Quotes About Excellence

Trying to do well and trying to beat others are two different things. Excellence and victory are conceptually distinct . . . and are experienced differently.

Some critics claim to know what art has to be and do, and consider it their task to steer art along the path they have chosen. Others receive art gladly, and try to distinguish degrees of excellence.

To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service.

I believe in striving for excellence. I sweat the big and small stuff! I do not apologize for this.

Some wits, too, like oracles, deal in ambiguities, but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.

You must also realize that the stuff of excellence-truth, real scientific truth-can be elusive... It is too often covered by the heavy fog of fear and hidden by the darkness of your detractors.

The fact is, the difference between peak performers and everybody else are much smaller than everybody else thinks.

Hey, size works against excellence.

Excellence is a choice, and you must make that choice over and over again until "doing your best" is all you know.

If you want people to listen, you have to have a platform to speak from, and that is excellence in what you do.

The only way to get out of mediocrity is to keep shooting for excellence.

No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle How very little can be done under the spirit of fear.

The habit of excellence can become enjoyably addictive.

Don't be prideful with any excellence that is not your own

Great rivalries don't have to be built on hatred. They're built on respect, on a respect for excellence.

We cannot have islands of excellence in a sea of slovenly indifference to standards.

A passive mindset "manages" to live with mediocre, but an active mindset "leads" to change until excellence results.

Learn the difference between striving for excellence and striving for perfection. The first is attainable; the second is not.

Excellence isn't as much about being the best as it is about being the best you can be, and being better than you were before.

Relentlessly pursue perfection knowing we won't catch it, but in the process we'll achieve excellence.

I think everyone is their harshest critic, but I strive for excellence as much as I can because I think it shows.

For excellence, the presence of others is always required.

A brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence.