Motivational Quotes

Excellence

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steer is the way to it.

- Hesiod

Best Quotes about Excellence

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

Kingsley, Charles

It is the mark of an instructed mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness when only an approximation of the truth is possible.

Aristotle

Great men are little men expanded; great lives are ordinary lives intensified.

Peterson, Wilferd A.

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.

Robinson, James H.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

There is no finish line.

Nike Corporation

There is one plain rule of life. Try thyself unweariedly till thou findest the highest thing thou art capable of doing, faculties and outward circumstances being both duly considered, and then do it.

Mill, John Stuart

It is just the little difference between the good and the best that makes the difference between the artist and the artisan. It is just the little touches after the average man would quit that makes the master's fame.

Marden, Orison Swett

Today, and every day, deliver more than you are getting paid to do. The victory of success will be half won when you learn the secret of putting out more than is expected in all that you do. Make yourself so valuable in your work that eventually you will become indispensable. Exercise your privilege to go the extra mile, and enjoy all the rewards you receive. You deserve them!

Mandino, Og

10.

To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

11.

I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best.

O'Connor, Flannery

12.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

13.

It is only in your mind that you have to excel, at anything or everything. Of course, it would be very nice to excel at most things. Indeed, we recommend that you try and do your best. But realistically, you are entitled to do the bare minimum to get by. All your accomplishments are just a bonus, something to enjoy, not requirements. You don't have to do anything to prove that you are worthy of existing.

Albert Ellis, Michael Abrams, Lidia Dengelegi

14.

Resolve to make each day the very best and don't let anyone get in your way. If they do, step on them.

Benson, Ivan

15.

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

16.

Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull earth dwelling.

Shakespeare, William

17.

Make it a life-rule to give your best to whatever passes through your hands. Stamp it with your manhood. Let superiority be your trademark...

Marden, Orison Swett

18.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can reach. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries and predecessors; try to be better than yourself.

19.

A racehorse that consistently runs just a second faster than another horse is worth millions of dollars more. Be willing to give that extra effort that separates the winner from the one in second place.

Brown Jr., H. Jackson

20.

The success combination in business is: Do what you do better... and: Do more of what you do...

Schwartz, David J.

21.

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.

Gardner, John W.

22.

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.

Hurt, William

23.

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail; mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

Sallust

24.

You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.

Garcia, Jerry

25.

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.

Hill, Napoleon

26.

A masterpiece is something said once and for all, stated, finished, so that it's there complete in the mind, if only at the back.

Woolf, Virginia

27.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

28.

You can start right where you stand and apply the habit of going the extra mile by rendering more service and better service than you are now being paid for.

Hill, Napoleon

29.

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do -- they always reach.

Iacocca, Lee

30.

Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more than others do.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

31.

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.

Keats, John

32.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands on himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

Gasset, Jose Ortega Y

33.

The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence.

Ford, Henry

34.

One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.

Hazlitt, William

35.

If something is exceptionally well done it has embedded in it's very existence the aim of lifting the common denominator rather than catering to it.

Fischer, Edward

36.

Set exorbitant standards, and give your people hell when they don't live up to them. There is nothing so demoralizing as a boss who tolerates second rate work.

Ogilvy, David

37.

The most splendid achievement of all is the constant striving to surpass yourself and to be worthy of your own approval.

Waitley, Denis

38.

There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.

Lucado, Max L.

39.

Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hall-mark of excellence.

Marden, Orison Swett

40.

There is no such thing as natural touch. Touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.

Trevino, Lee

41.

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence -- only in constant improvement and constant change.

Peters, Thomas J.

42.

There is only one thing for us to do, and that is to do our level best right where we are every day of our lives; To use our best judgment, and then to trust the rest to that Power which holds the forces of the universe in his hands.

Marden, Orison Swett

43.

I made a resolve then that I was going to amount to something if I could. And no hours, nor amount of labor, nor amount of money would deter me from giving the best that there was in me. And I have done that ever since, and I win by it. I know.

Sanders, Col. Harland

44.

If you do things well, do them better. Be daring, be first, be different, be just.

Roddick, Anita

45.

You must be resolutely determined that whatever you do shall always be the best of which you are capable.

Popplestone, Charles E.

46.

The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

Gardner, John W.

47.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

Washington, Booker T.

48.

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steer is the way to it.

Hesiod

49.

You always have to give 100 percent, because if you don't, someone, someplace, will give 100 percent and will beat you when you meet.

Macauley, Ed

50.

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Feinstein, Dianne