Motivational Quotes

Excellence

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

- Maugham, W. Somerset

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

Mansfield, Katherine

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

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

Mandino, Og

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

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

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

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

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

10.

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

11.

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

12.

Don't waste your time striving for perfection, instead, strive for excellence -- doing your best.

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

13.

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

Garfield, Charles A.

14.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

15.

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

Shakespeare, William

16.

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

Gracian, Baltasar

17.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

18.

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

Gardner, John W.

19.

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

20.

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.

21.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

22.

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

23.

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.

24.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

28.

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

Newton, Howard W.

29.

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

30.

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

Young, Steve

31.

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

Wilde, Oscar

32.

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

Malloch, Douglas

33.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

34.

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

Keats, John

35.

All you owe the public is a good performance.

Bogart, Humphrey

36.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

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

Scott, Sir Walter

38.

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

Aristotle

39.

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Blanchard, Ken

40.

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

41.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

42.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

43.

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

Trevino, Lee

44.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

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