Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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.

Best Quotes about 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

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

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

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

Newton, Howard W.

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

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

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

Schwartz, David J.

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

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

Marden, Orison Swett

10.

All you owe the public is a good performance.

Bogart, Humphrey

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

14.

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

Keats, John

15.

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

Feinstein, Dianne

16.

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

17.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

18.

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

19.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

20.

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

Mandino, Og

21.

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

Sallust

22.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

23.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

Publilius Syrus

24.

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

25.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

26.

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Woolf, Virginia

27.

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

Powers, Melvin

28.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Scott, Sir Walter

32.

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.

33.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

34.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

35.

Let each day be your masterpiece.

36.

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.

Berry, Wendell

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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.

40.

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Riley, Pat

41.

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

Aristotle

42.

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

43.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

44.

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

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.

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

47.

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

Floyd, Ray

48.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

49.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

50.

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.