Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Human beings possess immense potential and can embody greatness if they choose to act on it.
In plain terms
You have the power to be great if you decide to be.
What can you take from it?
Your potential depends on your choices.

Where it applies

  • leadership development
  • personal growth
  • artistic creation

Putting it to work

  • setting ambitious goals
  • cultivating self-belief
  • studying exemplars

Questions to consider

  • What greatness lies dormant in you?
  • Where will you choose to act?

Another view

It oversimplifies external barriers to success.

More from Matthew Arnold

  1. Others abide our question. Thou art free. We ask and ask - Thou smilest and art still, Out-topping knowledge.

    Permalink to quote #5
  2. Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings, By contemplation of diviner things.

    Permalink to quote #7
  3. My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild; Who saw life steadi…

    Permalink to quote #4

Related quotes

  1. You may be whatever you resolve to be.

    Thomas JacksonThomas Jackson quote #26
  2. Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.

    Robert SouthRobert South quote #1
  3. That everything great that has ever happened to humanity since the beginning, has begun with a single thought in someone's mind and if anyone of us is capable …

    YanniYanni quote #1