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

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

It is only in your mind that you have to excel, at anything or everything. Of course, it would be very nice to excel at most things. Indeed, we recommend that you try and do your best. But realistically, you are entitled to do the bare minimum to get by. All your accomplishments are just a bonus, something to enjoy, not requirements. You don't have to do anything to prove that you are worthy of existing.

Albert Ellis, Michael Abrams, Lidia Dengelegi

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

Hill, Napoleon

One of the great undiscovered joys of life comes from doing everything one attempts to the best of one's ability. There is a special sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in its parts, which the superficial person who leaves his or her work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition, can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns any work into art. The smallest task, well done, becomes a miracle of achievement.

Mandino, Og

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.

Gardner, John W.

You must be resolutely determined that whatever you do shall always be the best of which you are capable.

Popplestone, Charles E.

The road to excellence is always under construction

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority...

Marden, Orison Swett

10.

There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.

Darwin, Francis

11.

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.

Keats, John

12.

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.

Gardner, John W.

13.

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

14.

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

Sir Winston Churchill

15.

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

16.

There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.

Mill, John Stuart

17.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

18.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

19.

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

Berry, Wendell

20.

Let each day be your masterpiece.

21.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Carlyle, Thomas

22.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

23.

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.

Wilde, Oscar

24.

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

Mansfield, Katherine

25.

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

Aristotle

26.

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

27.

The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.

Ford, Henry

28.

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

Wooden, John

29.

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

30.

You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.

Garcia, Jerry

31.

There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.

Lucado, Max L.

32.

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.

Mandino, Og

33.

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.

Watson, Thomas J.

34.

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

35.

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

Roddick, Anita

36.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

37.

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

Sill, Edward Rowland

38.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

39.

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

Newton, Howard W.

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.

It isn't by size that you win or fail -- be the best of whatever you are.

Malloch, Douglas

42.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

43.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

44.

If you aren't playing well, the game isn't as much fun. When that happens I tell myself just to go out and play as I did when I was a kid.

Watson, Thomas J.

45.

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

John F. Kennedy

46.

Winners have the ability to step back from the canvas of their lives like an artist gaining perspective. They make their lives a work of art -- an individual masterpiece.

Waitley, Denis

47.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

Hurt, William

48.

If I play my best, I can win anywhere in the world against anybody.

Floyd, Ray

49.

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

Hill, Napoleon

50.

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.

Robinson, James H.