Motivational Quotes

Excellence

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

- Maugham, W. Somerset

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

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

John F. Kennedy

If I play my best, I can win anywhere in the world against anybody.

Floyd, Ray

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

If we want to make something really superb on this planet, there is nothing whatever that can stop us.

Mead, Shepherd

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

Hurt, William

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

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

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

Scott, Sir Walter

10.

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.

11.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Feinstein, Dianne

12.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

13.

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

14.

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

15.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

Hill, Napoleon

16.

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

Carnegie, Andrew

17.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

18.

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

Shakespeare, William

19.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

20.

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

Aristotle

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Hazlitt, William

27.

All you owe the public is a good performance.

Bogart, Humphrey

28.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

29.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman

30.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

31.

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

32.

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.

33.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

34.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

35.

The road to excellence is always under construction

36.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

37.

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

Gracian, Baltasar

38.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

39.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

40.

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

Young, Steve

41.

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

42.

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

43.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

44.

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

Newton, Howard W.

45.

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

Waitley, Denis

46.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.