Edwin Hubbel Chapin Quotes

There aren't any great men. There are just great challenges that ordinary men like you and me are forced by circumstances to meet.

In nominating young women and men to our service academies, it must only be about who you are, not who you know.

We live in a world in which courage is in less supply than genius.

History thrusts greatness upon people in crucial moments.

Mr. [Winston] Churchill has been one of the few—the very few—who have significantly and beneficently affected the course of events … How seldom can this be said of anyone.

I am Vice President. I am nothing but I may be everything.

A great man is one who deliberately causes something important to a happen, the probability of which seemed low before he took up the task. A great man is a man who gives history a turn which it could scarcely have taken without him. They give history a twist which nobody would have predicted. Great men leave permanent effects.

The spirit of the age is the very thing a great man changes.

To a great leader there is no worthy seed.

It is my opinion that General Washington’s influence will do more than all the Assemblies upon the Continent. I always thought him exceeding popular; but in many places he is little less than adored; and universally admired. His influence in this Country might possibly effect something great.

Great men don't 'move to the center' — great men move the center!

Great men need to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole world, in order to conceive their great ideas or perform their great deeds. That is, there must be an atmosphere of greatness round about them. A hero cannot be a hero unless in an heroic world.

It is not the places which grace men, but men the places.

The men who have led the House, whose names have become a splendid tradition to their successors, have gained prominence not through luck or by mere accident. They have had ability, at least in some degree; but more than that, they have had character.

But for those who really want to make the world a better place, can we start looking at Bill Gates's path instead of Steve Jobs? I like my iPad, but Gates is one of the greatest heroes of our time. For me, that has nothing to do with Microsoft and everything to do with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

When you see weakness in a hero, you are doing something to his identity. You take something away from the kids, the next generation; you steal away giving them anything to look up to.

Seniority means nothing if you don't do anything with it.

Great broadcasting requires all of us, those who are in positions of power and especially those who are in positions to employ people, to remember you need to look towards the greatest conceivable palate to create greatness.

All of us have an entrepreneur in us.

Just because someone lives in a hut, that doesn't mean that isn't a good person, that that person can't do better, that person isn't capable of being great. And just because it's a hut - whatever that means - doesn't mean it's not a home.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and most shining parts are most actuated by ambition.

I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Mr. Cary Grant.

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, they leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A deceptive memory may be the key to their originality.

In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.

What chance gathers, she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.