Great men have to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole world, in order to conceive their great ideas, or perform their great deeds.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.

No man is truly great who is great only in his lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history.

No really great man ever thought himself so.

A great man's greatest good luck is to die at the right time.

A great man represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or, to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in his being there.

To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre.

No man was ever great by imitation.

He ne'er is crowned With immortality, who fears to follow Where airy voices lead.

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.