How do we rank artists or statesmen or athletes or philosophers or whatnot?

Luke Kuechly was a GREAT middle linebacker for the Carolina Panthers for a somewhat short career -- eight seasons; he was selected for the Pro Bowl seven times, and was All-Pro for five of those. I think that he will make the Hall of Fame soon after he is eligible. Meanwhile, a guy like Lee Roy Jordan was a VERY GOOD to sometimes great linebacker for the Cowboys over 14 seasons; he was selected for the Pro Bowl five times, and was All-Pro once. And Jordan started every game for the Cowboys from 1966 through 1976, during some of their glory years; that's 154 straight, in a punishing sport.

Kuechly is certainly going into the Hall, and Lee Roy Jordan has not been selected, though he's been eligible for almost 40 years....

I've read quite a few of the poems of Emily Dickinson recently, and her greatness is stunning; so also her narrow range in genres and in subject matter. She seems to me to be greater in her vein than Wordsworth ever was in any one particular vein you may choose; but Wordsworth wrote in many genres and did a wide variety of things that Dickinson never did. Mark Twain is unexcelled, I think, as an American satirist, and I guess I would grant that he was a greater writer of prose fiction than was James Fenimore Cooper; but Cooper also did things, in his novels and in his political prose, that Mark Twain did not do. Mark Twain's genius can be erratic; Cooper never rises to the level of genius. If you asked me which of the two was the wiser man, I would give the nod to Cooper, not to Twain.

I suppose there are analogous things that people can say about the greats or near-greats in other fields of endeavour; singing, playing the guitar, painting, invention ...