There were two things going on: 1) I had already established in my own mind where I wanted to go with the next series, and having James around as a Grey Eminence would have complicated matters. He had had an amazing life and it was time to bid him good-bye.
Quotes about eminence (16 Quotes)
That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox or those who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy will be at last bestowed by time.
One of the greatest business leaders in America today, James F. Oates of the Equitable Life, said this about factors which he said were necessary to develop us into real eminence in any field. He said Whatever may be the nature of our work, or the character of our own vocational activity, eminence always involves the following And then he named four factors, and I want you to mark them. 1. You must have the determination to excel. 2. You must have the willingness And I want you to mark this. to pay the price, to study, to live through disappointments with optimism, and to accept the sacrifices necessary to succeed. Now, do you get the significance of that 3. You must have the steadfast pursuit of purpose, doing the work day after day, week after week, yes, year after year, whether you feel like doing it or not. 4. You must have pride and faith in the virtue of your calling. That is to say, spiritual motivation. (James F. Oates, Address before the YMCA at Los Angeles, California, April 15, 1960.)
If you believed yourself to be a writer of . . . eminence, you are now assured of being over the hill not a sturdy mountain flower but a little wilted lily of the valley.
I protest-
Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor;
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
And from th' extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor.
It is to be regretted that few persons who have arrived at any degree of eminence or fame, have written Memorials of themselves, at least such as have embraced their private as well as their public life.
I never knew a man come to greatness or eminence who lay abed late in the morning.
Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not in conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war.
As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie; Couched on the bald top of an eminence.
A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.
There are millions of vegetarians in the world but only one Bernard Shaw. You do not obtain eminence quite so cheaply as by eating macaroni instead of mutton chops.
You that have so fair parts of woman on you
Have too a woman's heart, which ever yet
Affected eminence, wealth, sovereignty;
Which, to say sooth, are blessings; and which gifts,
Saving your mincing, the capacity
Of your soft cheveril conscience would receive
If you might please to stretch it.
They (the Puritans) saw clearly that of all the nonsense and delusion which had ever passed through the mind of man, none had ever been more extravagant than the notions of absolutions, indelible characters, uninterrupted successions, and the rest of those fantastical ideas, derived from the canon law, which had thrown such a glare of mystery, sanctity, reverence, and right reverend eminence and holiness around the idea of a priest as no mortal could deserve, and as always must, from the constitution of human nature, be dangerous to society. For this reason they demolished the whole system of diocesan episcopacy, and, deriding, as all reasonable and impartial men must do, the ridiculous fancies of sanctified effluvia from Episcopal fingers, they established sacerdotal ordination on the foundation of the Bible and common sense.
Persons who are born too soon or born too late seldom achieve the eminence of those who are born at the right time.
High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold, Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd To that bad eminence.
A position of eminence makes a great person greater and a small person less.