"Coming to great leaders of mankind, we always find that it was the personality of the man that counted... take all the great authors of the past, the great thinkers. Really speaking, how many thoughts have they thought? Take all the writings that have been left to us by the past leaders of mankind.. The real thoughts, new and genuine, that have been thought in this world up to this time, amount to only a handful. Read in their books the thoughts they have left to us. The authors do not appear to be giants to us, and yet we know that they were great giants in their days. What made them so? Not simply the thoughts they thought, neither the books they wrote, nor the speeches they made, it was something else that is now gone, that is their personality."

- Swami Vivekananda, "The Powers of the Mind" (Jan 8, 1900, Los Angeles), Complete Works: Vol 2