Great Quotes: Wisdom from the Greatest Minds

"It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice"

Jose Rizal, Writer

"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them"

William Shakespeare, Dramatist

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime"

Honore de Balzac, Novelist

"Men are only as great as they are kind"

Elbert Hubbard, Writer

"He's by best friend and the father of my children. He's a great ex"

Sarah Ferguson, Author

"This life of ours, this is a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this and get away with it, hey that's great. But it's very predictable. There's so many ways you can screw it up"

Paul Castellano, Criminal

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do"

Steve Jobs, Businessman

"To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization"

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author

"Having soon discovered to be great, I must appear so, and therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped myself in mystery, devoting my time to fasting and prayer"

Nat Turner, Activist

"I said when I came into office that I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a good democrat"

Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Politician

"The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson"

Orison Swett Marden, Writer

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing"

Vincent Van Gogh, Artist

"The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one"

Adolf Hitler, Criminal

"Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few"

Pythagoras, Mathematician

"It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do"

Benito Mussolini, Politician

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world"

Harriet Tubman, Activist

"Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life"

William Ellery Channing, Writer

"A mother should give her children a superabundance of enthusiasm; that after they have lost all they are sure to lose on mixing with the world, enough may still remain to prompt fated support them through great actions"

Augustus Hare, Writer

"Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

"The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it's dead for you"

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist

"Beware of little expenses. A small leak will sink a great ship"

Benjamin Franklin, Politician

"Great souls suffer in silence"

Friedrich Schiller, Dramatist

"Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day"

Thornton Wilder, Writer

"As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit"

Emmanuel Teney, Author

"Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age"

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect

"Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off"

Carl Jung, Psychologist

"Novelty is the great parent of pleasure"

Robert South, Clergyman

"Is it not evident that the Canadas, as well as the other colonies, have been left in a great measure to grope their way as they could through the darkness which surrounds them, almost totally unaided by the parent state?"

John Strachan, Clergyman

"We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it"

Rick Wright, Musician

"The great recipe for success is to work, and always work"

Leon Gambetta, Politician

"That's the great thing about entering a convent: There are things that you simply can't do, so you don't have to worry about them"

Lars von Trier, Director

"Two great talkers will not travel far together"

George Borrow, Author

"All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people"

Adolf Hitler, Criminal

"Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage"

Marilyn vos Savant, Author

"Enthusiasm... the sustaining power of all great action"

Samuel Smiles, Author

"All great and beautiful work has come of first gazing without shrinking into the darkness"

John Ruskin, Writer

"After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb"

Nelson Mandela, Statesman

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension and also a deep desire for respectability"

John Kenneth Galbraith, Economist

"Custom is the great guide to human life"

David Hume, Philosopher

Page 1 of 130