Great Men Quotes

“In the Hindu religion, one can[not] have freedom of speech. A Hindu must surrender his freedom of speech. He must act according to the Vedas. If the Vedas do not support the actions, instructions must be sought from the Smritis, and if the Smritis fail to provide any such instructions, he must follow in the footsteps of the great men.
He is not supposed to reason. Hence, so long as you are in the Hindu religion, you cannot expect to have freedom of thought”
― B.R. Ambedkar

“Only when there are things a man will not do is he capable of doing great things.”
― Mencius

“What? A great man? I only ever see the ape of his own ideal.”
― Nietzsche, Friedrich

“A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.”
― William Hazlitt, Table-Talk, Essays on Men and Manners

“Even great men bow before the Sun; it melts hubris into humility.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“Mindful leaders know how to repeat success patterns and overcome failure patterns.”
― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management

“Fly you crows. My father was not a spectacle. He was the greatest man I ever knew. He was my everything.”
― Stacey Lee, Under a Painted Sky

“...You are a little boy. You want the moon to drink from as a golden cup; and so, it is very likely that you will become a great man -- if only you remain a little child. All the world'sgreat have been little boys who wanted the moon; running and climbing, they sometimes catch a firefly. But if one grow to a man's mind, that mind must see that it cannot have the moon and would not want it if it could -- and so, it catches no fireflies.' [Merlin]”
― John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold

“The big man in a small village is the big ship in a small lake! Let him sail to the vast oceans!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“PERFECT VIRTUE PRODUCES NOTHING, because it needs nothing. Production comes out of desire, production comes because you are imperfect. You create something as a substitute because you feel unfulfilled. When you are absolutely fulfilled, why should you create, how can you create? Then you yourself have become the glory of creation, then the inner being itself is so perfect, nothing is needed.
PERFECT VIRTUE PRODUCES NOTHING. If the world is virtuous, all utilitarian goals will be lost. If the world is really virtuous there will be play and no production. Then the whole thing will just become a game. You enjoy it, but you don’t need it. A perfect sage is absolutely useless.”
― Osho, The Empty Boat: Talks on the Sayings of Chuang Tzu

“Any man who is good by heart is a great man!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“In the face of inhumanity, a good man reacts, but a great one acts”
― James Rollins, Bloodline

“Some boys grow up to be great men, some grow up to be great fathers, and while most grow up to be neither, none grow up to be both.”
― Sean Norris, Heaven and Hurricanes

“Palaces are for the little men not for the great men because great man is humble!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“There is no peace for great men”
― Pierce Brown, Golden Son

“Greatness lies not in ruling a people, it lies in being the cause of happiness in their lives.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The great man of the masses. It is easy to give the recipe for what the masses call a great man. By all means, supply them with something that they find very pleasant, or, first, put the idea into their heads that this or that would be very pleasant, and then give it to them. But on no account immediately: let it rather be won with great exertion, or let it seem so. The masses must have the impression that a mighty, indeed invincible, strength of will is present; at least it must be seen to be there. Everyone admires a strong will, because no one has it, and everyone tells himself that, if he had it, there would be no more limits for him and his egoism. Now, if it appears that this strong will is producing something very unpleasant for the masses, instead of listening to its own covetous desires, then everyone admires it all the more, and congratulates himself. For the rest, let him have all the characteristics of the masses: the less they are ashamed before him, the more popular he is. So, let him be violent, envious, exploitative, scheming, fawning, grovelling, puffed up, or, according to the circumstances, all of the above.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits

“To win, you have to believe you will win.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“A true leader is the one who leaves memorable footprints of nobility. A leader who is decisive enough and have all the guts to take bold and frank decisions regardless of the oppositions and the temporal adverse effect of such decision on the masses, knowing that in the end, the fruits of such decision will be sweeter enough to put joy on the faces of the masses and they shall remember such noble footprints and ponder in humility.”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

“I have seen great men err and err greatly”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“People told Henry Ford he couldn't do it. People told Thomas Edison he couldn't do it. People told Andrew Carnegie he couldn't do it. People told Jesus Christ he couldn't do it.
They all have in common they were told they couldn't do it and they all have something else in common, they all did it!”
― Jose R. Coronado, The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey

“You and I, Ella, we are the failures. We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have known for thousands of years that to lock a sick person into solitary confinement makes him worse. They have known for thousands of years that a poor man who is frightened of his landlord and of the police is a slave. They have known it. We know it. But do the great enlightened mass of the British people know it? No. It is our task, Ella, yours and mine, to tell them. Because the great men are too great to be bothered. They are already discovering how to colonise Venus and to irrigate the moon. That is what is important for our time. You and I are the boulder-pushers. All our lives, you and I, we'll put all our energies, all our talents, into pushing a great boulder up a mountain. The boulder is the truth that the great men know by instinct, and the mountain is the stupidity of mankind. We push the boulder.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

“We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly less stupid than we are to accept truths that the great men have always known. They have always known, they have known for ten thousand years, that to lock a human being into solitary confinement can make a madman of him or an animal. They have always known that a poor man frightened of the police and his landlord is a slave. They have always known that frightened people are cruel. They have always known that violence breeds violence. And we know it. But do the great masses of the world know it? No. It is our job to tell them. Because the great men can't be bothered. Their imaginations are already occupied with how to colonise Venus; they are already creating in their minds visions of a society full of free and noble human beings. Meanwhile, human beings are ten thousand years behind them, imprisoned in fear. The great men can't be bothered. And they are right. Because they know we are here, the boulder-pushers. They know we will go on pushing the boulder up the lower slopes of an immensely high mountain, while they stand on the top of the mountain, already free. All our lives, you and I, we will use all our energies, all our talents, into pushng that boulder another inch up the mountain. And they rely on us and they are right; and that is why we are not useless after all.”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

“Most of the great men who converted their time to products although late are still making more impact in the world today than a greater percentage of people who are still alive.”
― Sunday Adelaja, How To Become Great Through Time Conversion: Are you wasting time, spending time or investing time?

“The greatness of God alone is greater than the greatness of many great men combined.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, Daily Quotes about God: 365 Days of Heavenly Inspiration

“Even the great man’s legacy is a momentary postponement of the elimination of the memory of him, at best until the Red Giant devours poor Gaia, or – most probably – until humanity finds a way to become extinct in a previous stage.”
― Giannis Delimitsos

“A Great Man must be motivated by the dynamics of a social purpose and must act as the scourge and the scavenger of society. These are the elements which distinguish an eminent man from the Great Man, and constitute his title deeds to respect and reverence.”
― Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah by B.R. Ambedkar

“He was used to being listened to, not to listening. Serene in his strength and obsessed with his ideas, he had no thought beyond them.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, Tales from Earthsea

“Legacies are footprints of legends who walked among men.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“That was what had changed, he thought. To love posterity and the great institutions you had to believe in the wisdom of men. You had to love them as a child might, gazing upward.”
― Lydia Millet, How the Dead Dream