Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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

- Sallust

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

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

Heifetz, Jascha

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

Newton, Howard W.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

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

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can reach. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries and predecessors; try to be better than yourself.

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

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

Scott, Sir Walter

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

Mead, Shepherd

10.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

Publilius Syrus

11.

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.

12.

Doing common things uncommonly well.

Marden, Orison Swett

13.

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

14.

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

Sallust

15.

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

Gracian, Baltasar

16.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

17.

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

Floyd, Ray

18.

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

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.

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

21.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

22.

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

Sill, Edward Rowland

23.

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

Keats, John

24.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

25.

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

Waitley, Denis

26.

Excellence is best described as doing the right things right -- selecting the most important things to be done and then accomplishing them 100% correctly.

27.

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

28.

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

Powers, Melvin

29.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

30.

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

31.

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

32.

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

Carnegie, Andrew

33.

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

Berry, Wendell

34.

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do -- they always reach.

Iacocca, Lee

35.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

36.

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

Washington, Booker T.

37.

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

38.

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.

39.

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

40.

Anybody who accepts mediocrity -- in school, on the job, in life -- is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.

Knight, Charles

41.

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.

Robinson, James H.

42.

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

43.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

44.

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

45.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Shana Alexander

46.

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

47.

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

Young, Steve

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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