Quotations: Excellence

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
Shana Alexander

Excellence can be attained if you care more than others think is wise, Risk more than others think is safe, Dream more than others think is practical, and Expect more than others think is possible.
Anon

Excellence is not a singular act, but a habit. You are what you repeatedly do.
Aristotle

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.
Aristotle

Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
Aristotle

In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.
Jane Austen

Most certification today is pure credentialism. [It] must begin to reflect our demand for excellence, not our appreciation of parchment.
William J Bennett

Perfection, fortunately, is not the only alternative to mediocrity. A more sensible alternative is excellence. Striving for excellence is stimulating and rewarding; striving for perfection -- in practically anything -- is both neurotic and futile.
Edwin Bliss

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Strive for excellence, not perfection.
H Jackson Brown Jr.

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

No good book or good thing of any kind shows it best face at first. No the most common quality of in a true work of art that has excellence and depth, is that at first sight it produces a certain disappointment.
Thomas Carlyle

Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.
George Eliot

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.
John W Gardner

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name.
Benjamin Haydon

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.
William Hazlitt

Before the gates of excellence the high gods have placed sweat; long is the road thereto and rough and steep at first; but when the heights are reached, then there is ease, though grievously hard in the winning.
Hesiod

There are no speed limits on the road to excellence.
David W Johnson

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
Samuel Johnson

Real excellence and humility are not incompatible one with the other, on the contrary they are twin sisters.
Jean Baptiste Lacordaire

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.
Titus Livy

In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Mistakes are a natural part of growing up. They're to be expected and made light of. But children bloom like spring flowers under praise. They want so much to be noticed and appreciated, to excel and have that excellence noticed.
Earl Nightingale

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

I no more thought of style or literary excellence than the mother who rushes into the street and cries for help to save her children from a burning house, thinks of the teachings of the rhetorician or the elocutionist.
Harriet Beecher Stowe

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.
Publilius Syrus

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than its value.
Charles Dudley Warner

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

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

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu Wu

Supreme excellence consists in breaking an enemy's resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu Wu

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