The Gemara (Bava Metzia 85b) tells us the story of the holy Amora Reish Lakish who was marking the gravesites of holy rabbis who had passed from this world. As he was doing this, there was one gravesite that he could not find: that of the holy Tanna Rebbi Chiya. (See Yerushalmi Kelaim 9:5 for more details on the story, like the fact that Reish Lakish even fasted three hundred fasts to merit to find the place of Rebbi Chiya, but to no avail).
"Did I not learn Torah as good as Rebbi Chiya?" asked Reish Lakish. He was answered: "Actually you did (even though Reish Lakish was of a later generation, perhaps we mean to say that he did according to his abilities). But you did not spread Torah like Rebbi Chiya did!"
