If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.
It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions.Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-06-26), The Spectator, No. 101
(Source)
The last line is sometimes shortened to:It is the privilege of posterity to set matters right between those antagonists who, by their rivalry for greatness, divided a whole age.
Quotations about:
great person
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
A great man’s greatest good luck is to die at the right time.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 276 (1955)
(Source)
But there is a higher order of men so inspired with ardour, and so fortified with resolution, that the world passes before them without influence or regard: these ought to consider themselves as appointed the guardians of mankind: they are placed in an evil world, to exhibit publick examples of good life; and may be said, when they withdraw to solitude, to desert the station which Providence assigned them.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1754-01-19), The Adventurer, No. 126
(Source)
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-05), “The Hero as Divinity,” Home House, Portman Square, London
(Source)
The lecture notes were collected by Carlyle into On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, Lecture 1, (1841).
SGANARELLE: But when a great lord is a wicked man, it is a terrible thing.
[Mais un grand seigneur méchant homme est une terrible chose.]
Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Don Juan [Dom Juan], Act 1, sc. 1 (1665) [tr. Waller (1904)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Other translations:But a great Lord, a wicked Man, is a terrible thing.
[tr. Clitandre (1672)]If a great lord is a wicked man it is a terrible thing.
[tr. Van Laun (1876)]But if a great lord is also a wicked man, it is a terrible thing.
[tr. Wall (1879)]But a wicked nobleman is a terrible thing.
[tr. Page (1908)]But a great lord who is a wicked man is a terrible thing.
[tr. Frame (1967)]But a wicked nobleman is a frightening master.
[tr. Bermel (1987)]But a great lord who's a wicked man is a frightening thing.
[tr. Wilbur (2001)]
Sometimes rendered "What a terrible thing to be a great lord, yet a wicked man," though I could not find a good source for that phrasing, which is also attributed to Carlos Castañeda.
This haz alwus bin the rule, and alwus will be — no man iz grate unless he iz good.
[This has always been the rule, and always will be — no man is great unless he is good.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 281 “Variety: Bred and Butter” (1874)
(Source)
The nearer we approach great men, the clearer we see that they are men. Barely do they appear great before their valets.
[Rarement ils sont grands vis-à-vis de leurs valets-de-chambre.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
(Spurious)
This passage, both English and French, is attributed to La Bruyere (and, more specifically, to his Characters [Les Caractères] (1688). It does not, however, appear in that work (in any translation or the native French) nor does it seem to appear in any other work of La Bruyere that I could find.
Both English and French show up in a passage in Samuel Arthur Bent, Short Sayings of Great Men (1882), about Mme. de Cornuel (d. 1694). Bent is discussing a quotation attributed to her, with parallels amongst Montaigne (1586) and Goethe (1805). (The passage is quoted at Bartleby.com, which may account for modern familiarity with it.) Bent cites the above from La Bruyere's Caractères.
Other versions, of each sentence, show up in quotations collections over the following decades, and today the French has a number of hits on Russian/Slavic websites, but nothing (not even on French search engines) that pins it to any source aside from the same pages in English language searches.
The world’s great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor great scholars great men.
