Quotes About Exceptionalism

At the very bottom of human experience comes a set of certain privileges, a special zone where the rules apply to everyone else except you. It was good of the world to build itself that way, and include that tiny consolation prize for those who have nothing else to recommend their lives in that moment. The

You are extraordinary within your limits, but your limits are extraordinary!

Quando se cresce junto de uma figura tão fora do comum, a única revolta possível é o conformismo.

The fates of people and of states, of entire civilizations, can depend on whether an extraordinary person can bring forth the proper strength of soul and action. Normal minds and spirits, no matter how numerous, cannot replace such a person.

All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than any existence of mediocrity.

When there are a dozen Babe Ruths, there are none.

Humanity hungers for the uncommon.

When it comes to granting unconditional birthright citizenship, the United States and Canada are alone in the industrialized world: North American exceptionalism, you can call it.

Mediocrity is underrated.

By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.

I would say I felt similar pressures that Black people feel in all fields, not just football. That we have to do more, that we have to be better, that we have to be exceptional just to stay on a level playing field. And it's in a lot of ways unfair, but I know I'm not alone in that feeling.

Unfortunately, generations of people have been told by their political leaders that they are more exceptional human beings than the rest of the world - this sense of privilege is incredibly toxic.

America is exceptional in combining standard great-power realism with extravagant idealism about the country's redemptive role in creating international order.

I've always wanted to do things different, always wanted to be the person who stands out from the pack.

Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or men.

The greatest service we can do the common man is to abolish him and make all men uncommon.

I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I've never met an ordinary man, woman or child.

There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.

I do not choose to be a common man.

I believe in American exceptionalism. As a Navy SEAL, I fought so that I would never have to see my president bow to anyone.

Being a freak isn't the same thing as having a talent.

in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.

You're like a sharp bright piece broken from a star. Too sharp, too bright, sometimes, for your own good.

No­body wants to wor­ship you if you have the same prob­lems, the same bad breath and messy hair and hang­nails, as a reg­ular per­son. You have to be ev­ery­thing reg­ular peo­ple aren't. Where they fail, you have to go all the way. Be what peo­ple are too afraid to be. Be­come whom they ad­mire.