English essayist (1778 - 1830)

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...greatness sympathises with greatness, and littleness shrinks into itself.
A great chessplayer is not a great man, for he leaves the world as he found it.
A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.
A really great man has always an idea of something greater than himself.
Greatness is great power, producing great effects. It is not enough that a man has great power in himself, he must shew it to all the world in a way that cannot be hid or gainsaid.
No act terminating in itself constitutes greatness.
No man is truly great, who is great only in his life-time. The test of greatness is the page of history.
Popularity is neither fame nor greatness.
To display the greatest powers, unless they are applied to great purposes, makes nothing for the character of greatness.

Missing a quote of William Hazlitt, on the Pleasure of Hating?

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