Thread: Greatness, and its meaning

What do you guys consider greatness to be? Who, throughout history represented this meaning? Which men were truly great? (by men, I mean human; male or female )

I'm not exactly sure what greatness is. Its one of the questions that has been bugging me for quite sometime: what does it mean to be great? is it to simply accept who you are and realize your limits...or is it to never accept anything, break all the rules to pursue your goals?

I'm in the process of writing/researching greatness and great people and the qualities they all shared. (This is not for school or anything, its just for me).

Some names I'll throw out: Pope John Paul II, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Dostoevsky, Hitler (!!) - could he be considered great??

> Pope John Paul II

Why?

> Hitler

Great orator, crappy at pretty much everything else.

I'm going to say Hammurabi, see your Julius Caesar, and raise you Augustus.

I like this idea for a thread, but lets try to not just attack everyone.

> Jefferson

I think this one might win. Greatest American of the Enlightenment, anyways.

>> Pope John Paul II
>Why?

Here is a pretty good overview of his life: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/pope/
His famous texts include "Fides et Ratio"; complete text here: http://www.zpub.com/un/pope/fides1.html

as in our conversation, and in answering the question "how did the Pope help abolish communism?": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ope/communism/

yes, but could you guys give your interpretation of greatness, and what makes your choices great?

>>> Jefferson
>>I think this one might win.

I certainly don't think so; for best explanation as to why not read Querry XVIII entitled "Manners" as well as Query XIV "laws" from "Notes on the State of Virginia"

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

It's certainly no secret Jefferson owned slaves, but he did emancipate them upon his death, right? Also, he was instrumental in creating the country ("Hi I'm Tom and I wrote the Declaration of Independence"), an inventor, a philosopher, and a snappy dresser.

Also-
Hammurabi: Code of Laws was pretty much the first (AFAIK) codified system of laws out there. That's a very redundant sentence, heh.
Augustus: Pax Romana was him, correct?

Leonardo da Vinci, a renaissance man in every way, and also the inspiration for a Ninja Turtle

Muhammad and Jesus Christ
Have sparked more wars than any other religions and in many cases countries, and started two of the world's largest religions.

I'll throw in a few:
Archimedes
Thomas Paine

>>Archimedes<<

I strongly agree here.

first, a side track: Govt and I were trying to think of a great person during the middle ages, and sadly (or not) we could not think of one.

Now, if the recently found Archamedes book in which he figured out how to sum an infinity of parts (calculus), how much further would our civilization be right now...would there be a "dark ages"? hmmm. Considering that our whole existance is due to incredible chance and luck, would archimedes' ideas change anything?

related link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/ if you can, rent that NOVA special, it is a great story

>>Jesus Christ<<

I agree on the fact that he is probably the single most important person in the Western World...not sure if he (the person) was Great though.

> would there be a "dark ages"?

Yes, thanks to the fact that the people burning ancient literature probably didn't give a damn about calculus.

How about some famous scientists like Einstein, Planck, Bohr, etc

They've certainly made lasting contributions!