85 Greatness Quotes

In a world constantly pushing us toward self-improvement and achievement, the wisdom of those who've walked the path of greatness serves as an invaluable guide. Words have the power to inspire, uplift, and motivate us to transcend our limitations and reach new heights. Whether you're seeking a spark of motivation for a personal endeavor or a boost to carry you through the day, our curated collection of the top 85 Greatness Quotes is here to inspire and empower. Let the timeless insights from visionaries, leaders, and thinkers propel you towards your own journey of greatness.

1. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” - Albert Einstein

2. “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

3. “Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.” - Judy Garland

4. “It takes a great man to be a good listener.” - Calvin Coolidge

5. “I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.” - John Keats

6. “The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not worshipped; it is our future in which we will find our greatness.” - Pierre Trudeau

7. “I believe that the first test of a great man is his humility. I don't mean by humility, doubt of his power. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not of them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” - John Ruskin

8. “Harry - you're a great wizard, you know." "I'm not as good as you," said Harry, very embarrassed, as she let go of him."Me!" said Hermione. "Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery and - oh Harry - be careful!” - J.K. Rowling

9. “[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

10. “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.” - Frank Herbert

11. “Robert G. Ingersoll was a great man. a wonderful intellect, a great soul of matchless courage, one of the great men of the earth -- and yet we have no right to bow down to his memory simply because he was great. Great orators, great soldiers, great lawyers, often use their gifts for a most unholy cause. We meet to pay a tribute of love and respect to Robert G. Ingersoll because he used his matchless power for the good of man.{Darrow's eulogy for Ingersoll at his funeral}” - Clarence Darrow

12. “Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

13. “I used to walk down the street like I was a fucking star... I want people to walk around delusional about how great they can be - and then to fight so hard for it every day that the lie becomes the truth.” - Lady Gaga

14. “The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

15. “In my opinion, if, as the result of certain combinations, Kepler's or Newton's discoveries could become known to people in no other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred or more people who were hindering the discovery, or standing as an obstacle in its path, then Newton would have the right, and it would even be his duty... to remove those ten or a hundred people, in order to make his discoveries known to mankind. It by no means follows from this, incidentally, that Newton should have the right to kill anyone he pleases, whomever happens along, or to steal from the market every day. Further, I recall developing in my article the idea that all... well, let's say, the lawgivers and founders of mankind, starting from the most ancient and going on to the Lycurguses, the Solons, the Muhammads, the Napoleons, and so forth, that all of them to a man were criminals, from the fact alone that in giving a new law, they thereby violated the old one, held sacred by society and passed down from their fathers, and they certainly did not stop at shedding blood either, if it happened that blood (sometimes quite innocent and shed valiantly for the ancient law) could help them.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky

16. “A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.” - William Hazlitt

17. “Every step gets him closer to greatness...or disaster.” - Jody Feldman

18. “He had all the attributes of a perfect man, and, in my opinion, no finer personality ever existed.{Edison's opinion of the great Robert Ingersoll}” - thomas edison

19. “Denys (Finch-Hatton) has been written about before and he will be written about again. If someone has not already said it, someone will say that he was a great man who never achieved greatness, and this will not only be trite, but wrong; he was a great man who never achieved arrogance.” - Beryl Markham

20. “The rule seemed to be that a great woman must either die unwed ... or find a still greater man to marry her. ... The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women; indeed, it was often found sweet and commendable in him to choose a woman of no sort of greatness at all.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

21. “Always to be right, always to trample forward, and never to doubt, are not these the great qualities with which dullness takes the lead in the world?” - William Makepeace Thackeray

22. “There is no one great man. Only millions of men and women in possession of tiny pieces of greatness, which when put together, when assembled in the aggregate make the whole. I am a piece of a very large jigsaw puzzle. One of the corner pieces. The one you go for first - important for a time, different from most of the others. But then, in the end, in the big picture, just one of many.” - Mark Dunn

23. “Mi piace essere in un corpo che ormai invecchia. Posso guardare le montagne senza il desiderio di scalarle. Quand'ero giovane le avrei volute conquistare. Ora posso lasciarmi conquistare da loro. Le montagne, come il mare, ricordano una misura di grandezza dalla quale l'uomo si sente ispirato, sollevato. Quella stessa grandezza è anche in ognuno di noi, ma lì ci è difficile riconoscerla. Per questo siamo attratti dalle montagne.” - Tiziano Terzani

24. “When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.” - Walter Payton

25. “Easily mistaken, it is not about a love for adversity, it is about knowing a strength and a faith so great that adversity, in all its adverse manifestations, hardly even exists.” - Criss Jami

26. “Fame is a jealous mistressAnd will brook no rival.” - Tiruvalluvar

27. “The firstsign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and actgreat. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assuresus, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise.” - Dale Breckenridge Carnegie

28. “Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.” - Robin Williams

29. “..if I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur.” - Henry James

30. “The Prince came to give life unto those whose lives were almost being snuffed out by the devil via the cares of this world.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

31. “Everyone that enters through Him is secured and the person shall find pastures for himself. Jesus really cares!” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

32. “You don't need to go running from pillar to post looking for what God looks like.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

33. “So cheer up Beloved; for your God is able, He is the maker of all things.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

