What Great Leaders Do". Book by Lance Secretan, p. 67, 2004.

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• Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

  Harry S. Truman

  Time, Class, Trying

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

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Perfection, Achievement, Higher

  "Mirror Dance". Book by Lois McMaster Bujold, 1994.

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• The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence.

  Max Lerner

  Travel, Moving, Men

  Max Lerner (1959). “The Unfinished Country”

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• Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness.

  Stanislaw Lem

  Trust, Business, People

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• The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

  Edmund Burke

  Long, Dominion, Virtue

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3765, Delphi Classics

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• Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon -but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx -the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?

  Bob Dylan

  Mean, Looks, Gone

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• At most, the greatest persons are but great wens, and excrescences; men of wit and delightful conversation, but as morals for ornament, except they be so incorporated into the body of the world that they contribute something to the sustentation of the whole.

  John Donne

  Men, World, Body

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• The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.

  Khalil Gibran

  Inspirational, Stars, Men

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• Men achieve a certain greatness unawares when working to another aim.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Men, Achieve

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.456

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• Many have had their greatness made for them by their enemies.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Enemy, Danger, Made

  Baltasar Gracian, Baltasar Gracián y Morales (2004). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.48, Shambhala Publications

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• What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Inspirational, Thinking, People

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.263, Library of America

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• Greatness is not manifested by unlimited pragmatism, which places such a high premium on the end justifying any means and any methods

  Margaret Chase Smith

  Mean, Ends, Unlimited

  Margaret Chase Smith (1972). “Declaration of Conscience”

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• It is a mistake to imagine that potentially great men are rare. It is the conditions that permit the promise of greatness to be fulfilled that are rare. What is so difficult to achieve is the cultural background that permits potential greatness to be converted into actual greatness.

  Fred Hoyle

  Mistake, Men, Promise

  Fred Hoyle (1966). “Of Men and Galaxies”, p.21, University of Washington Press

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• Just as a child respects his father even when he perceives his weaknesses and faults, so a German will not despise the old Germany which was once a symbol of greatness to him.

  Gustav Stresemann

  Children, Father, Weakness

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• All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.

  Elizabeth Bowen

  Taken, Want, Youth

  ELIZABETH BOWEN (1935). “The House in Paris”

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• An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims make it impossible to be great at all.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Ignorance, Mean, May

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