The Great Man Votes (1939)

John Barrymore: Gregory Vance

Quotes 

• Gregory Vance : Gregory Vance, magnified briefly, by a kindly destiny, in a kindly land where... where greatness is within a people, not within a man; and where any man who calls himself great, is only looking at his shadow, from the shoulders of those who have lifted him up. Today, his own feet must carry him. Side by side we walk today, the big and the little, and, those we sometimes call: the down and out. A voter, by the name of Mr. Whittier, once spoke of that. Today, of all the weary year, a king of men am I. Today alike are great and small, the nameless and the known. My palace is the people's hall, the ballot box, my throne. Tomorrow, I will be quite forgotten - a bit of shadow glory, who, like the rest of you, left his mark only in a ballot box. But I will be no less a part of that total greatness because being even the least in a land where strength is so generous, is greatness in itself.

• Gregory Vance : My dear lady, I seem to detect in you perspicacity only too rare these days.

  Miss Billow : Mr. Vance, you astonish me.

  Gregory Vance : At times madam, I astonish myself.