Greatness Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old greatness quotes, greatness sayings, and greatness proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. Albert Einstein
The price of greatness is responsibility. Winston Churchill
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively. Bob Marley
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. William Shakespeare
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness. Oprah Winfrey
A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness. It is an expression of humility. James E. Faust
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. Mark Twain
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds Albert Einstein
Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else. Judy Garland
A great man is always willing to be little. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great men are not born great, they grow great . . . Mario Puzo
Creativity means believing you have greatness. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet. William F. Halsey
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men. Thomas Carlyle
Man is only truly great when he acts from his passions Benjamin Disreali
Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things Lawrence D. Bell
The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without. Ralph Waldo Emerson
If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way Martin Luther King Jr.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will. Vince Lombardi
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. Oprah Winfrey
Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. Martin Luther King Jr.
There is a great man who makes every man feel small. But the real great man is the man who makes every man feel great. Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Whatever you are, be a good one. Abraham Lincoln
The first step toward greatness is to be honest. Proverb
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Albert Camus
Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion. Hebbel
If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you. T. Alan Armstrong
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them. Charles de Montesquieu
Be good and you will be lonely. Mark Twain
Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness but it is greatness. George Bernard Shaw
Greatness is a spiritual condition. Matthew Arnold
We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself. Jean Baudrillard
Great men are not always wise. Bible
The greatness of a man's power is the measure of his surrender. William Booth
Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting. Napoleon Bonaparte
Men are only as great as they are kind. Elbert Hubbard
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who does him absolutely no good. Samuel Johnson
Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind. Theodore Roosevelt
I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble. Helen Keller
Great hope makes great men Thomas Fuller
Deeds, not stones, are the true monuments of the great. John L. Motley
Each of us is great insofar as we perceive and act on the infinite possibilities which lie undiscovered and unrecognized about us. James Harvey Robinson
Great things are done when men and mountains meet. William Blake
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Samuel Johnson
Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength. Henry Ward Beecher
You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration. James Allen
Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary -- they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be. Henri Frederic Amiel
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
Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state. Edmund Burke
A great person is one who affects the mind of their generation. Benjamin Disraeli
People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things. Edmund Hillary
Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals. Dorothy Height
If we cannot see the possibility of greatness, how can we dream it? Lee Strasberg
No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. William Hazlitt
You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose, and to do it courageously. Steve Maraboli
No one has ever achieved greatness without dreams. Roy T. Bennett
To seek greatness is the only righteous vengeance. Criss Jami
There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. Benjamin Franklin
If there is not the war, you don't get the great general, if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman, if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name. Theodore Roosevelt
Winning is great, sure, but if you are generally going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday. Wilma Rudolph
Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Everyone who achieves success in a great venture, solves each problem as they came to it. They helped themselves. And they were helped through powers known and unknown to them at the time they set out on their voyage. They keep going regardless of the obstacles they met. W. Clement Stone
It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality. Og Mandino
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with the most invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptation from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is calm in storms; and most fearless under menaces and frowns; whose reliance on truth, on virtue, and on God is most unfaltering. Seneca
What makes greatness is starting something that lives after you. Ralph Sockham
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I've got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. George Bernard Shaw
The call and need of a new era is for Greatness. Tapping into the higher reaches of human genius and motivation requires leaders to have a new mind-set, skill-set, and tool-set. Stephen R. Covey
There is never any easy way to greatness; greatness is always the product of toil. William Barclay
A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he cannot love a woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her: nature having intended greatness for men. George Eliot
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely because he is persecuted; he must also be right. Stephen Jay Gould
The glory of great men should always be measured against the means they used to acquire it. Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Everything we think of as great has come to us from neurotics. It is they and they alone who found religions and create great works of art. The world will never realise how much it owes to them and what they have suffered in order to bestow their gifts on it. Marcel Proust
The first test of a truly great man is his humility. John Ruskin
All the world's great have been little boys who wanted the moon. John Steinbeck
In me there dwells / No greatness, save it be some far-off touch / Of greatness to know well I am not great. Alfred Lord Tennyson
Difficulty is a nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who rocks her foster children roughly, but rocks them into strength and athletic proportions. The mind, grappling with great aims and wrestling with mighty impediments, grows by a certain necessity to the stature of greatness. Kobe Bryant
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. Horace Mann
A nation's greatness resides not in her material resources, but in her will, faith, intelligence, and moral forces. J.M. Hoppin
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives him for mankind. Phillips Brooks
The greatest men in all ages have been lovers of their kind. All true leaders of men have it. Faith in men and love to men are unfailing marks of true greatness. Sir William Jones
If I am asked who is the greatest man? I answer the best; and if I am required to say who is the best? I reply he that has deserved most of his fellow-creatures. Sir William Jones
A really great man is known by three signs—generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success. Otto von Bismarck
He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like Samson, and "tells neither father nor mother of it." Johann Kaspar Lavater
In the truly great, virtue governs with a scepter of knowledge and wisdom. Sir Philip Sidney
Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are portions of Eternity. J.R. Lowell