34. “God comes down in the evenings to chat with man, enjoy man's company and find out how man faired in the course of the day.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

35. “Another way of remaining in intimacy with God is by remaining in His presence.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

36. “The presence of God is so important in the life of believers. There is abundance of all you need to make your life comfortable in His presence.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

37. “God is never tired of bringing the sun out every morning, taking it in the evenings and bringing out the moon.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

38. “Worship is the marriage of two Spirits - the Spirit of God and the Spirit of man.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

39. “Your words are powerful so what you say goes a long way to either establish or destroy you; this is why you should say things that God has said concerning you, not things that situations or circumstances say.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

40. “Words are directed to your personalities namely; - God, your hearers, devil and yourself.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

41. “Don't call yourself discouraged anymore;it's no longer your name.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

42. “Dominate in your domain; You can do it.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

43. “Don't die without fulfilling your purpose.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

44. “Don't blow off another's candle for it won't make yours shine brighter.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

45. “The common man wants nothing of life but health, longevity, amusement, comfort -- "happiness." He who does not despise this should turn his eyes from world history, for it contains nothing of the sort. The best that history has created is great suffering.” - Oswald Spengler

46. “Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are.” - Thomas Merton

47. “There is an enduring freshness in what remains strange and obscure which the cliches of greatness can only evoke nostalgia for.” - Bauvard

48. “Greatness is sifted through the grind, therefore don't despise the hard work now for surely it will be worth it in the end.” - Sanjo Jendayi

49. “But what is great can only begin great.” - Martin Heidegger

50. “Everyone has a calling. Thus, everyone has the chance to do something remarkable that will make hime great in the eyes of others.” - Jawe Querimit

51. “The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.” - John Buchan

52. “إن الاصطفاء للرسالات العظيمة ليس بالأمل فيها و لكن بالطاقة عليها، و كم في الحياة من طامحين لا يملكون إلا الجرأة على الأمل، و كم من راسخين يطويهم الصمت حتى إذا كُلِّفوا أتوا بالعجب العجاب. و لا يعلم أقدار النفوس إلا بارئها. و الذي يريد هداية العالم أجمع يختار للغاية العظيمة نفسا عظيمة” - محمد الغزالي

53. “The great would not think themselves demigods if the little did not worship them.” - Pierre-Claude-Victor Boiste

54. “A confident woman knows her worth and so doesn’t fret when her man is highly placed or is often found amidst other women in the course of his business or assignment.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

55. “Courage is the ability to execute tasks and assignments without fear or intimidation.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

56. “A woman that is patient has the ability to endure provocation, pain, annoyance etc, with much calm and strength.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

57. “A responsible woman is one who sees opportunities of service and responds to them quickly. In her dwells the ability to see and respond to opportunities.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

58. “A responsible woman sees and accepts only the best in a given situation.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

59. “For something to be great, there has to be some kind of trial or some type of struggle that actually makes it special or valuable to you. Otherwise, anything could be easily taken for granted.” - Hayley Williams

60. “The real great man is the man who makes every man feel great.” - G.K. Chesterton

61. “People have this dream of being unreachable. They build a name for themselves and then finally fulfill their dream of "being more important." Which just shows they were born from down below. Because when you're born from up above, your dreams have nowhere to go but downwards! And you dream of doing things in order to meet people, to know them, to understand the smallest importances!” - C. JoyBell C.

62. “The loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plentitude.” - Oscar Wilde

63. “We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.” - Stewart L. Udall

64. “Greatness consists not in the holding of some future office, but really consists in doing great deeds with little means and the accomplishment of vast purposes from the private rants of life. To be great at all one must be great here, now, in Philadelphia.” - Russell H. Conwell

65. “Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are, in Philadelphia, now.” - Russell H. Conwell

66. “The only permission, the only validation, and the only opinion that matters in our quest for greatness is our own.” - Steve Maraboli

67. “Great men know how to control two things; their women and money.” - Habeeb Akande

68. “Greatness is to stay humble when the whole world calls you great!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

69. “In your emotions: exercise Joy over sadness.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

70. “Ride higher in life unto the higher life.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

71. “Don`t turn around in circles for making circles do not equate making progress.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

72. “It turns out horrendous when you choose the wrong options.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

73. “Decide to be rich! Hate poverty strong.” - Agu Jaachynma N E

74. “There is seed time and harvest, choose to sow at the right time so as to have a bountiful harvest.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

75. “Relish what is good and expedient.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

76. “Eschew evil and it`s machinations.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

77. “Don`t complain, Don`t compromise.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

78. “Always contend for the good!” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

79. “Light is life and always wins.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

80. “Shun darkness and evil vices for they that embrace them wear off with time!” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

81. “Desire to give and not always receive.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

82. “Desire to impact lives! Change destinies and make dreams come true.” - Jaachynma N.E. Agu

83. “Anyaele Sam Chiyson Leadership Law of Responsibility: Great leaders greet their geniuses through their greatest power of choice, principle-based living and highest means of expressing their voice.” - Anyaele Sam Chiyson

84. “Success is the understanding, release and maximization of capacity.” - Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

85. “Tom's cowardice was as huge as his courage, as it must be in great men.” - John Steinbeck