greatness [Theme] Page 19

For greatness there's only one way, and that way is through suffering.

Avoid those who are trying to undermine your faith in yourself. A great man, on the contrary, it inspires the feeling that you can become great.
Another translation:
Stay away from people who scoff at your aspirations. Small people always do that, while the great men always let you feel that you, too, can become great.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

here, in a short quatrain, Bokonon put the paradoxical idea that there is a sad need to lie about real life and even more sad inability to lie about it.
High and mighty dwarf.
He above all people.
Not prevent short stature
Greatness of ideas.

I don't even know if I want to do greatness as such. It's all the same what to aspire to be an inventor instead of actually inventing something, or to be a writer instead of writing. Also with greatness - it is a byproduct, not the thing in itself. Anyone who thinks otherwise - is just egotistical, selfish or a terrible fool, but one and the same.

Honesty is not only the first step to greatness, it is greatness.

Three and a half years I wanted to be a cook, mind you, as a cook, not a chef. At the age of seven wanted to be Napoleon, and my claims since then have become steadily increase.
(At the age of six I wanted to be a chef. At seven Napoleon. And later, my ambitions have grown no less than the desire for greatness.)

The greatness of a great man is how he treats little people.

The greatness of a nation should fit in each of its representative.

Does not digest organic insignificance of greatness.