Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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

Best Quotes about Excellence

All you owe the public is a good performance.

Bogart, Humphrey

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

Shakespeare, William

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

Sallust

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

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

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.

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

Popplestone, Charles E.

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

Waitley, Denis

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

Scott, Sir Walter

10.

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

Hurt, William

11.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

12.

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

Roddick, Anita

13.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

14.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

15.

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

16.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

17.

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

18.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

19.

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

20.

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

Washington, Booker T.

21.

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

Young, Steve

22.

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

Powers, Melvin

23.

It's enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you. But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them. And if it's good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.

Hemingway, Ernest

24.

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.

25.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

26.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

Simmons, Charles

27.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman

28.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

29.

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

Malloch, Douglas

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

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.

Mandino, Og

36.

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

37.

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

Schwartz, David J.

38.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

39.

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.

40.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

41.

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

42.

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

43.

I start where the last man left off.

Edison, Thomas A.

44.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

45.

One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.

Hazlitt, William

46.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

47.

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

Wilde, Oscar

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.

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

50.

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