We grow small trying to be great.
—David Hockney
Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you, with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you—and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us!
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
He who would be a great soul in the future, must be a great soul now.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
—Daniel J. Boorstin
There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved for the sake of something greater.
—Veronica Roth in Allegiant
The great man is he who does not lose his child's-heart.
—Mencius
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
—Stewart Udall
The world is full of hundreds of beautiful things we can never possibly have time to discover, and there is no time to be unkind or envious or ungenerous, and no sense in enslaving the mind to the trivialities of the moment. For you can be equal to the greatness of life only by marching with it; not by seeking love but by giving it, nor seeking to be understood but learning to understand. And when it is all over, there will be an agony of remorse because one spared the effort and did not make more of that little span of opportunity; and knowing reality at last, who knows but that one will look back with unassuageable regret upon one's pitiful little faith.
—Vivienne de Watteville
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
—Stewart I. Udall
Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi to come back, but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It is up to you.
—Marian Wright Edelman
Prosperity tries the fortunate, adversity the great.
—Rose Kennedy
I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.
—Elizabeth Gilbert in Love
Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public-relations officers.
—Daniel Boorstin