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Great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimate of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness.

— John Campbell Shairp

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More quotes by John Campbell Shairp

The ground of all religion, that which makes it possible, is the relation in which the human soul stands to God.

Culture and Religion (1870)

Not as men of science, not as critics, not as philosophers, but as little children, shall we enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Culture and Religion (1870)

For with all our pretension to enlightenment, are we not now a talking, desultory, rather than a meditative generation?

Culture and Religion (1870)

Believe in God, and bid all knowledge speed. Sooner or later the full harmony will reveal itself, the discords and contradictions disappear.

Culture and Religion (1870)

Beauty comes, we scarce know how, as an emanation from sources deeper than itself.

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Campbell Shairp (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.