Quotes About Excellence

In general, however, grand opera, by more and more deadening our musical receptivity through its three-hours duration and at the same time putting our patience to the test through the snail's pace of what is usually a very trite action, is in itself intrinsically and essentially boring; which failing can be overcome only by the excessive excellence of an individual achievement: that is why in this genre only the masterpieces are enjoyable and everything mediocre is unendurable.

On account of its originality, excellence in every field strikes us as so new and so strange, that to recognize it at first glance will require not only understanding, but also education in the same discipline. As a rule, excellence achieves late recognition, all the later as the discipline is loftier, and those who truly enlighten humankind share the fate of the fixed stars, the light from which requires many years before it descends to the horizon.

Je edler und vollkommener eine Sache ist, desto später und langsamer gelangt sie zur Reife.

For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with vile envy, a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences and merits from those who have none? For whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.

an intellect that positively excels even in one single direction is among the rarest of natural phenomena.

Dovunque e comunque si manifesti l'eccellenza, subito la generale mediocrità si allea e congiura per soffocarla.

La soledad es la suerte de todos los espíritus excelentes

Die Ehre ist nicht die Meinung von besonderen, diesem Subjekt allein zukommenden Eigenschaften, sondern nur von den der Regel nach vorauszusetzenden, als welche auch ihm nicht abgehen sollen. Sie besagt daher nur, daß dies Subjekt keine Ausnahme mache, während der Ruhm besagt, daß es eine mache. Ruhm muß daher erst erworben werden, die Ehre hingegen braucht bloß nicht verloren zu gehen.

What is troubling is not just being average but settling for it. Everyone knows that average-ness is, for most of us, our fate. And in certain matters—looks, money, tennis—we would do well to accept this. But in your surgeon, your child's pediatrician, your police department, your local high school? When the stakes are our lives and the lives of our children, we want no one to settle for average.

You want people to make sure to get the stupid stuff right. Yet you also want to leave room for craft and judgment and the ability to respond to unexpected difficulties that arise along the way.

and then define a pattern around them.

and a completely unfair question popped into my mind.

He's a fine doctor," people will say, "but sometimes he has his moments.

Anyone who understands systems will know immediately that optimizing parts is not a good route to system excellence

Just ticking boxes is not the ultimate goal here.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to a capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

Know what you want in life and go after it. I worship individuals for their highest possibilities as individuals, and I loathe humanity, for its failure to live up to these possibilities.

If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.

The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.

Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire.

I hate incompetence. I think it's probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn't make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary.

There's nothing of any importance in life—except how well you do your work.

Great men can't be ruled... The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional.