People moved in hushed and anxious hours while his life lingered on. It was thus I learned that some great man was at the helm of our country.

-Hoover, Herbert Clark
  On President Garfield's assassination, 2  Jul1881. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, vol1.

Canada only needs to be known in order to be great.

-Hopkins,J Castell
The Story of the Dominion, preface.

   Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.

-Hubbard, Elbert Green
Thousand and One Epigrams.

Is there anyone among the great men who has not imitated? Nothing is made with nothing.

-Ingres,Jean Auguste Dominique
  Quoted in Henri Delaborde Ingres, sa vie, ses travaux, sa doctrine (1870).

I have become increasingly convinced that great men have strong elements of comicality in them.

-Jenkins (of Hillhead), Roy HarrisJenkins, Baron
Churchill.

Minds that are great and free, Should not on fortune pause, 'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

-Jonson, Ben
The Underwood,'An Ode to Himself' (published1640).

Vere magnus est, qui magnam habet caritatem. He is truly great who has great charity.

-Kempis, StThomas a'
c.1413  De Imitatione Christi, bk.1, ch.4, section 6.

Porque todo es irreal en este cuento. Nada sucedio¤   como se indica. Hechos y sitios se deformaron por el empen‹  o de tocar la verdad mediante una ficcio¤  n, una mentira. Todo irreal, nada sucedio¤   como aqu |¤ se refiere. Pero fue un pobre intento de contribuir a que el gran crimen nunca se repita. For everything in this story is unreal. Nothing happened the way it was suggested. Facts and places were distorted by that persistent desire to touch the truth by means of fiction, a lie. All of it is unreal; nothing happened the way it istold here.It was a poorattempt to help ensure that the great crime is never repeated.

-Pacheco,Jose¤   Emilio
  Morira¤  s lejos (translated asYouWill Die in a Distant Land, 1991).

It is now apparent that this great, this powerful, this formidablekingdomisconsidered onlyas a province of a despicable electorate.

-Pitt,William, 1st Earl of Chatham known as  the Elder
  Speech to the House of Commons,10 Dec.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; The proper study of mankind is man. Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise, and rudely great: With too much knowledge for the sceptic side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast; In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little, or too much.

-Pope, Alexander
  An Essay on Man, epistle 2, l.1^12.

But still the great have kindness in reserve, He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.

-Pope, Alexander
  Of a patron.'An Epistle to DrArbuthnot', l.247^8.

We live in the great indoors: the vacuum cleaner grazes over the carpet, lowing, its udder a swollen wobble. SeeAusten 43:88.

-Raine, Craig Anthony
  'An Inquiry intoTwo Inches of Ivory'.

A mere copier of nature never produces anything great.

-Reynolds, SirJoshua
  Discourses on Art, no.3,14 Dec.

For when the One Great Scorer comes To write against your name, He marksönot that you won or lostö But how you played the game.

-Rice, Grantland
Only the Brave,'Alumnus Football'.

Not least among the qualities ina great King is a capacity to permit his Ministers to serve him.

-Cardinal Richelieu
  Testament Politique.

They who would be great in our little government seem as ridiculous to me as schoolboys who†climb a crab- tree, venturing their necks for fruit which solid pigs would disdain if they were not starving.

-Rochester,JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of
c.1676  Letter to Henry Savile. InTheLetters ofJohnWilmot, Earl of Rochester, edited byJeremyTreglown (1980).

Idiots are always in favour of inequality of income (their only chance of eminence), and the really great in favour of equality.

-Shaw, George Bernard
  The IntelligentWoman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

-Spender, Sir Stephen Harold
  'I Think Continually ofThose'.

The great and almost onlycomfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.

-Stark, Dame Freya Madeleine
  TheValley of theAssassins.

Pray God our greatness may not fail Through craven fears of being great.

-Tennyson
  'Hands All Round',1.31^2.