Great (?) personality/character(?)

Question

I'm looking for the appropriate English term for what I'd call a "große Persönlichkeit" in German.

• This is not about someone who is famous,
• neither about someone who tries to appear superior than others by making them small
• but means someone who is wise, reflected, (possibly brave), emotionally stable and independent (in the positive sense), superior (in a way that doesn't oppress but rather the opposite) and has a good influence on other people, also by being a good example
• This rough translation of a more or less idiomatic rule of thumb may also help to explain: A "große Persönlichket" will help other people to grow, while a "kleine Persönlichkeit" (small? personality?) will keep people down/small(?)/oppress people in order to seem larger (?)

Actually the last point is the context I want to explain in English.

I'm really unsure which of the "groß" (great/large/big/?) terms is appropriate and whether to use personality or character or something else.

Answer 1

What comes to my mind is "a person of great character" or "of noble character", where "character" has the meaning

moral excellence and firmness

This site has some interesting reading on this meaning of the word:

During the 1800s, “character was a key word in the vocabulary of Englishmen and Americans,” and men were spoken of as having strong or weak character, good or bad character, a great deal of character or no character at all. Young people were admonished to cultivate real character, high character, and noble character and told that character was the most priceless thing they could ever attain. Starting at the beginning of the 20th century, however, Susman found that the ideal of character began to be replaced by that of personality.

"A person of integrity" would also work well, but personally I feel that something with "character" is better, as there is a sense that character is cultivated, and from a desire to generally be a good, noble, etc, person, whereas "integrity" can be an affectation.

Answer 2

You could also do magnanimous which is the older English adjective taken from Aristotle's account of the virtuous person. The new adjective in more recent translations is "great-hearted" man.

Among the virtues Aristotle includes as requirements are social graces and forms of generosity that seem coterminable with what you are describing.

Answer 3

In daily usage, people refer to someone as being "small" or "petty" to express the idea behind the "kleine" person you mention.

In terms of the "große," I don't think there's a single word that encompasses all that you describe. I think instead, speakers normally apply something specific, or simply say "he/she is a leader." Sometimes you do hear someone say "That was big of you" when someone goes out of their way to do the right thing, but "he is a big person" only communicates something about his physical size. The term "great" is used so often that it becomes bland in most contexts. Occasionally, the term "the Great" is used to refer to people, but these are almost always famous people ("Alexander the Great").

Answer 4

You might try to translate "große Persönlichket" as "gracious" person. You could possibly call them "grand" (but not grandiose). You might also call them "generous", though you would have to add context to clarify that you don't necessarily mean with money, but rather emotionally.

When contrasting this behaviour with "petty" behaviour (typical of a kleine Persönlichkeit), you can say of someone with a große Persönlichkeit that they are "bigger" than that, or that they are a "bigger person" than that.

Answer 5

A quick translation of "große Persönlichkeit" via translate.google.com yielded "Great Personality". From your description of what you are trying to convey, I believe that other terms could be "Uplifting Personality" or "Positive Influence".