— Muhammad Ali
A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.
— Thomas Carlyle
A certain excessiveness seems a necessary element in all greatness.
— Harvey Cushing
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
— Mark Twain
The greater the man, the greater the crime.
— Thomas Fuller
Greatness is a zigzag streak of lightning in the brain.
— Herbert Asquith
. . . be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
— William Shakespeare
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.
— Daniel J. Boorstin
The first test of a truly great man is his humility.
— John Ruskin
Few great men could pass personnel.
— Paul Goodman
No man is truly great who is great only in his own lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.
— William Hazlitt
Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree.
— Constantin Brancusi
To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
It is not the strength, but the duration, of great sentiments that makes great men.
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
There may now exist great men for things that do not exist.
— Samuel Burchardt
No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.
— Cicero
Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel.
— William Hazlitt
It is the gods’ custom to bring low all things of surpassing greatness.
— Herodotus
The superior man is distressed by his want of ability.
— Confucius
Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to excite love, interest, and admiration, and the outward proof of possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and admiration.
— Matthew Arnold
There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their number than the greatness of a man is determined by his height.
— Victor Hugo
We are both great men, but I have succeeded better in keeping it a profound secret than he has.
— Bill Nye
To be great is to be misunderstood.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Great men are meteors designed to burn so that the earth may be lighted.
— Napoleon Bonaparte
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
— Charles de Gaulle
Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
— Winston Churchill