Quotes about Greatness
Greatness comes only to those who seek not how to avoid obstacles, but how to overcome them.
— Theodore Roosevelt
How many there are who perish because of vain worldly knowledge and too little care for serving God. They became vain in their own conceits because they chose to be great rather than humble. He is truly great who has great charity. He is truly great who is little in his own eyes and makes nothing of the highest honor. He is truly wise who looks upon all earthly things as folly that he may gain Christ. He who does God's will and renounces his own is truly very learned.
— Thomas a Kempis
The world promises things that are temporal and small, and it is served with great eagerness. I (Christ) promise things that are great and eternal, and the hearts of mortals are slow to stir.
— Thomas a Kempis
is truly great who deemeth himself small, and counteth all height of honour as nothing.
— Thomas a Kempis
He only is truly great, who hath great charity. He is truly great who deemeth himself small, and counteth all height of honour as nothing.
— Thomas a Kempis
There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.
— Victor Hugo
Finding Happiness in Your Career The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. —Steve Jobs
— Clayton M. Christensen
Anyone who has the temerity to write about Jane Austen is aware of [two] facts: first, that of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness; second, that there are twenty-five elderly gentlemen living in the neighbourhood of London who resent any slight upon her genius as if it were an insult to the chastity of their aunts.
— Virginia Woolf
He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
— Charles Dickens
the possessor of such great expectations,—farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, henceforth I was for London and greatness;
— Charles Dickens
All of which is here recorded to the honour of that good Christian pair, representatives of hundreds of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful, who merge the smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of losing dignity when they adapt themselves to incomprehensible humbugs.
— Charles Dickens
There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.
— Grover Cleveland