Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Quotes

Great men are the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do and attain.

The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Nations, like families, have great men only in spite of themselves.

All great men are partially inspired.

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at five or six great men- yes, and then to get around them.

The great men of the earth are but the marking-stones on the road of humanity; they are the priests of its religion.

Universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.

Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.

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.

With great power goes great responsibility.

Great men don't 'move to the center' — great men move the center!

Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks; they are the summits of ranges.

The greater the power, the greater the responsibility in its exercise.

The question before the United States is whether the magnitude of its power will eclipse the light by which it was founded, or whether it will use its power to serve greater light. Does it seek mastery to dominate or mastery to serve?

Great men can't be ruled.

The age does not believe in great men, because it does not possess any.

Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.

The world is begging for you to lead.

... The future is very markedly in your hands, its value and its moral standing in the world and among ourselves. If you will take the power you have and use it, I have no fear of the outcome of the future.

I’ve always been interested in leaders and rule breakers and artists and politicians.

The world is not ruled by those who have money, but those who have dreams.

Nothing that matters in this world happens unless leaders lead it.