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Great Men Quotes

Browse 1131 quotes about Great Men.

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Great Men Quotes

“A great many people never really discover themselves until ruin stares them in the face. They do not seem to know how to bring out their reserves until they are overtaken by an overwhelming disaster, or until the sight of their blighted prospects and of the wreck of their homes and happiness stirs them to the very center of their beings.... There is something in defeat which puts new determination into a man of mettle.”

PeopleKnowsMenHomeSeemsFacesKnow HowDeterminationSightDefeatDisasterRuinsStaringGreat MenOverwhelmingReservesWrecksBeing ThereProspectsMettle
Book:The Optimistic Life
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“Success is in the student, not in the university; greatness is in the individual, not in the library; power is in the man, not in his crutches. A great man will make opportunities, even out of the commonest and meanest situations. If a man is not superior to his education, is not larger than his crutches or his helps, if he is not greater than the means of his culture, which are but the sign-boards pointing the way to success, he will never reach greatness. Not learning, not culture alone, not helps and opportunities, but personal power and sterling integrity, make a man great.”

IfsMenWayMeanHelpingCultureOpportunityIndividualSituationGreaterStudentsGreatnessHe ManIntegrityLibraryUniversitySuperiorsBoardsGreat MenPointingPersonal PowerCrutchesSterlingWay To Success
Author:Orison Swett Marden
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“The explorers of the past were great men and we should honour them. But let us not forget that their spirit lives on. It is still not hard to find a man who will adventure for the sake of a dream or one who will search, for the pleasure of searching, not for what he may find.”

MenShouldMayStillsHardDreamPastSpiritForgetPleasureAdventureSakeGreat MenExplorationHonourExplorersMt Everest
Book:High Adventure: Our Ascent of the Everest
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“Truth is not only a man's ornament but his instrument; it is the great man's glory, and the poor man's stock: a man's truth is his livelihood, his recommendation, his letters of credit.”

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Book:Moral and religious aphorisms [collected by J. Jeffery from the papers of B. Whichcote]. Now re-publ., with additions, by S. Salter. To which are added, Eight letters: which passed between dr. Whichcote, and dr. Tuckney
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“What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him, and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.”

IfsThinkingMenMadeEnoughMomentsTogetherPurposeJusticeMoralHistoryIssuesInvolvedPeriodsConscienceMarkAidsConfusionGreat MenMutualTrumpetsMoral IssuesMutual Aid
Author:Jane Addams
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“I have known a great many men who have left this Church for whom there is no chance whatever for exaltation, but if their blood had been spilled, it would have been better for them. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid this principle's being in full force, but the time will come when the law of God will be in full force.”

IfsMenHas BeensLawLeftForceNationsChurchChanceKnownPrinciplesBloodIgnoranceGods WillGreat MenWickednessExaltation
Book:The Essential Brigham Young
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“You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.”

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Author:Wilhelm Reich
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“Only a work democracy can create the foundation of genuine freedom. Long experience in sociological disputes leads me to expect that a great many people will take offense at the disclosure of this miscalculation. It makes the highest demands on people's will to veracity; it puts a heavy burden on everyday living; it places all social responsibility on those who work, be it in the factory, in the office, on the farm, in the laboratory, or wherever.”

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Author:Wilhelm Reich
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“Children who wish to become good and great men or good and noble women, should try to know well all the people whom they meet. Thus they will find that there is no one who has not much of good; and when they see some great folly, or some meanness, or some cowardice, or some fault or weakness in another person, they should examine themselves carefully. Then they will see that, perhaps, they too have some of the same fault in themselves - although perhaps it does not come out in the same way - and then they must try to conquer that fault.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Bram Stoker (Illustrated)
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“A common civility to an impertinent fellow, often draws upon one a great many unforeseen troubles; and if one doth not take particular care, will be interpreted by him as an overture of friendship and intimacy.”

IfsCareCommonTroubleParticularDrawsFellowsIntimacyGreat MenCivilityUnforeseen
Book:Remarks on several parts of Italy , &c in the years 1701, 1702, 1703. The Tatler. By Isaac Bickerstaffe, esq. The Spectator, no.1-89
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“Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power. ... The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces , is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind , the incarnation of the spirit .”

MenMindSpiritForcePowerfulPowerGreatnessActivityIntenseRealizationGreat MenIncarnationWill PowerAvidRestful
Book:Between Man and Man
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“A great many wise sayings have been uttered about the effects of solitary retirement; but the motives which impel men to seek it are not more various than the effects which it produces on different individuals. One thing is certain, that those who can with truth affirm that they are "never less alone than when alone," might generally add that they never feel more lonely than when not alone.”

MenFeelsHas BeensDifferentMightCertainIndividualWiseOne ThingEffectsLonelinessProduceLonelyAddVariousMotiveGreat MenRetirementWise SayingsSolitaryNot Alone
Book:Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
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“They say that each generation inherits from those that have gone before; if this were so there would be no limit to man's improvements or to his power of reaching perfection. But he is very far from receiving intact that storehouse of knowledge which the centuries have piled up before him; he may perfect some inventions, but in others, he lags behind the originators, and a great many inventions have been lost entirely. What he gains on the one hand, he loses on the other.”

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Author:Eugene Delacroix
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“Harvey was not content merely to gather knowledge; he digested and arranged it under the guidance of the faculties which compare and reason. ... Harvey appears to have possessed, in a remarkable degree, the power of persuading and conciliating those with whom he came in contact. In the whole course of his long life we hear nothing either of personal enemies or personal enmities ... one of the great men whom God, in virtue of his eternal laws, bids to appear on earth from time to time to enlighten, and to ennoble mankind.”

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Author:William Harvey
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“Pierre Trudeau was too much of a professional politician to be described as a good man, nor, it can be argued despite much pubilicity to the contrary, was he a particularly clever or even wise one. But he was a great man, perhaps the gratest Canada has produced in this century.”

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Book:The patriot game: Canada and the Canadian question revisited
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“I've always considered myself a failure: I feel I've never done anything wholly right. [...] Everybody will tell you, "Oh no, how can you say that, because ten thousand people clap you on a night?" But part of that is reflex action and part of it is because you're reasonably good. But if you're great, that's a different thing.”

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Author:Ronnie Drew
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“The delight of the Torah is ignited by an inner awareness. A man begins to sense the great tapestry of each letter and point. Every concept and content, every notion and idea, of every spiritual movement, of every vibration, intellectual and emotional, from the immediate and general to the distant and detailed, from matters lofty, spiritual, and ethical according to their outward profile, to matters practical, obligatory, seemingly frightening, and forceful, and at the same time complex and full of content and great mental exertion - all together become known by a supernal holy awareness.”

MenIdeasMatterTogetherSpiritualKnownAwarenessMovementEmotionalHolyIntellectualConceptsLettersComplexesNotionDelightPracticalsGreat MenEthicalFrighteningVibrationsLoftyProfileExertionTapestryTorah
Author:Abraham Isaac Kook
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“A great many film stars perched on unstable ravine edges in the canyon systems of Los Angeles will, like the cemeteries there, eventually slide down to join their unfortunate fellows in the canyon floors, with mud, cars, and embalmed or living film stars in one glorious muddy mass. We should not lend our talents to creating such spectacular catastrophes.”

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Author:Bill Mollison
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“The need for mythic statements is satisfied when we frame a view of the world which adequately explains the meaning of human existence in the cosmos, a view which springs from our psychic wholeness, from the co-operation between conscious and unconscious. Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable - perhaps everything.”

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Author:Carl Jung
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