From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.
They will form citizens, heroes and geniuses.
Millionaire models are rare enough; but model millionaires are rarer still!
Perhaps five or even ten per cent of men can do something rather well. It is a tiny minority who can do anything really well, and the number of men who can do two things well is negligible. If a man has any genuine talent, he should be ready to make almost any sacrifice in order to cultivate it to the full.
I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.
3rd Earl Russell of Kingston
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.
Great countries are those that produce great people.
When nature removes a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor; but none comes, and none will. His class is extinguished with him. In some other and quite different field, the next man will appear.
In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
There are only one or two geniuses every century.
I love to interview outrageous people who speak their minds; also, people who have some kind of mystery attached to them.
Great individuals and great performances build a team, which produces brilliant performances.
Great men can't be ruled.
Everything great and intelligent is in the minority
There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.
Good players create opportunities. The great players and the great people seize them
The society of the Culture-Philistines makes life a burden to exceptional men.
Geniuses must never die, the progress of mankind depends on us
A good leader for instance is somebody like Nelson Mandela. I do not have seen such people coming every generation, maybe every ten generations, every hundred generations. People who are miracle workers.
The ordinary man casts a shadow in a way we do not quite understand. The man of genius casts light.
None but great men are capable of having great flaws.
It's always intrigued me that amidst the group called slaves there were individuals who were extremely able, who were extremely colorful, who were powerful personalities, who by no means fit the usual images of slaves. They were people who, through their personalities and abilities, were very respected in the community where they lived by both black and white.
Larger-than-life characters make up about .01 percent of the world's population.
The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions.
It's lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time-consuming and energy consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.
