Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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

- Nietzsche, Friedrich

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

Powers, Melvin

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.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

O'Connor, Flannery

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

Roddick, Anita

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

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

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

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

Washington, Booker T.

10.

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

11.

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

Aristotle

12.

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

Young, Steve

13.

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

14.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

15.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

16.

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

17.

The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.

Gaberino, Geoffrey

18.

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

19.

There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.

Lucado, Max L.

20.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

21.

To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.

Goldsmith, Oliver

22.

All you owe the public is a good performance.

Bogart, Humphrey

23.

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

24.

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

Popplestone, Charles E.

25.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

26.

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

Keats, John

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Feinstein, Dianne

30.

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

31.

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

Berry, Wendell

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.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

34.

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

Gardner, John W.

35.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

Simmons, Charles

36.

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

37.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

38.

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

39.

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

40.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

41.

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

Sill, Edward Rowland

42.

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

43.

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

Sallust

44.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

45.

There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.

Darwin, Francis

46.

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

Mead, Shepherd

47.

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

48.

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

Riley, Pat

49.

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

50.

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

Wilde, Oscar