Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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.

Best Quotes about Excellence

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Carnegie, Andrew

No matter how small and unimportant what we are doing may seem, if we do it well, it may soon become the step that will lead us to better things.

Pollock, Channing

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

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

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

Sands, Bill

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

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

One of the most essential things you need to do for yourself is to choose a goal that is important to you. Perfection does not exist -- you can always do better and you can always grow.

Brown, Les

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

Floyd, Ray

10.

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

Keats, John

11.

When you say you'll meet someone at 11:00 AM, be there at 10:45. When you promise a check on the 30th, send it on the 28th. Whatever you agree to do, do it a bit more. Start with your employees, then extend it to everyone you deal with. News will soon get around that you are a person of your word.

Scott, Charles Prestwich

12.

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

13.

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

Wooden, John

14.

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

Wilde, Oscar

15.

It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.

Aristotle

16.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

17.

Superiority -- doing things a little better than anybody else can do them.

Marden, Orison Swett

18.

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

19.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

20.

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Riley, Pat

21.

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

22.

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Woolf, Virginia

23.

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

24.

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.

25.

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

26.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

27.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

28.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

29.

To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.

Aristotle

30.

Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling.

Shakespeare, William

31.

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark...

Marden, Orison Swett

32.

There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands.

Marden, Orison Swett

33.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

34.

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

Malloch, Douglas

35.

The success combination in business is: Do what you do better... and: Do more of what you do...

Schwartz, David J.

36.

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

37.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

38.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

39.

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.

40.

The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.

Gaberino, Geoffrey

41.

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

Powers, Melvin

42.

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.

Getty, J. Paul

43.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

Washington, Booker T.

44.

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

Mandino, Og

45.

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

Newton, Howard W.

46.

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

John F. Kennedy

47.

You always have to give 100 percent, because if you don't, someone, someplace, will give 100 percent and will beat you when you meet.

Macauley, Ed

48.

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

Sir Winston Churchill

49.

Become all that you are capable of becoming!

Mckain, Robert J.

50.

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