Motivational Quotes

Excellence

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

Best Quotes about Excellence

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

It isn't what you do, but how you do it.

Wooden, John

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

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

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

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

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

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

10.

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

Hill, Napoleon

11.

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

Roddick, Anita

12.

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

Young, Steve

13.

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.

Blanchard, Ken

14.

Let each day be your masterpiece.

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

O'Connor, Flannery

18.

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

19.

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

20.

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

Marden, Orison Swett

21.

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

Peters, Thomas J.

22.

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

Sill, Edward Rowland

23.

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

Mansfield, Katherine

24.

Become all that you are capable of becoming!

Mckain, Robert J.

25.

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

Scott, Sir Walter

26.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Berry, Wendell

30.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

31.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Gardner, John W.

32.

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

Mead, Shepherd

33.

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steer is the way to it.

Hesiod

34.

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

Shakespeare, William

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

38.

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.

39.

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

Heifetz, Jascha

40.

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

41.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

42.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

43.

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

Wilde, Oscar

44.

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

Hurt, William

45.

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

46.

True greatness consists in being great in little things.

Simmons, Charles

47.

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

48.

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

49.

Today, and every day, deliver more than you are getting paid to do. The victory of success will be half won when you learn the secret of putting out more than is expected in all that you do. Make yourself so valuable in your work that eventually you will become indispensable. Exercise your privilege to go the extra mile, and enjoy all the rewards you receive. You deserve them!

Mandino, Og

50.

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

Keats, John