Lives of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn.
It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great.
There is a strange kind of human being in whom there is an eternal struggle between body and soul, animal and god, for dominance. In all great men this mixture is striking, and in none more so than in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
It does not take great men to do great things; it only takes consecrated men.
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
I think my best work has been in France with great men. It's been my great fortune to work with really great men - with Olivier Assayas, Raoul Ruiz, Jacques Rivette. I am tutored by them.
Great men always pay deference to greater.
An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men.
Great men lose somewhat of their greatness by being near us; ordinary men gain much.
The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement - particularly men, I don't know why, maybe it's the testosterone - I think it's narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer.
Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks; they are the summits of ranges.
Even the best intentioned of great men need a few scoundrels around them; there are some things you cannot ask an honest man to do.
Traditionally the great men of our country have sprung from poor environments; that being so, it would appear we have long suffered from a severe lack of poverty.
I've also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create.
Gutenberg and Richter were very great men.
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
Few great men would have got past personnel.
Whether the prayer of Seneca was granted we do not know; but, as we do not again hear of Marcus, it is probable that he died before his father, and that the line of Seneca, like that of so many great men, became extinct in the second generation.
I jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.
What we usually do to great men and women is relegate them to homogenised heroism. Their words and actions become soundbites and images in a way that gives us an excuse not to act bravely in our own lives.
While shooting 'The Unit', I went to the Middle East twice to see the troops. I met some great men and women.
Great men show politeness in a particular way; a smile suffices to assure you that you are welcome, and keep about their avocations as if you were a member of the family.
We want the big stories, of course, of the great men, but there's as much drama and interest and lessons to be learned in actions that people like us take on a daily basis.
Good sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius, never. And that is why the crowd, not altogether without reason, is so ready to treat great men as lunatics.
Indeed, the study of universities and the great men and women who have attended them leads me to think that the best of these schools are characterized not so much by what they teach and how they teach it but by the extent they provide opportunities and encouragement for students to teach themselves.
