Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

He is not great who is not greatly good.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

In our society those who are in reality superior in intelligence can be accepted by their fellows only if they pretend they are not.

The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. That is part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure continously without resentment.

There would be no great men if there were no little ones.

The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.