Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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.

Best Quotes about Excellence

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hall-mark of excellence.

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Waitley, Denis

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

Gracian, Baltasar

I start where the last man left off.

Edison, Thomas A.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Wilde, Oscar

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

Hill, Napoleon

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

Carnegie, Andrew

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

10.

The road to excellence is always under construction

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.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

13.

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

14.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

15.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

16.

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

17.

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

John F. Kennedy

18.

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

19.

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

20.

Today, and every day, 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. Exercise your privilege to go the extra mile, and enjoy all the rewards you receive. You deserve them!

Mandino, Og

21.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

Simmons, Charles

22.

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

Gardner, John W.

23.

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

24.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

25.

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

26.

Resolve to make each day the very best and don't let anyone get in your way. If they do, step on them.

Benson, Ivan

27.

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

28.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

29.

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

30.

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

Mandino, Og

31.

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Blanchard, Ken

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

35.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

36.

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

37.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

38.

Do a little bit more than average and from that point on our progress multiplies itself out of all proportion to the effort put in.

Meyer, Paul J.

39.

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

40.

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

Roddick, Anita

41.

I use nothing but the best ingredients. My cookies are always baked fresh. I price cookies so that you cannot make them at home for any less. And I still give cookies away.

Fields, Debbie

42.

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

43.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

44.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Pearl Buck

45.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman

46.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

47.

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

Thomas, Lowell

48.

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

49.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

50.

The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self improvement, about being better than you were the day before.

Young, Steve