Quotes About Mediocrity

#1. Mediocrity is Death.

Suleman Abdullah

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

Diana Waring

#3. Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.

Sydney J. Harris

#4. Don't be intimidated by other people's opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.

Paulo Coelho

#5. Music is a place to take refuge. It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom. It's innocent and it's a place you can lose yourself in thoughts, memories and intricacies.

Lisa Gerrard

#6. Mediocrity results first and foremost from management failure, not technological failure.

James C. Collins

#7. If you're not passionate, you achieve mediocrity

Jon Taffer

#8. Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

John Steinbeck

#9. It is the mistaken idea that if I reward mediocrity, I will curtail the person's aspirations to be better. That is a commonly held myth that keeps some parents from verbally affirming children. Of course, it's untrue.

Gary Chapman

#10. Had you been able to guess bits of my destiny,
Perhaps you would bear your mediocrity with more ease.

Czeslaw Milosz

#11. Mates are a waste of fucking time. They are always ready to drag you down tae their level of social, sexual and intellectual mediocrity.

Irvine Welsh

#12. The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets.

Anne Rice

#13. As good as' always spells mediocrity. But when a writer's work is in competition with all those thousands of other manuscripts that pour over an editor's desk, he cannot afford to be 'as good as'; he (or she) must be 'better than.

Phyllis A. Whitney

#14. Just as the ability to devise simple but evocative models is the signature of the great scientist so overelaboration and overparameterization is often the mark of mediocrity.

George E.P. Box

#15. Leaders set high standards. Refuse to tolerate mediocrity or poor performance.

Brian Tracy

#16. Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

Allan Sloan

#17. In any area of human endeavour, there is going to be mediocrity. You're going to find people who get money that they shouldn't get.

Bill Bryson

#18. We were meant to live courageous and bold lives and not lives of mediocrity. However, we have to live our lives actively and on purpose each day to be unstoppable.

Thomas Narofsky

#19. Golf asks something of a man. It makes one loathe mediocrity. It seems to say, If you are going to keep company with me, don't embarrass me.

Gary Player

#20. The virtues which keep this world sweet and the faithfulness which keeps it steadfast are chiefly those of the average man. The danger of the two-talent man is that he will be content with mediocrity.

Walter Russell Bowie

#21. Mediocrity is the elephant in the room.

Kevin Spacey

#22. The appearance of mediocrity is often useful in life because it weakens tautly strung strings and sobers up people's self-confident or self-forgetful feelings, reminding them how close they are to mediocrity as well.

Ivan Turgenev

#23. Creativity is fragile; if you don't nurture it, it can die, leaving you recycling old ideas and pretending they're fresh. It's a sure road to mediocrity.

Lee Silber

#24. The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but in walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.

Michel De Montaigne

#25. People rise and fall to meet your level of expectations for them. If you express skepticism and doubt in others, they will return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they will go the extra mile trying to do their best.

John C. Maxwell

#26. There's a perception that British pies suffer from mediocrity, and historically they have. We're trying to re-educate people about what pie is.

James Robertson

#27. In an age of militant mediocrity, an 'extremist' is anyone who takes a position.

John Loeffler

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

Brandon Webb

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

Eric Thomas

#30. I just wanted friends. I just wanted people to like me. I just wanted for things to be simple and good. So, for five years I actively sought out mediocrity.

Evangeline Lilly

#31. Ninety-nine percent of people believe they can't do great things, so they aim for mediocrity.

Tim Ferriss

#32. Life is too short to chase perfection, yet too long to be satisfied with mediocrity.

Russell Eric Dobda

#33. They filled us full of false illusions and promiscuity, and they led us down that class-less road of mediocrity.

Ray Davies

#34. The height of perfection is mediocrity.

Pitigrilli

#35. Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning.

Stephen Covey

#36. The hard truth is, bad meetings almost always lead to bad decisions, which is the best recipe for mediocrity.

Patrick Lencioni

#37. Mediocrity is a pit that swallows people who have rested on seats of complacency for long.

Israelmore Ayivor

#38. You see it in schools all over ... the concept that 'I'll be somewhat less than my best in order to make those around me feel more comfortable' is alive and well ... I'm very keen that they understand that if they make themselves a little less than they can be, it is a one-way street to mediocrity.

Fiona Wood

#39. But there's no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We're not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it's hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.

Banksy

#40. The signature of mediocrity is chronic inconstancy. The signature of greatness is a disciplined and consistent focus on the right things.

James C. Collins

#41. I try to keep an open mind but I'm so tired of the mediocrity.

Clea Duvall

#42. Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.

Ilana Mercer

#43. Idleness and complacency lead to mediocrity.

Kim Holden

#44. It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

Isaac D'Israeli

#45. We are a strange people, Howden thought: an unpredictable admixture of mediocrity and genius, with now and then a flash of greatness.

Arthur Hailey

#46. Never surrender to the momentum of mediocrity.

Marlon Brando

#47. You don't want to just get by, you want to get ahead. You don't want to settle for mediocrity, you want to strive for greatness. You don't want to get lost in the crowd, you want to stand out and lead the charge. Pushing the limits of your potential isn't easy, but it will be worth it.

Michael J. Schiemer

#48. Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity.

James C. Collins

#49. The greatest killer of purpose and a purposeful life is compromising on mediocrity

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

#50. Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet ...

Winifred Holtby

#51. If you don't have the ambition to be the very best at what you do, then what's the point? If you aim for greatness but keep missing -- fine. At least you had the guts to aim. There's honour in failing that way. But there's nothing honourable about settling for mediocrity.

Benjamin Wood

#52. If you have to fear something, fear mediocrity.

Alex Bogusky

#53. There are teachers and students with square minds who are by nature meant to undergo the fascination of catagories. For them, 'schools' and 'movements' are everything; by painting a group symbol on the brow of mediocrity, they condone their own incomprehension of true genius.

Vladimir Nabokov

#54. Mediocrity is underrated.

Mary-Louise Parker

#55. Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

#56. Homo sapiens Yuck You contemporary fools laugh at religious and political lies spewed by sociopaths, lies that tether you forever to poverty and mediocrity. Yet, when your ears come upon the truth, the facts of life, you hide your faces and cry, not able

Bobby Miller

#57. I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity.

Robert Baldwin

#58. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest impulses.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#59. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul; and it is well known, that while reason embraces a cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over the space which lies between the most opposite extremes.

Edward Gibbon

#60. People of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon and seldom drive business home to it's conclusion, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Francis Bacon

#61. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Joseph Heller

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

Rory Vaden

#63. To become a better you, admit that you were not born for the floor. Refuse to embrace mediocrity anytime anywhere.

Israelmore Ayivor

#64. To love what is below the human is degradation; to love what is human for the sake of the human is mediocrity; to love the human for the sake of the Divine is enriching; to love the Divine for its own sake is sanctity.

Fulton J. Sheen

#65. That in all times, mediocrity has dominated, that is indubitable; but that it reigns more than ever, that it is becoming absolutely triumphant and inhibiting, this is what is as true as it is distressing.

Charles Baudelaire

#66. You will not experience all life has to offer you or begin to experience life at its fullest as long as you are satisfied with mediocrity. You have to be disgusted with your current circumstances before your circumstances can change.

Eric Thomas

#67. The history of an art is the history of masterwork, not of failures, or mediocrity.

Ezra Pound

#68. If you've never been rocked back by the presence of purpose this poem is too soon for you. Return to your mediocrity, plug it into an amplifier and rethink yourself.

Buddy Wakefield

#69. Intolerance of mediocrity has been the main prop of my independence.

Elsa Maxwell

#70. Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.

Don Meyer

#71. Some of you may be perfectly happy with mediocrity. Some of you will get nothing but heartbreak. Some of you will be heralded as geniuses and become huge. Of course, all of you think that one describes you ... hence the delusion necessary to push on.

Marc Maron

#72. The greatest secret in the world is that you only have to be a small measurable amount better than mediocrity ... and you've got it made.

Og Mandino

#73. There is no greatness apart from self control. Development that does not include self government will only guarantee our mediocrity.

Graham Cooke

#74. A life of mediocrity is a waste of life.

Colleen Hoover

#75. If you learned to live in mediocrity, you have never learned to live.

if you still need introduction, you still need to work hard.

If you want a short cut to success, try your WILL POWER.

If you want a successful life, then take chances and make changes

Harsh Malik

#76. In the absence of discipline, man must content himself with superficialities and mediocrity.

Matthew Kelly

#77. Being realistic is the quickest path to mediocrity.

Will Smith

#78. The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive - and autonomy can be the antidote. TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEO

Daniel H. Pink

#79. Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.

Max Beerbohm

#80. Watch, listen, and learn. You can't know it all yourself. Anyone who thinks they do is destined for mediocrity.

Donald J. Trump

#81. The goal is to avoid mediocrity by being prepared to try something and either failing miserably or triumphing grandly.

Georges St-Pierre

#82. Greatness is always envied - it is only mediocrity that can boast of a host of friends.

Marie Corelli

#83. You are born into genius but have you resigned yourself to mediocrity ?

Robin S. Sharma

#84. Great writing requires great doubt and great self-confidence. One without the other inspires mediocrity.

Chloe Thurlow

#85. An artist would not rise above the mediocrity if he condemns it.

Irving Stone

#86. Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people. Otherwise, you settle for mediocrity - or you burn yourself out.

Hank Ketcham

#87. Mediocrity is the companion of passivity and will not heed the call of great things. Courage is the companion of sacrifice and cannot help but heed the call of great things. And we are left of our own accord to choose one or the other.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#88. The #2 cause of mediocrity and unfulfilled potential is that 'most people' never dedicate time each day to learning, growing, and developing themselves into who they need to create the life they want. DON'T BE LIKE 'MOST PEOPLE.'

Hal Elrod

#89. It is not the mediocrity of women's education which makes their weakness; it is their weakness which necessarily causes their mediocrity.

Joseph De Maistre

#90. We only rise above mediocrity when there's something at stake. p. 174

Tom Robbins

#91. The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.

Rene Magritte

#92. There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.

Jean De La Bruyere

#93. Enthusiasm spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.

Norman Vincent Peale

#94. I wake up every morning thinking ... this is my last day. And I jam everything into it. There's no time for mediocrity. This is no damned dress rehearsal.

Anita Roddick

#95. We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom.

Tahar Ben Jelloun

#96. Always aspire to mediocrity first. If you can do that, you'll find you're always moving up in life.

Magen Cubed

#97. No one seems to have thought of the fact that life is absurd, being a brilliant success has no greater value than being a failure. It's just more comfortable. And even then: I think lucidity gives your success a bitter taste, whereas mediocrity still leaves hope for something.

Muriel Barbery

#98. I could've just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn't be a bystander.

Howard Schultz

#99. After all, people with a herd instinct hold mediocrity in high esteem. They praise it as having great value. They believe they are strong because they are the majority.

Elfriede Jelinek

#100. They programmed you with the best of intentions but unfortunately their best was mediocrity.

Maddy Malhotra