Quotes About Excellence

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.

I saw the head chef at the Hotel Majestic fire a pastry cook because the poor devil could not get his brioches to rise straight. This ruthlessness made all the other chefs feel that they were working in the best kitchen in the world.

Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it… Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine.

In the best establishments, promises are always kept, whatever it may cost in agony and overtime.

Don't bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.

You get nothing for coming second, son. Because if you are second, you are nothing. You are nowhere – First is first. Second is nowhere.

intensity of competence that crowds the throat with joy.

Wherever you be, wherever you may, seek the truth, strive for the beautiful, achieve the good.

Gunpei Yokoi, asked his boss, 'What should I make?' Nintendo chief executive Hiroshi Yamauchi replied, 'Something great.' Game Over Nintendo's Battle to Dominate Videogames

There is no real excellence in all this world that can be separated from the right living.

In the race for quality, there is no finish line.

Si ganas es porque los otros son peores, no por un mérito. [...] Uno triunfa no por su genialidad, sino por su menosmalidad. Por ser menos malo que los otros.

Good work, done well for the right reasons...

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

Do your work not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishings sake--that little more which is worth all the rest.

Truth is too dazzling to those who are spellbound by the mediocre

People speak of finding balance. To me, that's a misplaced ambition. If you have balance, you do everything okay. But to excel at your craft, you need obsessive, unbridled fanaticism. Not only does excellence require such commitment, it demands it. A life worth living is frenetic, disjointed, breakneck, add quite fantastic. Balance doesn't lead to happiness - impassioned dedication to one's life purpose does.

If reading counted as a sport, I'd be a gold medalist.

Talent guided by genius can achieve anything

Be the best you.

Don't just hit a home run. Knock it out of the park.

Don't just raise the bar… Raise the roof.

Learn not from imitating but from emulating.

There's only one thing that will make them stop hating you. And that's being so good at what you do that they can't ignore you.