Quotes About Excellence

By education I mean that training in excellence from youth upward which makes a man passionately desire to be a perfect citizen, and teaches him to rule, and to obey, with justice. This is the only education which deserves the name.

The good is the beautiful.

His only fault is that he has no fault.

True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, and writing what deserves to be read.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and possessions.

Let us carefully observe those good qualities wherein our enemies excel us and endeavor to excel them, by avoiding what is faulty, and imitating what is excellent in them.

I would rather excel in the knowledge of what is excellent than the extent of my power or possessions.

They died,but not as lavish as their blood, Or thinking death itself was simply good; Their wishes neither were to live nor die, But to do both alike commendably.

They should live all together on an equal footing; merit to be their only road to eminence, and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure of difference between man and man.

Small, therefore, can we think the progress we have made, as long as our admiration for those who have done noble things is barren, and does not of itself incite us to imitate them.

It is a thing of no great difficulty to raise objections against another man's oration, it is a very easy matter; but to produce a better in it's place is a work extremely troublesome.

Notice that "I" is at the center of the word "ethical." There is no "they." Achieving the ethics of excellence is our individual assignment.

But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.

The ethics of excellence require a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment, do you mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk . . . and lose the bet?

The ethics of excellence are grounded in action - what you actually do, rather than what you say you believe. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap.

The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.

Live according to the ethics of excellence, and you can always stand proud. Pride - not vanity, but dignity and self-respect - should carry a lot of weight in helping you make decisions. Let pride help you decide.

We need timeless principles to steer by in running our organizations and building our personal careers. We need high standards . . . the ethics of excellence.

Nail it, and it's astounding how exciting simplicity can be.

No ruses, no tools ,but tactic makes a task truly top class.

The price of greatness is perform stately duties.

If a job is worth doing, it's worth doing well

Greatness alone in not enough, or the cow would outrun the hare.

Even a tin knocker will shine on a dirty floor.