Greatness

Greatness

Greatness is a concept of a state of superiority affecting a person, object or place. Greatness can also be referred to individuals who possess a natural ability to be better than all others. The concept carries the implication that the particular person or object, when compared to others of a similar type, has clear and perceivable advantage. As a descriptive term it is most often applied to a person or their work, and may be qualified or unqualified. An example of an expression of the concept in a qualified sense would be "Winston Churchill was one of the greatest wartime leaders". In the unqualified sense it might be stated "Winston Churchill achieved greatness within his own lifetime", thus implying that "greatness" is a definite and identifiable quality. Application of the terms "great" and "greatness" is dependent on the perspective and subjective judgments of those who apply them. Whereas in some cases the perceived "greatness" of a person, place or object might be agreed upon by many, this is not necessarily the case, and the perception of "greatness" may be both fiercely contested and highly individual.

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Famous quotes containing the word greatness:

    No might nor greatness in mortality
    Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
    The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
    Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    The greatness of man is great in that he knows himself to be wretched. A tree does not know itself to be wretched.
    Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)

    The American West is just arriving at the threshold of its greatness and growth. Where the West of yesterday is glamorized in our fiction, the future of the American West now is both fabulous and factual.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)