Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves. All they wanted was the chance to do good for others and be close to God.”
-Muhammad Ali

Truly great people in history never wanted to be great for themselves. All they wanted was the chance to do good for others and to be close to God. I'm not perfect. I know that I still have things to work out, and I'm working on them. There are certain things I have done that I am not proud of, especially when they caused pain to others. I ask God for forgiveness.

The great men and women of history were not great because of what they earned and owned, but rather for what they gave their lives to accomplish.

I never wanted to be famous; I only wanted to be great.

great people are those who make others feel that they, too, can become great.

People do not become great by doing great things. They do great things because they are great.

The great ones don’t do it for money or fame or power.

Or to build an institution, or to help others, or to save the world.

Like a child tinkering, they create it for its own sake.

Free of the burden of ambition.

Deaf to the demands of the world.

People don't just want to be rich and successful, they want to be good.

Don't you know that a good and excellent person does nothing for the sake of appearances, but only for the sake of having acted right?

I do not deny that although my intention was to be a great in history for doing good, part of this desire was also due to selfishness. The selfishness of those who simply want to feel more than others. I fought this unhealthy desire with all my might, knowing full well that God does not like those who do things for themselves, but despite this I did not always succeed. I realise now, as I write this letter, imagining what my last moment on earth will be like, that it is the stupidest desire one can have.

Among the greatest geniuses to date, few have actually done anything for the people. A nation’s geniuses are highly aristocratic, and everything they have done up to now has served only to educate, strengthen, and enrich the exploiting minority. The poor masses, forsaken and abused by everyone, have had to break their own martyr’s path to freedom and light by means of an infinite number of obscure and fruitless efforts.

No! No one who was great in the world will be forgotten, but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of that which he loved. He who loved himself became great by virtue of himself, and he who loved other men became great by his devotedness, but he who loved God became the greatest of all. Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone became great in proportion to his expectancy. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became the greatest of all. Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone was great wholly in proportion to the magnitude of that with which he struggled. For he who struggled with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who struggled with himself became great by conquering himself, but he who struggled with God became the greatest of all. Thus did they struggle in the world, man against man, one against thousands, but he who struggled with God was the greatest of all. Thus did they struggle on earth: there was one who conquered everything by his power, and there was one who conquered God by his powerlessness. There was one who relied upon himself and gained everything; there was one who in the security of his own strength sacrificed everything; but the one who believed God was the greatest of all. There was one who was great by virtue of his power, and one who was great by virtue of his hope, and one who was great by virtue of his love, but Abraham was the greatest of all, great by that power whose strength is powerlessness, great by that wisdom which is foolishness, great by that hope whose form is madness, great by the love that is hatred to oneself.

I should not want to live unless I could live to do some good to others.

We love people not so much for the good they've done us, as for the good we've done them.