Motivational Quotes

Excellence

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

- Simmons, Charles

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

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

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

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

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.

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

John F. Kennedy

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

Carlyle, Thomas

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

10.

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

11.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

12.

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

Waitley, Denis

13.

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

Scott, Sir Walter

14.

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

Hurt, William

15.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

16.

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

17.

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

18.

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.

Aristotle

19.

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

20.

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

21.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

22.

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

23.

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.

24.

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

Hazlitt, William

25.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

Publilius Syrus

26.

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

Young, Steve

27.

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

Malloch, Douglas

28.

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.

29.

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

Schwartz, David J.

30.

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.

31.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

32.

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

Shakespeare, William

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

36.

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

Edison, Thomas A.

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Roddick, Anita

40.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

41.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

42.

Become all that you are capable of becoming!

Mckain, Robert J.

43.

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

Wilde, Oscar

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.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

46.

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

Olivier, Sir Lawrence

47.

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

48.

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

49.

I use nothing but the best ingredients. My cookies are always baked fresh. I price cookies so that you cannot make them at home for any less. And I still give cookies away.

Fields, Debbie

50.

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