#greatness

The highest men are calm, silent and unknown...The true masters seldom reveal themselves, except in the vibrations the leave behind, and upon which the lesser gurus build their doctrines. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#introvert #men #men

So many will try to destroy me. So many, over and over, coming in periods of greatness. But in this period, I cannot be broken: GAGAKLEIN. ↗

— Lady Gaga

#gaga #gagaklein #greatness #lady #music

Look, no matter where you live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our short sightedness. We don't see what we could be. We should be at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say "I want mine now," you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor ones from rising up and stealing it. ↗

— Mitch Albom

#human-nature #potential-for-greatness #nature

The finer natures were those that shone at the larger times. ↗

— Henry James

#greatness #occasion #self #truth #nature

But they also awarded a quite respectable 55th place to Enoch Powell, thereby demonstrating that, for certain sections of the population, being an unpleasant racist constitutes no bar to greatness. ↗

— Marc Morris

#enoch-powell #greatness #racism #respect

The first sign of greatness is when a man does not attempt to look and act great. Before you can call yourself a man at all, Kipling assures us, you must "not look too good nor talk too wise. ↗

— Dale Breckenridge Carnegie

#public-speaking #art

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. ↗

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

#greatness #misunderstood #philosophical

Our Christian destiny is, in fact, a great one: but we cannot achieve greatness unless we lose all interest in being great. For our own idea of greatness is illusory, and if we pay too much attention to it we will be lured out of the peace and stability of the being God gave us, and seek to live in a myth we have created for ourselves. And when we are truly ourselves we lose most of the futile self-consciousness that keeps us constantly comparing ourselves with others in order to see how big we are. ↗

— Thomas Merton

#greatness #self-consciousness #christian-living

The poet will only be recited until the death of his language. The violinist will only give recitals until the bowing of nose hairs. ↗

— Bauvard

#greatness #humor #music #noses #poetry

We shall never resolve the enigma of the relation between the negative foundations of greatness and that greatness itself. ↗

— Jean Baudrillard

#enigma #foundations #greatness #itself #negative