"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

"The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve."

"I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time. The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top.—You need take no notice of these ebullitions of spleen, which are probably quite unintelligible to anyone but myself."

"I am convinced that nothing will happen to me, for I know the greatness of the task for which Providence has chosen me."

"He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward."

"There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet."

"[E]ven a great man cannot be wise in everything."

"To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."

"Pour accomplir de grandes choses il ne suffit pas d'agir il faut rêver; il ne suffit pas de calculer, il faut croire."

"I am destined to pass through this world, wandering like an invisible meteor. Precisely because I am superior, I will have to empty the entire cup of sorrow and distress with no joy to cheer me. But the harsh intoxication of drinking from the chalice of sorrow is a superb pleasure that only one who tears his soul to shreds by himself, with his own hands, is given to taste."

"Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind."

"No great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty."

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly."

"Les grands ne sont grands que parce que nous sommes à genoux: Levons-nous. Ní uasal aon uasal ach sinne bheith íseal: Éirímis. The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise."

"Few men, I imagine, who become great started on their career with the intention of becoming so. The intention generally accompanies the unsuccessful. The secret of real greatness seems to be a happy knack of doing things as they come in your way; and they rarely present themselves in the form which careful preparation would enable you to deal with."

"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 what you are, in Philadelphia, now. He that can give to his city any blessing, he who can be a good citizen while he lives here, he that can make better homes, he that can be a blessing whether he works in the shop or sits behind the counter or keeps house, whatever be his life, he who would be great anywhere must first be great in his own Philadelphia."

"It is not wealth or ancestry but honourable conduct and a noble disposition that maketh men great."

"All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope."

"Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state."

"Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power. … The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces, is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind, the incarnation of the spirit."

"For greatness after all, in spite of its name, appears to be not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human lives. It may be present in lives whose range is very small."

"MAGNIFICENT, adj. Having a grandeur or splendor superior to that to which the spectator is accustomed, as the ears of an ass, to a rabbit, or the glory of a glowworm, to a maggot."

"For four thousand years the strong had been rushing on in the road of privilege and power, seeking greatness. Christ stood in the path, and said, " Ye seek greatness. Ye are not even in the way to it. Ye are going up, but the way to greatness is down. Let him who would be great be the love-servant of all." Greatness consists in the facility and power of going down, and not in the facility of going up."

"[O]ur feelings of superiority are built on the quicksand of ignorance."

"Burn to be great, Pay not thy praise to lofty things alone. The plains are everlasting as the hills, The bard cannot have two pursuits; aught else Comes on the mind with the like shock as though Two worlds had gone to war, and met in air."

"There be three things which make a nation great and prosperous: a fertile soil, busy workshops, easy conveyance for men and goods from place to place."

"There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, till all men walk on higher ground in that lifetime."

"Joyously quivers the air of the hour before dawn, the hour when Buddha cognized the greatness of Cosmos, and when the Lord Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane."

"Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!"

"Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright, But look'd to near have neither heat nor light."

"I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness."

"'Twas glory once to be a Roman; She makes it glory, now, to be a man."

"Et ipse quidem, quamquam medio in spatio integræ ætatis ereptus, quantum ad gloriam, longissimum ævum peregit."

"Heu, quam difficilis gloriæ custodia est."

"Avoid shame, but do not seek glory,—nothing so expensive as glory."

"Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force, Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill; Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse; And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure, Wherein it finds a joy above the rest."

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."

"Magnum iter adscendo; sed dat mihi gloria vires."

"Who pants for glory, finds but short repose; A breath revives him, or a breath o'erthrows."

"Nisi utile est quod facimus, stulta est gloria."

"Immensum gloria calcar habet."

"Go where glory waits thee; But while fame elates thee, Oh! still remember me."

"Those glories come too late That on our ashes wait."

"The glory of Him who Hung His masonry pendant on naught, when the world He created."

"La gloire n'est jamais où la vertu n'est pas."

"Aucun chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire."

"O quam cito transit gloria mundi."

"Fulgente trahit constrictos Gloria curru Non minus ignotos generosis."

"The first in glory, as the first in place."

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave."