In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted, for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things -- some celebrated, but more often men and women obscure in their labor -- who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.
The greatness of man is so evident that it is even proved by his wretchedness. For what in animals is nature, we call in man wretchedness--by which we recognize that, his nature being now like that of animals, he has fallen from a better nature which once was his.
You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
The mark of great sportsmen is not how good they are at their best, but how good they are their worst.
For greatness is only the drayhorse that coaxes The built cart out; and where we go is reason. But genius is an enormous littleness, a trickling Of heart that covers alike the hare and the hunter.
I don't feel that any of my greatness has been covered over.
My life is basically a big chunk of greatness.
You have greatness in you. The key is to get it out.
There can be no greatness in things. Things cannot be great. The only greatness is unselfish love.
Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.
You don't show up on game day and expect to be great. Greatness happens in practice. You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
You lose nothing when fighting for a cause. . . In my mind the losers are those who don't have a cause they care about.
The Christian's instincts of trust and worship are stimulated very powerfully by knowledge of the greatness of God. But this is knowledge which Christians today largely lack: and that is one reason why our faith is so feeble and our worship so flabby. . . When a person in the church, let alone the person in the street, uses the word God, the thought is rarely of divine majesty.
I stepped onto the spiritual path moved by an inner sense that I might find greatness of heart, that I might find profound belonging, that I might find a hidden source of love and compassion. Like a homing instinct for freedom, my intuitive sense that this was possible was the faint, flickering, yet undeniable expression of faith.
The less people speak of their greatness, the more we think of it.
The reflections and histories of men and women throughout the world are contained in books. . . . America's greatness is not only recorded in books, but it is also dependent upon each and every citizen being able to utilize public libraries.
The most useful is the greatest.
The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse Themistocles' demand for money. He had put it to them that they would be unable to avoid paying, because the Athenians had the support of two powerful deities, one called Persuasion and the other Compulsion. The Andrians had replied that Athens was lucky to have two such useful gods, who were obviously responsible for her wealth and greatness; unfortunately, they themselves, in their small & inadequate land, had two utterly useless deities, who refused to leave the island and insisted on staying; and their names were Poverty and Inability.
The chief proof of man's real greatness lies in his perception of his own smallness.
The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat.