Motivational Quotes

Excellence

Anybody who accepts mediocrity -- in school, on the job, in life -- is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.

- Knight, Charles

Best Quotes about Excellence

People come out to see you perform and you've got to give them the best you have within you. The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

Owens, Jesse

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.

Roddick, Anita

Four short words sum up what has lifted most successful individuals above the crowd: a little bit more. They did all that was expected of them and a little bit more.

Vickery, A. Lou

Determine to become one of the best. Sufficient money will almost automatically follow if you get to be one of the best in your chosen field, whatever it is.

Mitchell, Don G.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

Publilius Syrus

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can reach. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries and predecessors; try to be better than yourself.

The fact is, the difference between peak performers and everybody else are much smaller than everybody else thinks.

Garfield, Charles A.

Don't waste your time striving for perfection, instead, strive for excellence -- doing your best.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.

Aristotle

10.

People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it.

Newton, Howard W.

11.

It is just the little difference between the good and the best that makes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that makes the master's fame.

Marden, Orison Swett

12.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

Ogilvy, David

13.

One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.

Hazlitt, William

14.

I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know.

Sanders, Col. Harland

15.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

16.

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

Sallust

17.

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.

Heifetz, Jascha

18.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

19.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

20.

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

O'Connor, Flannery

21.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

22.

To do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way; to do some things better than they were ever done before; to eliminate errors; to know both sides of the question; to be courteous; to be an example; to work for the love of work; to anticipate requirements; to develop resources; to recognize no impediments; to master circumstances; to act from reason rather than rule; to be satisfied with nothing short of perfection.

Marshall Field & Company

23.

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steer is the way to it.

Hesiod

24.

We must do the best we can with what we have.

Sill, Edward Rowland

25.

We do not do well except when we know where the best is and when we are assured that we have touched it and hold its power within us.

Joubert, Joseph

26.

Do more than you're supposed to do and you can have or be or do anything you want.

Sands, Bill

27.

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.

Lincoln, Abraham

28.

Anybody who accepts mediocrity -- in school, on the job, in life -- is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.

Knight, Charles

29.

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence -- only in constant improvement and constant change.

Peters, Thomas J.

30.

You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards.

Tracy, Brian

31.

You're probably not a member of a major league baseball team, your errors, unless they are truly spectacular, don't show up in the morning paper.

Goodsell, Jane

32.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

33.

There is no finish line.

Nike Corporation

34.

The uncommon man is merely the common man thinking and dreaming of success in larger terms and in more fruitful areas.

Powers, Melvin

35.

A racehorse that consistently runs just a second faster than another horse is worth millions of dollars more. Be willing to give that extra effort that separates the winner from the one in second place.

Brown Jr., H. Jackson

36.

It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.

Marden, Orison Swett

37.

It isn't what you do, but how you do it.

Wooden, John

38.

To enjoy enduring success we should travel a little in advance of the world.

Mcdonald, John

39.

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

Kingsley, Charles

40.

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

Michener, James A.

41.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

42.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

Bruyere, Jean De La

43.

Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more than others do.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

44.

Deliver more than you are getting paid to do. The victory of success will be half won when you learn the secret of putting out more than is expected in all that you do. Make yourself so valuable in your work that eventually you will become indispensable.

Mandino, Og

45.

Put the uncommon effort into the common task... make it large by doing it in a great way.

Marden, Orison Swett

46.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Feinstein, Dianne

47.

If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.

Lombardi, Vince

48.

To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

49.

It's enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you. But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them. And if it's good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.

Hemingway, Ernest

50.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman