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

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

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

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

Popplestone, Charles E.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

Excellence is best described as doing the right things right -- selecting the most important things to be done and then accomplishing them 100% correctly.

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

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

Marden, Orison Swett

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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

Carnegie, Andrew

10.

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.

11.

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

12.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

13.

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

14.

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

Wooden, John

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

John F. Kennedy

18.

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

19.

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.

20.

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

Sir Winston Churchill

21.

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

22.

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

Mcdonald, John

23.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

24.

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

Sallust

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.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Thomas, Lowell

29.

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

Gracian, Baltasar

30.

If something is exceptionally well done it has embedded in it's very existence the aim of lifting the common denominator rather than catering to it.

Fischer, Edward

31.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

32.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

33.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

34.

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

35.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

36.

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

Keats, John

37.

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

Aristotle

38.

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

Aristotle

39.

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

40.

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

Newton, Howard W.

41.

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.

42.

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

43.

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

Garfield, Charles A.

44.

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

45.

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.

46.

There is no finish line.

Nike Corporation

47.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman

48.

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

Sill, Edward Rowland

49.

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