Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.

Gracian, Baltasar

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

Aristotle

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

Schwartz, David J.

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

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

Gardner, John W.

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

Sallust

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

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do -- they always reach.

Iacocca, Lee

10.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

11.

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

12.

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.

Marden, Orison Swett

13.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

14.

There is no finish line.

Nike Corporation

15.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

16.

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

17.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

18.

There never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to resolute self-denial.

Scott, Sir Walter

19.

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.

20.

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Blanchard, Ken

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.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

23.

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

Malloch, Douglas

24.

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

25.

The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.

Waitley, Denis

26.

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

27.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

28.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

29.

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

30.

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

31.

There is no such thing as natural touch. Touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.

Trevino, Lee

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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.

35.

Do a little more each day than you think you possibly can.

Thomas, Lowell

36.

There's a way to do better... find it.

Edison, Thomas A.

37.

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

38.

Do your work; not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing's sake -- that little more which is worth all the rest.

Briggs, Dean

39.

Let each day be your masterpiece.

40.

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

Berry, Wendell

41.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

Publilius Syrus

42.

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

Hurt, William

43.

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

Wooden, John

44.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

45.

I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest. I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have.

Truman, Harry S

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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

Washington, Booker T.

49.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

50.

Great men are little men expanded; great lives are ordinary lives intensified.