Great Man Quotes

1. “Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.”

2. “The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.”

3. “The great man is he who does not lose his child's-heart.”

4. “A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.”

5. “The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.”

6. “The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.”

7. “A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains, he gives to others.”

8. “A great man is always willing to be little.”

9. “A great man is one who leaves others at a loss after he is gone.”

10. “If a man can bridge the gap between life and death, if he can live on after he's dead, then maybe he was a great man.”

11. “No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”

12. “Love of glory can only create a great hero; contempt of glory creates a great man.”

13. “Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.”

14. “It is a grand mistake to think of being great without goodness and I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”

15. “To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness.”

16. “It is those who concentrates on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. The great man or woman is the one who never steps outside his or her specialty or foolishly dissipates his or her individuality.”

17. “A great artist is a great man in a great child.”

18. “I don't know of any great man who ever had a great son.”

19. “To have a great man for an intimate friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.”

20. “A great man is the man who does something for the first time.”

21. “Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.”

22. “To have a great man for a friend seems pleasant to those who have never tried it; those who have, fear it.”

23. “Franco will bring the army from Castille. The ambassador will complain, causing a schism. Rivera's men will be part of the force. The great man will be denied entry to the gulf.”

24. “My dearly beloved if I am to die today and never see the sweet face of you I want you to know that I am no great man and am lucky to have such a woman as you.”

25. “It takes a great man to be a good listener.”

26. “I always knew I wanted a great man of God, someone who was going to be an inspiration for people and also be a lovely husband and father.”

27. “A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.”

28. “I don't believe in the Great Man theory of science or history. There are no great men, just men standing on the shoulders of other men and what they have done.”

29. “A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.”

30. “My father was truly a great man. I remember one day putting my feet in my father's shoes. I was amazed at the size. Would I ever be big enough to fill his shoes? Could I ever grow into the man my father was? I wondered.”

31. “It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.”

32. “The Jewish people asked nothing of its sons except not to be denied. The world is grateful to every great man when he brings it something; only the paternal home thanks the son who brings nothing but himself.”

33. “Behind every great man is his wife trying to keep him alive.”

34. “He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man.”

35. “By a great man, however, we mean a man who, because of his spiritual gifts, his character, and other qualities, deserves to be called great and who as a result earns the power to influence others.”

36. “It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants.”

37. “There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.”

38. “Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.”

39. “I believe the first test of a truly great man is in his humility.”

40. “There have been in this century only one great man and one great thing: Napoleon and liberty. For want of the great man, let us have the great thing.”

41. “No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.”

42. “But my father was also the one who told me I needed to clean up my mouth or I'd never find a man. What's very important to him is manners. Show up on time. Always send thank-you letters. He is one of the more thoughtful humans I've ever met. He's a great man and a very good dad.”

43. “Nelson Mandela just died, so that says so much because it's a tremendously powerful and great man who was very sensitive. Loved all people, forgave his enemies, and showed the world how to stand up and do it the right way.”

44. “Mention Hubert Sumlin, as well, because Hubert's a great man, and again, you know, I don't play the guitar very good, but when I'm playing this kind of music, I always have him in my mind. I wish I could play like Hubert.”

45. “I don't think I am a great man.”

46. “Oliver Reed was a great man who did things his own way. He used to come into Harveys, my restaurant in Wandsworth, and sit on the floor to have a drink before going to the table.”

47. “There was never a great man who had not a great mother.”

48. “Donald Trump is not some great man of virtue, but this much I'll say for him: I think he loves America, and I don't think he wants to line his own pockets.”

49. “My dad was a great man, and I loved him, but he had some demons he fought. It was tough to see some of those things as a kid, but I believe God doesn't save you from things; he saves you through them.”

50. “Did you ever stop to think that a great man in life who has won great acclaim and great reputation is the very man who is willing to share and give the honor to others in the doing of things that made him great?”

51. “In order to appreciate a great man, we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played - the part he acted - and we must also know his audience.”

52. “Behind every great man there is a suprised woman.”

53. “I don't think of my books as being biographies. I never had any interest in doing a book just to write the life of a great man. I had zero interest in that. My interest is in power. How power works.”

54. “The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind fascinates and instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the public.”

55. “Struggling to end the war and to eliminate slavery once and for all by way of the 13th Amendment, with the amendment's prospective passage undermining the effort to make peace with the Confederacy and vice versa, Lincoln embodied the Great Man theory that leftists disdain.”

56. “It's awfully hard to be the son of a great man and also of a half-crazy woman.”

57. “Maybe I'm not a great man but I damn well want to break the record.”

58. “The banalities of a great man pass for wit.”

59. “There we were, hundreds of us lined up, waving at the great man as he tipped his hat to us. And that is the extent of my acquaintance with Albert Einstein.”

60. “Without the connotation good or bad, bin Laden's a great man in the sense that he's influenced the course of history.”

61. “Home life's great, man. The kids are great, happy and healthy. I've reached this sort of wonderful precipice.”

62. “Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.”

63. “There is no disputing that Lincoln was a great man.”

64. “Sooner will a camel pass through a needle's eye than a great man be 'discovered' by an election.”

65. “To be a great man and a saint for oneself, that is the only important thing.”

66. “Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.”

67. “Smallness in a great man seems smaller by its disproportion with all the rest.”

68. “Duty is for Kant the One and All. Out of the duty of gratitude, he claims, one has to defend and esteem the ancients; and only out of duty has he become a great man.”

69. “Obama likes to quote great men but will never be a great man himself. I can't stand it when our leader goes around apologizing for who we are.”

70. “Without a great man writing and directing for me, I realised I was a mediocre movie star at best.”

71. “Joe Jackson is a great man. The problem that people have with my father is that he tells it like it is. He's just straight up and doesn't beat around the bush. Tough love.”

72. “On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.”

73. “He was a great man, my granddad, a very calm, logical and methodical guy. I suppose I'm trying to be more like him as I get older.”

74. “Thomas Davis was a great man where poetry is concerned, and a better than Thomas Moore. All over Ireland his poetry is, and he would have done other things but that he died young.”

75. “Napoleon the Third was not much. He died in England, and was buried in a country church-yard much the same as Kiltartan. But Napoleon the First was a great man; it was given out of him there never would be so great a man again.”

76. “I'm not a great man to my children. I'm just 'Pop.' The more involved I am with my kids, it keeps my head flat on top.”

77. “I built a studio in L.A. for me and my brother to just write every single day. And it's been great, man.”

78. “Muhammad Ali is a true hero, and the fact there's something wrong with him is his badge of valour. He's a great man.”

79. “I think that Richard Nixon is a great man and that he is very dedicated to what he does. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I attended the Republican National Convention in Miami. You can really tell that he is willing to go out of his way to help the American people.”

80. “I lost my father when I was 13 years old. He was a great man, my father, and very intelligent. I love him very much. I believe it's very important that parents have a personal connection with their children. It helps kids feel more secure, have a feeling of family, makes them feel loved.”

81. “For me, it's just about keeping the standards up. We're a small country, so we have to punch above our weight. I'm not a great man for doing something just because it's Irish, and you never know what's going to work. But as long as we keep the standards up, people will continue to invest in films. It's as simple as that.”

82. “I had the fixation that comes with being a Kennedy to be a great man on the big stage.”

83. “Most women are not programmed to prefer a great career to a great man and a family. They feel they were sold a bill of goods at college and by the media.”

84. “Obama is a great man who's just beginning to understand the realities. And I'm not just saying that because he reads my books. I would have voted for him anyway.”

85. “A long time ago, when I was married, in the beginning it was bliss. I eloped after one month, and I married for security. I thought, 'I finally met a man who loves God and comes from a great family. I'm working, I love God, and I'm out here in California by myself, and I've met this great man.' So, I said yes. And we eloped.”

