Great Quotes

"The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish"

Pope John Paul II, Clergyman

"Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one"

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosopher

"The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great"

Meister Eckhart, Philosopher

"It is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for the purposes of spying, and thereby they achieve great results"

Sun Tzu, Philosopher

"A bad neighbor is a misfortune, as much as a good one is a great blessing"

Cleobulus, Poet

"It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing"

Regina Spektor, Musician

"Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste"

Rebecca West, Author

"Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it"

Pablo Casals, Musician

"Rock 'n' roll is ridiculous. It's absurd. In the past, U2 was trying to duck that. Now we're wrapping our arms around it and giving it a great big kiss"

Bono, Musician

"After the Great Depression and after public urging, a nationwide public competition was held to determine a design for a memorial that would honor President Thomas Jefferson's bold vision for westward expansion for America"

Russ Carnahan, Politician

"But so much of being an actor isn't so great - the auditioning, the rejection, the financial insecurity"

Douglas Wood, Writer

"And if people come up and say they like the movies you're in, it's a great compliment"

Jason Statham, Actor

"But I'm also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but"

Lou Reed, Musician

"Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men"

Baruch Spinoza, Philosopher

"Sometimes when an actor says something almost perfect, but you know you have to edit it, if you tell them to change something immediately, it will come out great"

Michel Hazanavicius, Director

"I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre"

Michel Hazanavicius, Director

"Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine"

Jacques Barzun, Educator

"Every now and then, I strike something that just goes click, you know, in my head. As Gertrude Stein used to say, it rings the bell, and I feel, this is great"

James Laughlin, Poet

"It's populated by people who, by and large, have terrific communication skills. Every day is an extraordinary day. For me, it was just a great area for storytelling"

Aaron Sorkin, Producer

"I think there is a great difference, in that when the poet is reading you get the whole personality of the person, especially if he's a good reader. Whereas a person just sitting gets what he puts into it"

James Laughlin, Poet

"My neighborhood was rough, but I live a great life now. I don't fight that much now. I don't look for it anyway, but if someone hits your mother, whether you're a star, an accountant, or an astronaut or anything... I mean it's your mother, so I lost my mind"

Shia LaBeouf, Actor

"And if you're a golfer and you watch a golf film and Matt Damon swing, and it's not great, then you're not going to believe in the golf story, you're not going to believe in the rest of the film. That's the whole movie, so if that swing looks like crap, the movie's crap"

Shia LaBeouf, Actor

"I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well"

Robert Benchley, Comedian

"Keeping small nations enslaved because of the deals between the great nations or because of any pragmatic considerations that might have been there are totally unacceptable"

Mikhail Saakashvili, Statesman

"It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, when Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature"

Alice Meynell, Poet

"To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater"

Bono, Musician

"If you got a good imagination, a lot of confidence and you kind of know what you are saying, then you might be able to do it. I know a lot of colorful characters at home that would make great actors"

Jason Statham, Actor

"But I like not these great success of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods"

Herodotus, Historian

"Great things are won by great dangers"

Herodotus, Historian

"The thing about the UK is we don't really make that many great movies"

Jason Statham, Actor

"I pick up a lot of stuff from them, but I don't think there's any great trick to acting"

Jason Statham, Actor

"And it was a great experience, you know, to travel the world and compete at a certain level. It teaches you discipline, focus, and certainly keeps you out of trouble"

Jason Statham, Actor

"A woman's beauty is one of her great missions"

Richard Le Gallienne, Poet

"As great as kings may be, they are what we are: they can err like other men"

Pierre Corneille, Dramatist

"I am fully committed to Hannah Montana. It's what gave me this amazing opportunity to reach out to so many people. I'm really excited about our new season. We are making great new episodes that I can't wait for our fans to see and I'm looking forward to the "Hannah Montana" movie that will be out in the spring"

Miley Cyrus, Musician

"The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man"

John Philip Sousa, Musician

"Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks"

Herodotus, Historian

"There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence"

Rebecca West, Author

"When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute"

Walter Lippmann, Journalist

"The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples"

Walter Lippmann, Journalist

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