Quotes About Excellence

If you want to avoid criticism, it's better to be good than it is to be great.

There is no alternative universe where Ralph Sampson is a beloved symbol of excellence. There's no Philip K. Dick novel where he averages a career double-double and gets four rings. He could never be that guy. He was needed elsewhere, for other reasons. He was needed to remind people that their own self-imposed mediocrity is better than choking on transcendence.

Thus, being ignorant of its nature, the masses suppose that men of wealth, influence, and important family connections are the best...as a result of this error on the part of the commons, the wealth rather than the excellence of a few men has come to control the state

the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

You can only shape the experiences that are important to your customers when you understand who you are really competing with.

Winning is beauty. It is like life itself.

He learned from Novalis that every man is potentially hero and genius; that only inertia keeps men mediocre.

Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia quam rara sunt

P]erfectionism is one of the typical hindrances on the way toward perfection.

Caress the details, the divine details. In high art and pure science detail is everything.

Yet few leaders exploit the power of this rapid wake-up call. Rather, they do the opposite. They try to garner support based on a numbers case that lacks urgency and emotional impetus. Or they try to put forth the most exemplary case of their operational excellence to garner support. Although these alternatives may work, neither leads to tipping superiors' cognitive hurdle as fast and stunningly as showing the worst. When

Voluntary cooperation is more than mechanical execution, where people do only what it takes to get by. It involves going beyond the call of duty, wherein individuals exert energy and initiative to the best of their abilities—even subordinating personal self-interest—to execute resulting strategies.3

Never use the competition as a benchmark

your offering needs to stand out as never before.

Is it better because Europeans are better, nobler, greater, and more gifted than other folk? It is not. Europe has never produced and never will in our day bring forth a single human soul who cannot be matched and over-matched in every line of human endeavor by Asia and Africa. Run the gamut, if you will, and let us have the Europeans who in sober truth overmatch Nefertari, Mohammed, Rameses and Askia, Confucius, Buddha, and Jesus Christ.

Dad simply would not settle for second best. He always insisted on several basic rules of personal behavior. Anything worthwhile costs an effort, or If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well, or Opportunities only come to those prepared to grasp them, or Do the thing you fear and so overcome.

The best player I ever played with was Dennis Johnson.

Once you are labeled 'the best' you want to stay up there, and you can't do it by loafing around.

when you think you have done enough, do a little more, because someone out there is working harder than you.

IS IT A SIN TO BE AVERAGE?

Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell.

There's little point, though, in being too scattered to master something, or in spending much time on activities in which you can't excel.

We live in an age of mediocrity.

who distinguished themselves as scientists, artisans, merchants, scholars