A Quote by Jose Ortega y Gasset

What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Quote Topics

Great Great Men Makes Mediocre Men Nation Primarily Stature

Quote Author

Jose Ortega y Gasset
Spanish - Philosopher
May 9, 1883 - October 18, 1955

In December 1989, my mother died very suddenly, and that sparked a re-evaluation of what I was doing, and I realized I was mediocre at everything. I was a mediocre IBM employee, I was a mediocre entrepreneur, I was a mediocre artist. I decided that, although my mom wouldn't be around to see it, I wanted to be great at something.

Jim McKelvey

Great Power, capable of everything and only temporarily handicapped by economic difficulties. We are not a great power and never will be again. We are a great nation, but if we continue to behave like a Great Power we shall soon cease to be a great nation. Let us take warning from the fate of the Great Powers of the past and not burst ourselves with pride .

Henry Tizard

It is natural to admire and revere really great men. They hallow the nation to which they belong, and lift up not only all who live in their time, but those who live after them. Their great example becomes the common heritage of their race; and their great deeds and great thoughts are the most glorious legacies of mankind.

Samuel Smiles

But 'Thou mayest!'! Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win

John Steinbeck

It is not great talents or great learning or great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God.

Edward McKendree Bounds

I'm a Christian. I believe that greatness has to do with the quality of love shown to the least of thy brethren and the quality of service to those who are catching hell. When you look at it in that sense, I'd say America has had great moments, but I wouldn't call it a great nation. I don't think there have been any great nations in the history of the world, because in every nation you find poor people being subjugated. So, I see the term "great nation" as a contradiction, as an oxymoron.

Cornel West

You can give a great film idea to a mediocre team and they may screw it up, but if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will turn it into a great film.

Edwin Catmull

The great men of a nation reach out to all mankind. They are unifying, not divisive; internationally conciliating and still great nationally.

Gustav Stresemann

To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre.

Elbert Hubbard

If you have a nation of men who have risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not declare war or carry arms, for they have not so much madness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of benefactors, of true, great, and able men.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Preachers are not sermon makers, but men makers and saint makers, and he only is well-trained for this business who has made himself a man and a saint. It is not great talents nor great learning nor great preachers that God needs, but men great in holiness, great in faith, great in love, great in fidelity, great for God - men always preaching by holy sermons in the pulpit, by holy lives out of it. These can mold a generation for God.

Edward McKendree Bounds

The great universal family of men is a utopia worthy of the most mediocre logic.

Comte de Lautreamont

I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.

Kirsten Dunst

Neither the military might nor the economic and technological development makes a nation great. It is made great by it's citizens with Self Respect and Integrity ingrained in their lives.

Pandurang Shastri Athavale

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.