Sunday, March 11, 2018 – Just Great
I am proud to offer my endorsement of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States. He is a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father, and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again. ~ Jerry Falwell, Jr.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift. ~ Robin Williams
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: “Whose?” ~ Don Marquis
In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them. ~ Napoléon Bonaparte
Illusions of grandeur are not the same as visions of greatness. ~ Edwin Louis Cole
Delusions of grandeur make me feel a lot better about myself. ~ Jane Wagner
What enables us to achieve our greatness contains the seeds of our destruction. ~ Jim Valvano
Good and great are seldom in the same man. ~ Winston Churchill
The price of greatness is responsibility. ~ Winston Churchill
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. ~ Leo Tolstoy
It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess. ~ Lucius Annaeus Seneca
A great man is always willing to be little. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake. ~ Nelson Boswell
Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought. ~ Blaise Pascal
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment. ~ Elbert Hubbard
Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness. ~ George Bernard Shaw
We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much? ~ Samuel Beckett
That’s part of American greatness, is discrimination. Yes, sir. Inequality, I think, breeds freedom and gives a man opportunity. ~ Lester Maddox
Intolerance is the most socially acceptable form of egotism, for it permits us to assume superiority without personal boasting. ~ Sydney J. Harris
Pride in boasting of family antiquity, makes duration stand for merit. ~ John Zimmerman
We should face reality and our past mistakes in an honest, adult way. Boasting of glory does not make glory, and singing in the dark does not dispel fear. ~ King Hussein
When boasting ends, there dignity begins. ~ Owen D. Young
Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio – empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how – has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home – within the family, so to speak – our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
Boast is always a cry of despair, except in the young it is a cry of hope. ~ Bernard Berenson
There is this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends. ~ Johann Kaspar Lavater
Fools carry their daggers in their open mouths. ~ Josh Billings
I am no more humble than my talents require. ~ Oscar Levant
We often credit ourselves with vices the reverse of what we have, thus when weak we boast of our obstinacy. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. ~ Mark Twain
It is something – it can be everything – to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters, while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below. ~ Wallace Stegner
We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith
If a fox is unable to befriend a tiger, then the fox should create an illusion of close association with the tiger by carefully trailing behind the cat while boasting of the deep friendship they share. In this way, he creates an impression that his well-being is of great concern to the tiger. ~ Chin-Ning Chu
Boast quietly, with decorum. ~ Mason Cooley
If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance. ~ Bern Williams
Let your actions always speak for you, but be forever on guard against the terrible traps of false pride and conceit that can halt your progress. The next time you are tempted to boast, just place your fist in a full pail of water, and when you remove it, the hole remaining will give you a correct measure of your importance. ~ Og Mandino
A true history of human events would show that a far larger proportion of our acts are the result of sudden impulse and accident than of that reason of which we so much boast. ~ Peter Cooper
Every man has assurance enough to boast of his honesty, few of their understanding. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. ~ Jane Austen
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. ~ Oscar Wilde
The honor is overpaid when he that did the act is commentator. ~ James Shirley
Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable. ~ Hosea Ballou
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper. ~ Khalil Gibran
False eloquence is exaggeration; true eloquence is emphasis. ~ William R. Alger
Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Mysticism and exaggeration go together. A mystic must not fear ridicule if he is to push all the way to the limits of humility or the limits of delight. ~ Milan Kundera
Resume: a written exaggeration of only the good things a person has done in the past, as well as a wish list of the qualities a person would like to have. ~ Bo Bennett
There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can’t tell the truth without lying. ~ Josh Billings
Some folks never exaggerate – they just remember big. ~ Chi-Chi Rodriguez
To exaggerate is to weaken. ~ Jean François de La Harpe
By speaking, by thinking, we undertake to clarify things, and that forces us to exacerbate them, dislocate them, and schematize them. Every concept is in itself an exaggeration. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset
All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate. ~ Nicolas Chamfort
There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Exaggeration misleads the credulous and offends the perceptive. ~ Eliza Cook
Alcohol is perfectly consistent in its effects upon man. Drunkenness is merely an exaggeration. A foolish man drunk becomes maudlin; a bloody man, vicious; a coarse man, vulgar. ~ Willa Cather
Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no man into the world, without adding a small excess of his proper quality. Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so, to every creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, a shove to put it on its way; in every instance, a slight generosity, a drop too much. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
To a small man every greater is an exaggeration. ~ Henry David Thoreau
It is human to exaggerate the merits of the dead. ~ Mark Twain
Exaggeration is the inseparable companion of greatness. ~ Voltaire
How many may a man of diffusive conversation count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes, who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befell the knights-errant of ancient times in pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them with subjects of conversation? ~ Samuel Johnson
An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft. ~ Walter Bagehot
Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise. ~ Eric Hoffer
It is only a short step from exaggerating what we can find in the world to exaggerating our power to remake the world. Expecting more novelty than there is, more greatness than there is, and more strangeness than there is, we imagine ourselves masters of a plastic universe. But a world we can shape to our will is a shapeless world. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin
Eschew the monumental. Shun the Epic. All the guys who can paint great big pictures can paint great small ones. ~ Ernest Hemingway
Pretense is the overrating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to. ~ Jonathan Swift
At home I am a nice guy: but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far. ~ Muhammad Ali
Don’t be humble… you’re not that great. ~ Golda Meir
The humble and meek are thirsting for blood. ~ Joe Orton
To vilify a great man is the readiest way in which a little man can himself attain greatness. ~ Edgar Allan Poe
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. ~ Sir Winston Churchill
Just Above Sunset 