Quotes About Mediocrity And Excellence

#1. The difference between mediocrity and excellence is often a matter of effort.

Diana Waring

#2. The only way to get out of mediocrity is to keep shooting for excellence.

Eric Thomas

#3. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.

James Baldwin

#4. There's never been a better time to let the leaves of mediocrity fall from your tree of life.

David Ault

#5. Possibly the only dismaying aspect of excellence is that it makes living in a world of mediocrity an ongoing prospect of living hell.

Harlan Ellison

#6. A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

#7. Mediocrity takes many forms...excellence only one!

Darlene Shortridge

#8. Don't Settle for Mediocrity. Strive for Excellence

Mac James

#9. Only the mediocre artist is always at his best.

Victor J. Banis

#10. It takes more energy to maintain mediocrity than it takes to pursue excellence.

Matthew Kelly

#11. Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises ... the best excellence in the children of any other land.

Herman Melville

#12. All people are standing; you got to standout! All people are breaking grounds; you got to breakthrough grounds! Don't settle for less; rise up and stand tall in what you do!

Israelmore Ayivor

#13. How sad that we often diminish our best gifts by struggling valiantly to develop in someone else's area of ability. It is better to focus on your uniqueness and do that with excellence than to end up with mediocrity in several areas.

Dan Miller

#14. Channel your emotion into the excellence of doing something rather than the mediocrity of deciding whether or not to do it.

Rory Vaden

#15. Comfort is a stance of avoidance rather than the pursuit of excellence.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#16. Aspire greatly; anything less than a commitment to excellence becomes an acceptance of mediocrity.

Brian Tracy

#17. Whatever it is that you do, you are making a stand, either for excellence or for mediocrity.

Brandon Webb

#18. Consistency and acceleration are both key to sustaining success. One-day-wonder persons who slouch back to mediocrity will soon be forgotten.

Archibald Marwizi

#19. Step out of the crowd of average people. Enter that game and change the values on the scoreboard.

Israelmore Ayivor

#20. Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity.

Shashi Tharoor

#21. In order to pursue excellence one must recognize mediocrity.

Geoffroy Birtz

#22. But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.

Price Pritchett

#23. Mediocrity is your enemy,
satisfactory is your acquaintance,
excellence is your friend,
and genius is your soul mate.

Matshona Dhliwayo

#24. By a peculiar thermometric adjustment, when a woman's talent is at zero, journalistic approbation is at the boiling pitch; when she attains mediocrity, it is already at no more than summer heat; and if ever she reaches excellence, critical enthusiasm drops to the freezing point.

George Eliot

#25. Change makers take risks and are ready to die for excellence than to give excuses and live for mediocrity.

Israelmore Ayivor

#26. The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

Josh Waitzkin

#27. Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity.

Thomas Sowell

#28. Pride is a personal commitment. It is an attitude which separates excellence from mediocrity.

William Blake

#29. They did not ask my permission for their mediocrity, why should I ask theirs for excellence?

Murad S. Shah

#30. Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence.

Anthony Hecht

#31. The major rule in the American belief system - that anyone can do anything ... is a lie that we have perpetuated, and it fosters mediocrity. Knowing what you're good at and doing even more of it creates excellence.

M.J. Ryan

#32. The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.

Price Pritchett

#33. Commitment to excellence is a great habit; unfortunately commitment to mediocrity is also a habit.

Debasish Mridha

#34. There are no intermediaries when it comes to matters of change. Anyone who is not for change is against it. Anyone who is against change is an enemy of nature!

Israelmore Ayivor

#35. It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity.

Peter Drucker

#36. The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.

William Arthur Ward

#37. There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.

Buck Rodgers

#38. Perfection, fortunately, is not the only alternative to mediocrity. A more sensible alternative is excellence. Striving for excellence is stimulating and rewarding; striving for perfection
in practically anything
is both neurotic and futile.

Ed Bliss

#39. A step towards complacency is a step towards mediocrity;
a step towards diligence is a step towards brilliance.

Matshona Dhliwayo

#40. In every kind of endeavor, there are ample opportunities for extra effort. Grab those opportunities, embrace that extra effort and transform ordinary mediocrity into bright and shining excellence.

Ralph Marston

#41. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society

Audre Lorde

#42. Mediocrity always attacks excellence

Michael Beckwith

#43. Plan for the sustainability of your success so that you do not drift back to failure and mediocrity.

Archibald Marwizi

#44. An achievement-oriented culture is very pro-employee - it's so much more fun than one that isn't. Excellence is a tremendous amount of fun; mediocrity is not.

Kip Tindell

#45. Moderation leads to Mediocrity, Intensity leads to Excellence.

Suleman Abdullah

#46. Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

Warren Bennis

#47. Once you decide that mediocrity is unthinkable, your only choices are excellence and quitting.

Nick Murray

#48. Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.

Joseph Joubert

#49. When you have had a taste of excellence, you cannot go back to mediocrity.

Maximillian Degenerez

#50. We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled with creative, imaginative people. You must strive to set them free.

Newton N. Minow

#51. Excellence reveals Integrity...
Mediocrity reveals the lack of it...
Dishonesty reveals the absence of it...

Abha Maryada Banerjee

#52. Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.

Gordon B. Hinckley

#53. Don't embrace mediocrity; its main charm is to make you fall in love with failure. Speed off ... Excellence awaits you at the end of your journey!

Israelmore Ayivor

#54. Attain and maintain a reputation, for it is the usufruct of fame. A stiff climb, for it is the issue of excellence, as rare as mediocrity is common.

Baltasar Gracian

#55. Generally places that are comfortable with excellence don't call themselves centers of excellence. Has anyone heard of a Princeton University Center of Excellence? Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of Excellence?

Otis Webb Brawley

#56. Wherever you find excellence, you find continuous learning. They go hand in hand. Wherever you find that continuous learning is missing, you find mediocrity.

Matthew Kelly

#57. The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

John W. Gardner