“You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.”
“The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.”
“The search after the great men is the dream of youth, and the most serious occupation of manhood.”
“The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.”
“There are no great men, only great challenges that ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.”
“The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.”
“No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.”
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. [Twelfth Night]”
“The dullard's envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to a bad end.”
“All great men are gifted with intuition. They know without reasoning or analysis, what they need to know.”
“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.”
“To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.”
“After a fellow gets famous it does not take long for someone to bob up that used to sit next to him in school.”
“Great people are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force, that thoughts rule the world.”
“Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
“Because you are a great lord, you believe yourself to be a great genius. You took the trouble to be born, but no more.”
“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.”
“All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.”
“The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.”
“We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself.”
“The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.”
“I can write good songs. I can sing 'em, and I mean it, I mean it deeply, and I pour everything into that. Other than that, I suck.”
“You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.”
“In our society those who are in reality superior in intelligence can be accepted by their fellows only if they pretend they are not.”
“In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer --the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.”
“In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness ;thrust upon em.”
“No one who has come to true greatness has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to the people, and what God has given them he gives it for mankind.”
“Traditionally the great men of our country have sprung from poor environments; that being so, it would appear we have long suffered from a severe lack of poverty.”
“Great men never make bad use of their superiority. They see it and feel it and are not less modest. The more they have, the more they know their own deficiencies.”
“There are people who possess not so much genius as a certain talent for perceiving the desires of the century, or even of the decade, before it has done so itself.”