Quotes About Standards

So we take the deal. We agree to do a job in exchange for a set of instructions. And for the hundred years that it led to increasing standards of living, it seemed like a very good deal.

Excessively criticize the work of your peers, thus unrealistically raising the bar for your work.

As a general rule, managers don't like deviants. By definition, deviance from established standards is a failure for a manager working to deliver on spec. So, most of the time, most managers work hard to stamp out deviance (and the deviants who create it).

Hugh MacLeod: "The web has made kicking ass easier to achieve, and mediocrity harder to sustain. Mediocrity now howls in protest.

The problem with meeting expectations is that it's not remarkable.

Historian John Keay put it best: 'The conduct of states, as of individuals, can only be assessed by the standards of their age, not by today's litigious criteria. Otherwise, we'd all be down on the government of Italy for feeding Christians to the lions.

You are holding women to a higher standard than men, he said. Madame used to tell us that this is traditional, for men have usually been the judges, and they put women either in the gutter or on a pedestal. Men have traditionally forgiven one another, for they know and excuse their own failings, but they do not forgive women for falling off the pedestal. (p. 516)

I wanted to live up to expectations. I guess that's what it comes down to. The power of expectations. And

When Indian women begin the search for an Indian man, they carry a huge list of qualifications. He has to have a job. He has to be kind, intelligent, and funny. He has to dance and sing. He should know how to iron his own clothes. Braids would be nice. But as the screwed-up Indian men stagger through their lives, Indian women are forced to amend their list of qualifications. Eventually, Indian men need only to have their own teeth to get snagged.

My God. Is there some unwritten law that you guys have to be giants? (Amanda) What can I say? Artemis likes her Dark-Hunters tall. Short men need not apply. (Acheron)

Of all the judgments we make through life, none are more important than the estimate we place on ourselves according to our own internal standards.

We must eat three meals a day, even if we're not hungry, and when we fail to fit the current ideal of beauty we must fast, even if we're starving.

Life is graded on the curve. It's not how big you are, how strong you are, how smart you are. It's how good you are at the things that count relative to the people around you.

There is a set of rules and a code of conduct that I believe that you should adhere to in life.

If principles can become dated, they're not principles.

We tend to get in life what we are willing to tolerate.

People see you sing in a certain way, in a long dress, and you are put on a pedestal like you have never made a mistake in your life.

Hij wist dat Halt op het punt stonden om te beginnen met wat hij 'creatieve administratie' noemde. Voor Arnaut was het gewoon vervalsing... En niet voor het eerst besloot hij dat naarmate hij langer optrok met twee Grijze Jagers, zijn morele standaard alleen maar verder naar beneden ging.

not bad isn't good enough, not bad can get you killed.

He was afflicted by the thought that where Beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt, was why so many people looked on it as immoral.

We must seek to persuade member states and institutions that better regulation in Europe does not mean cutting health and safety in the workplace, nor does it mean dismantling social standards.

Soldiers, when committed to a task, can't compromise. It's unrelenting devotion to the standards of duty and courage, absolute loyalty to others, not letting the task go until it's been done.

Apparently I lack some particular perversion which today's employer is seeking.

There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.