86. “Ridley Scott is a cinematic master and a great man. It was a real honour working with him on 'Prometheus.'”

87. “In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example, or Victor Hugo. They can't help it. Even if they don't believe in that, it gets in their system. And so when they come to produce something of their own, the tradition is nearly indestructible.”

88. “I think behind every great man there's got to be a great woman, whether she's your wife, your girlfriend or not. I'm not gonna say that there's not that special girl out there. But I'm in the music biz, and I'm focused on the music.”

89. “I can't go to bed with John Wayne, so I do the next best thing: I go to bed with my girlfriend, who once met the great man. That's how much I love westerns.”

90. “L.A.'s pretty great, man. But I'll be very honest - I prefer New York. It's more my speed.”

91. “Whatever you thought of his politics, Ronald Reagan was a great man, a courageous man. He took an assassin's bullet and joked to the doctors as they desperately worked to save his life.”

92. “Lyndon Johnson, I know for a fact, was a great president. And I don't mean by that he was a great man.”

93. “It makes a big difference when men respect women. There are a lot of men who don't, so that's the main quality that would make a good man a great man.”

94. “My father thought Gandhi was a great man. I suppose subconsciously, consciously even, I was aware that I wanted to please him and Ma, so I thought doing something like 'Gandhi' would be phenomenal.”

95. “If you meet your heroes, you're always going to be disappointed. Frederick Douglass was a great man, but would I want my daughter to marry him? Probably not. That doesn't mean that I don't think he's a great man.”

96. “About once a decade, it becomes necessary to remind Americans again that Ulysses S. Grant was a great man, indeed a giant figure. The usual way to try to do this is by publishing a thumping big biography, and let me say that there is nothing wrong with this, although it still hasn't worked.”

97. “He was a great man. He taught himself how to walk again, to write with his left hand. My father was a hero.”

98. “I love being Bob Marley's son because he's a great man.”

99. “I have been a part of the teams which had the original great man - Sachin Tendulkar. I remember in 2007-08 tour of Australia, Sachin paaji would get all the attention from the locals.”

100. “Too few presidents have steeped themselves not just in Lincoln's words but his deeds, which is why Obama's acquaintance with the great man is so compelling - especially since, like President-elect Lincoln, Obama will take office at a perilous time.”

101. “They say behind every great man is a great woman, but I think it works the other way round as well.”

102. “I'm friendly with Laurence Luckinbill. He's a great man.”

103. “I've always really respected Mark Richt. I think he's a great man, first of all, and I think he's a great coach and a guy that truly cares about the players and always has.”

104. “Wenger is an immense manager and a great man. He takes care of his players, maybe too much. He's not a man of conflict.”

105. “Coach Fisher, I know what he's accomplished and who he is. He's a great man with a great family, and the Hall of Fame is something he's earned. It's something he deserves.”

106. “The likability of any player is always up for debate, and people will always use their own moral compass to judge Luis Suarez, but that's not something I tend to focus on. I concentrate on what he is like with me on a day-to-day basis, and he is a great man.”

107. “Kohli is the greatest chaser by far and I am saying this keeping in mind the great man Sachin Tendulkar. Sachin was special but as far as chasing is concerned, Kohli has done better than Sachin. Kohli is unreal.”

108. “My old boss Aidy Boothroyd is a great man and I've got no malice or anything toward him.”

109. “He was just Dad. But it's hard to deny who he was when you're brought out on stage, and you're standing beside this great man singing at the end of a show, and the crowd loves him.”

110. “I love Bill Belichick. He is a great coach, great man - raising men to do the right thing and win championships in this league.”

111. “I don't want to just be a great fighter, but also a great man.”

112. “Darren Young was looking for someone to train him and finally he came and asked me if I wouldn't mind to be his life coach. I said, 'I sure would, you're a great man and good for the business.'”

113. “To have a player who is the best player in the history of football, but also one who has the humility that Leo has, we have seen him mature and it's fantastic. He is a personality, a great man.”