Quotes About Excellence

Benares emerged as a major centre of finance and commerce as well as a unique centre of religion, education and pilgrimage. In Bengal, Nadia was the centre of Sanskrit learning and a sophisticated centre for regional architectural and Hindustani musical excellence.

Fix your eyes on perfection and you make almost everything speed towards it.

It is not the quantity but the quality of knowledge which determines the mind's dignity.

The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).

The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

the true competition is the competition of the individual with himself—his present seeking to excel his past.

In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights, of a mind of uncommon excellence.

The gifted student who has studied under a great teacher would almost certainly adopt a less independent tone in his first papers, because he would have the attitude of a pupil to his senior, besides a deference due to appreciation of his senior's achievements. A student without deference after distinguished tuition is almost always mediocre.

I want to rise so high that when I shit I won't miss anybody.

Excellence is inconveniently difficult.

Serious writing must nowadays be written for the sake of the art. The condition I describe is not extraordinary. Certain scientists, philosophers, historians, and many mathematicians do the same, advancing their causes as they can. One must be satisfied with that.

Let's not be afraid to speak the common sense truth: you can't have high standards without good discipline.

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

People of genius do not excel in any profession because they work in it, they work in it because they excel.

Most certification today is pure 'credentialism.' It must begin to reflect our demand for excellence, not our appreciation of parchment.

I'll tell you what I think defines greatness. The ability and willingness to perform in extraordinary ways.

Let the calumniators of the colored race despise themselves for their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and henceforth cease to talk of the natural inferiority of those who require nothing but time and opportunity to attain to the highest point of human excellence.

But there are two basic kinds of professional, Harkness saw in a moment of self-congratulatory illumination. There's the professionalism that does something well enough to earn a living from it. And there's the professionalism that creates a commitment so intense that the earning of a living happens by the way. Its dynamic isn't wages but the determination to do something as well as it can be done.

The meritocracy defines "community" as a mass of talented individuals competing with one another.

The people we admire the most are rooted in nature, but have surpassed nature.

That came from his tapes. We questioned everything we did. He instilled or reinforced in us quality consciousness. If you're going to do something, you have to absolutely achieve excellence and set your internal compass toward excellence and go for that, because nothing else matters." The process, though, could be rough.

Someone asked a concert violinist in New York's Carnegie Hall how she became so skilled. She said that it was by "planned neglect." She planned to neglect everything that was not related to her goal.

If you're a perfectionist about your writing, [your rough draft] is the time to get over it. . . . Decide ahead of time that your rough draft is going to be pretty awful, and join the ranks of the great writers of the world. . . . Save the niceties for the revision stage.