The internet loves a definitive ranking. We want to know who the "GOAT" is, whether it's in basketball, physics, or just being a decent human being. But when you ask who the greatest person of all time actually was, things get weirdly complicated. Most people immediately jump to names like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., or maybe even Alexander the Great if they’re feeling particularly conquest-heavy that day. It’s a debate that usually ends in a stalemate because "greatness" is a moving target.
Honestly, it depends on what you value. Are we talking about who changed the world the most? Who saved the most lives? Or who possessed the most sheer, unadulterated talent? If you’re looking at sheer impact, there is one name that pops up in academic circles more than any other, and it isn't a politician or a king.
It’s Norman Borlaug.
You’ve probably never heard of him. Most haven't. But while we argue about historical figures who won wars or wrote catchy manifestos, Borlaug was in the dirt. He was an agronomist. Basically, he’s the guy who sparked the "Green Revolution." By developing high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties in the mid-20th century, he is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation. A billion. That’s a number so large the human brain can’t even really process it.
The problem with the "Great Man" theory
For a long time, historians loved the "Great Man" theory. This was the idea that history is just a series of biographies of heroes. Thomas Carlyle, a 19th-century writer, was the big proponent of this. He thought that if you removed a few key players—Cromwell, Napoleon, Luther—the world would be unrecognizable.
But that’s a bit of a stretch.
Modern historians like Yuval Noah Harari or the late David Graeber tend to look at systems instead. They argue that if Einstein hadn't figured out relativity, someone else would have within a decade because the scientific community was already knocking on that door. It makes you wonder: can any single person truly be the greatest person of all time if they were just the first one to cross a finish line that everyone was running toward?
Maybe greatness isn't about being first. Maybe it's about doing something nobody else could have done.
Take Leonardo da Vinci. People call him a polymath, which is just a fancy way of saying he was annoyingly good at everything. He wasn't just "ahead of his time." He was living in a completely different reality. He was dissecting corpses to understand musculature while other artists were still drawing flat, lifeless figures. He was designing flying machines in the 1400s. If Leo hadn't existed, we might have still reached the Renaissance, but it would have looked a lot different. It would have been dimmer.
Why we get the "Greatest" list wrong
Our collective memory is biased toward people who were loud. We remember the conquerors. Genghis Khan changed the DNA of a significant portion of the global population. Literally. That’s impact, sure, but is it "greatness"? Most would say no. Destruction is easy; building things is the hard part.
Then there’s the religious figures. Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha. Regardless of your personal faith, from a purely historical standpoint, their influence is unparalleled. They shaped the moral architecture of billions of lives over millennia. If we are measuring greatness by the sheer duration and depth of influence, it’s hard to look anywhere else.
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But then you have the quiet ones.
Have you heard of Vasili Arkhipov?
In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Soviet submarine was caught in a standoff with the U.S. Navy. The Americans were dropping signaling depth charges. The Soviets, trapped deep underwater without radio contact, thought World War III had started. Two of the three officers on board wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. They needed a unanimous vote. Arkhipov said no. He argued, he stayed calm, and he blocked the launch.
He didn't invent anything. He didn't lead an army. He just didn't push a button. By doing nothing, he likely saved human civilization. Does that make him the greatest person of all time? You could certainly make the case.
The Einstein vs. Newton Debate
In the world of science, it usually comes down to these two.
Isaac Newton basically invented the "how" of the universe. Gravity, calculus, the laws of motion. He was also, by most accounts, a pretty difficult person to get along with. He spent his later years obsessed with alchemy and trying to decode hidden messages in the Bible.
Einstein, on the other hand, changed our understanding of time and space. He showed us that the universe is way weirder than Newton ever imagined. But Einstein also became a global icon for peace. He used his fame—his "greatness"—to advocate for civil rights and nuclear disarmament.
This brings up an interesting point: character matters.
We tend to forgive "great" people for being terrible human beings. Steve Jobs was notoriously difficult to work for. Wagner was a rampant anti-Semite. If someone changes the world for the better but leaves a trail of broken people in their wake, does that disqualify them from the top spot?
The "Hidden" Greats: Women history ignored
For most of recorded history, half the population wasn't allowed to be "great." If you were a woman with a genius-level IQ in the 1700s, you were probably busy managing a household and hoping you didn't die in childbirth.
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Because of this, many of the greatest minds in history are anonymous.
Think about Rosalind Franklin. Everyone knows Watson and Crick discovered the structure of DNA. Except they didn't—not really. They used Franklin’s X-ray diffraction images (Photo 51) without her permission. She was the one who actually captured the data that proved the double helix. She died at 37, and the men got the Nobel Prize.
Or Marie Curie. She’s the only person to ever win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (Physics and Chemistry). She literally gave her life for her work, dying from radiation exposure because she used to carry test tubes of radium in her pockets. That kind of singular devotion to human knowledge is a strong contender for the "greatest" title.
Evaluating Impact: The Numbers Game
If we want to be cold and analytical about it, we can look at "Quality-Adjusted Life Years" (QALYs) added to the world. This is a metric used in health economics.
- Edward Jenner: Smallpox used to kill millions. Jenner noticed milkmaids didn't get it because they were exposed to cowpox. He created the first vaccine. Smallpox is now eradicated. Millions of lives saved every single year.
- Ignaz Semmelweis: This guy is a tragic hero. He realized that if doctors just washed their hands before delivering babies, the mortality rate plummeted. His colleagues mocked him. He was eventually committed to a mental asylum and died after being beaten by guards. Today, his "greatness" is a fundamental pillar of modern medicine.
- Alan Turing: He broke the Enigma code. Historians estimate his work shortened WWII by at least two years, saving over 14 million lives. Then the government he helped save prosecuted him for being gay.
It’s often the people who suffered the most who contributed the most to the greatest person of all time conversation.
Is Greatness Subjective?
Sorta. It’s a mix of objective data—lives saved, laws changed, discoveries made—and subjective values.
If you value art, your "greatest" might be Shakespeare or Beethoven. If you value justice, it might be Nelson Mandela or Harriet Tubman.
Mandela is a fascinating case because his greatness wasn't just in his resistance to Apartheid, but in his refusal to seek revenge once he was in power. That level of moral fortitude is incredibly rare in history. Most people, when given the chance to crush their former oppressors, take it. Mandela didn't. He chose reconciliation. That’s a different kind of "great"—a moral greatness that doesn't show up in a physics equation.
The Misconception of "The One"
The biggest mistake we make when looking for the greatest person is assuming there can only be one.
The human story is a relay race.
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Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin by accident because he was kind of messy and left a petri dish out while he went on vacation. But he couldn't mass-produce it. It took Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to figure out how to turn that mold into a shelf-stable medicine. Who is the "greatest" there? The guy who saw the mold, or the guys who figured out how to get it into your bloodstream?
It’s the ecosystem of genius.
How to apply "Greatness" to your own life
We aren't all going to win Nobel Prizes or save a billion people from famine. But the lives of these "greatest" people actually give us a roadmap for how to live better right now.
First, stop trying to be the "best." Most of the people on these lists weren't trying to be famous. Borlaug just wanted to fix the wheat. Curie just wanted to understand the atom. Turing just wanted to solve the puzzle. Greatness is usually a byproduct of obsession, not ambition.
Second, look for the "unseen" impact. Arkhipov saved the world by saying "no." Sometimes the greatest thing you can do is refuse to participate in something harmful.
Third, acknowledge your sources. No one does it alone. Even Newton admitted he was "standing on the shoulders of giants."
Practical Steps for Legacy Building
If you want to leave a mark that actually lasts, forget the vanity metrics. Follow the "Borlaug Rule":
- Find a problem that actually matters. Not a "first-world problem," but something fundamental.
- Commit to the boring work. Innovation is 1% "Eureka!" and 99% standing in a field in Mexico cross-breeding wheat for twenty years.
- Value truth over consensus. Semmelweis was right about hand-washing even when every doctor in Europe called him crazy.
- Don't wait for permission. The most impactful people in history usually had to break a few rules (or laws) to get things done.
Ultimately, the greatest person of all time is probably someone we’ve never heard of—a mother who raised a child who changed the world, or a nameless hunter-gatherer who figured out how to control fire. But among those we do know, the title belongs to those who leveraged their limited time on Earth to give the rest of us more time. Whether it's through medicine, science, or the moral courage to stop a war, greatness is defined by what you give away, not what you take.
Keep exploring history through primary sources. Don't just read the "Top 10" lists on Wikipedia. Go read the diaries of the people who were actually there. Read Borlaug’s Nobel acceptance speech. Read Einstein’s letters to Freud. You’ll find that "greatness" is a lot more human—and a lot more attainable—than the statues lead you to believe.