Quotes on Great Men

To a young heart everything is fun.

The great men of music close periods; they do not inaugurate them. The pioneer work, the finding of new paths, is left to smaller men.

The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism.

The defect in wisdom and taste which exists among the majority of dancers is due to the bad education which they generally receive. They apply themselves only to the material side of their art, they learn to jump more or less high, they strive mechanically to execute a number of steps, and like children, who utter a great many words devoid of sense and relation, they execute many phrases of steps devoid of taste and grace.

The great men of a nation reach out to all mankind. They are unifying, not divisive; internationally conciliating and still great nationally.

The great man, Genghis Khan, only knew how to shoot eagles with an arrow. The past is past. To see real heroes, look around you.

For the only great men among the unfree and the oppressed are those who struggle to destroy the oppressor.

Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at five or six great men- yes, and then to get around them.

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

William Wilberforce...w as a great man who impacted the Western world as few others have done. Blessed with brains, charm, influence and initiative, much wealth ... he put evangelism on Britain's map as a power for social change, first by overthrowing the slave trade almost single-handed and then by generating a stream of societies for doing good and reducing evil in public life... To forget such men is foolish.

It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men.

A great nation is like a great man:When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.Having realized it, he admits it.Having admitted it, he corrects it.He considers those who point out his faultsas his most benevolent teachers.He thinks of his enemyas the shadow that he himself casts.

The Tao is great. The universe is great. Earth is great. Man is great. These are the four great powers. Man follows the earth. Earth follows the universe. The universe follows the Tao. The Tao follows only itself.

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

Love of glory can only create a great hero; contempt of glory creates a great man.

Who knows what will happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.

If we wish our civilization to survive we must break with the habit of deference to great men.

Great occasions rouse even the lowest of human beings to some kind of greatness, but he alone is the really great man whose character is great always, the same wherever he be.

A great man left a watchword that we can well repeat: "There is no indispensable man"