Great Quotes

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.

In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

A military leader must possess as much character as intellect. Men who have a great deal of intellect and little character are the least suited; they are like a ship whose masts are out of proportion to the ballast; it is preferable to have much character and little intellect. Those men whose intellect is mediocre and whose character is in proportion are likely to succeed in their profession. The base must equal the height.

Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender [sic]; a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.

Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.

The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.

Europe is a molehill. It has never had any great empires, like those of the Orient, numbering six hundred million souls.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

Men of great ambition have sought happiness . . . and have found fame.

The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it-the precise time when it is too late.

Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking, an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure.

Great events ever depend but upon a single hair. The adroit man profits by everything, neglects nothing which can increase his chances; the less adroit, by sometimes disregarding a single chance, fails in everything.

In tragedy great men are more truly great than in history. We see them only in the crises which unfold them.

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. Make them your models. This is the only way to become a great general and to master the secrets of the art of war. With your own genius enlightened by this study, you will reject all maxims opposed to those of these great commanders.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer.

No nation ever loses its dignity or good standing by conciliating its differences and by exercising great patience with, and consideration for, the rights of other nations.