Quotes About Excellence

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Mediocrity will never do. You are capable of something better.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”
― Dolly Parton

“My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.”
― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

“The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”
― Socrates

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”
― Henry Ward Beecher

“Do your best, and be a little better than you are.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don't isolate.”
― Michael Jordan

“If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?”
― John Wooden

“People of excellence go the extra mile to do what's right.”
― Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

“Human tragedies:
We all want to be extraordinary
and we all just want to fit in.
Unfortunately, extraordinary people rarely fit in.”
― Sebastyne Young

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“If you truly expect to realize your dreams, abandon the need for blanket approval. If conforming to everyone’s expectations is the number one goal, you have sacrificed your uniqueness, and therefore your excellence.”
― Hope Solo

“Excellence is the Result of Caring more than others think is Wise, Risking more than others think is Safe, Dreaming more than others think is Practical, and Expecting more than others think is Possible.”
― Ronnie Oldham

“Some people insist that 'mediocre' is better than 'best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Have Space Suit—Will Travel

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
― Booker T. Washington

“People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness

“I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?”
― Adriana Trigiani, Viola in Reel Life

“Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor".”
― Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

“These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.”
― Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence”
― Vince Lombardi Jr.

“Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)”
― Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life.”
― Steve Jobs

“I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.”
― Gordon B. Hinckley

“There are many people, particularly in sports, who think that success and excellence are the same thing. They are not the same thing. Excellence is something that is lasting and dependable and largely within a person's control. In contrast, success is perishable and is often outside our control. If you strive for excellence, you will probably be successful eventually. People who put excellence in the first place have the patience to end up with success. An additional burden for the victim of the success mentality is that he is threatened by the success of others and he resents real excellence. In contrast, the person that is fascinated by quality is excited when he sees it in others.”
― Joe Paterno

“I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up”
― Frank O'Hara

“Learn the rules before you break them.”
― Steven Taylor Goldsberry, The Writer's Book of Wisdom: 101 Rules for Mastering Your Craft

“[All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis - only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy.
(pg. 44, "The Unsettling of America")”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays