Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.
Great Men
A great man scorns to trample on a worm or to cringe to an emperor.Collier.
A great man’s word is like the elephant’s tusk. i.e., not to be concealed or withdrawn.Hindu.
Alas! by what trivial causes greatness is overthrown.Claudianus.
All great men are in some degree inspired.Cicero.
All things great men do are well done.
Great men have more adorers than friends.
Great men have reaching hands.Shakespeare.
Great men may jest with saints.German.
Great men must be employed to complete great changes in empire, but little men may begin them.Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.
Great men’s requests are commands.German, Danish.
Great men’s servants don’t think little of themselves.German.
Great men’s vices are accounted sacred.
Great persons seldom see their faces in a true glass.
He is great whose failings can be numbered.Hebrew.
It belongs to great men to have great defects.French.
Mean men admire wealth—great men, glory.
The great man is he that does not lose his child’s heart.Mencius.
The greatest men are the simplest.
The vile are only vain, the great are proud.Byron.
Thunder showers and great men’s favors are always partial.
To be great we must know how to push our fortunes to the utmost.Rochefoucauld.
Towers are measured by their shadows and great men by their calumniators.Chinese.
Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains,
That man is great indeed.Pope.
Whom great men wrong they hate.
With great men one must allow five to be an even number.German.