Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
True greatness happens without deliberate effort; if it is forced, it is insignificant.
In plain terms
Real greatness is natural, not something you try too hard to make happen.
What can you take from it?
Focus on being authentic rather than performing greatness.

Where it applies

  • leadership
  • creative work
  • personal growth

Putting it to work

  • cultivate genuine skills
  • avoid posturing

Questions to consider

  • When have you felt truly at your best?
  • Is effort ever a sign of weakness?

Another view

Some achievements require conscious planning and effort.

More from Thomas Carlyle

  1. Literature is the Thought of thinking Souls.

    Permalink to quote #30
  2. The uttered part of a man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much le…

    Permalink to quote #32
  3. No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense.

    Permalink to quote #29

Related quotes

  1. A cold coming they had of it, at this time of the year; just the worst time of the year to take a journey, and specially a long journey, in.

    Lancelot AndrewesLancelot Andrewes quote #1
  2. Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle aga…

    Vaclav HavelVaclav Havel quote #3
  3. The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing: there is no pain as great as being alive, no burden heavie…

    Ruben DarioRuben Dario quote #3