Motivational Quotes

Excellence

The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.

- Michener, James A.

Best Quotes about Excellence

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

Popplestone, Charles E.

There seems to be one quality of mind which seems to be of special and extreme advantage in leading him to make discoveries. It was the power of never letting exceptions go unnoticed.

Darwin, Francis

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.

Watson, Thomas J.

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

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

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.

Beamon, Bob

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

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.

Heifetz, Jascha

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

Waitley, Denis

10.

The ancient Greek definition of happiness was the full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

John F. Kennedy

11.

I start where the last man left off.

Edison, Thomas A.

12.

Anybody who accepts mediocrity -- in school, on the job, in life -- is a person who compromises, and when the leader compromises, the whole organization compromises.

Knight, Charles

13.

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

14.

People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it.

Newton, Howard W.

15.

You're probably not a member of a major league baseball team, your errors, unless they are truly spectacular, don't show up in the morning paper.

Goodsell, Jane

16.

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.

Gracian, Baltasar

17.

One of the great undiscovered joys of life comes from doing everything one attempts to the best of one's ability. There is a special sense of satisfaction, a pride in surveying such a work, a work which is rounded, full, exact, complete in its parts, which the superficial person who leaves his or her work in a slovenly, slipshod, half-finished condition, can never know. It is this conscientious completeness which turns any work into art. The smallest task, well done, becomes a miracle of achievement.

Mandino, Og

18.

One of the most essential things you need to do for yourself is to choose a goal that is important to you. Perfection does not exist -- you can always do better and you can always grow.

Brown, Les

19.

From time to time there appear on the face of the earth men of rare and consummate excellence, who dazzle us by their virtue, and whose outstanding qualities shed a stupendous light. Like those extraordinary stars of whose origins we are ignorant, and of whose fate, once they have vanished, we know even less, such men have neither forebears nor descendants: they are the whole of their race.

Bruyere, Jean De La

20.

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.

Mandino, Og

21.

The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self improvement, about being better than you were the day before.

Young, Steve

22.

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.

Riley, Pat

23.

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.

Goldsmith, Oliver

24.

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

Schwartz, David J.

25.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

Johnson, Lyndon B.

26.

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

Hazlitt, William

27.

I can do small things in a great way.

Clarke, James Freeman

28.

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.

Mandino, Og

29.

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

30.

Good enough never is.

Field, Debbi

31.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.

Carnegie, Andrew

33.

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

Keats, John

34.

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

35.

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

Garfield, Charles A.

36.

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.

Marden, Orison Swett

37.

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.

Maugham, W. Somerset

38.

When you say you'll meet someone at 11:00 AM, be there at 10:45. When you promise a check on the 30th, send it on the 28th. Whatever you agree to do, do it a bit more. Start with your employees, then extend it to everyone you deal with. News will soon get around that you are a person of your word.

Scott, Charles Prestwich

39.

Excellence is best described as doing the right things right -- selecting the most important things to be done and then accomplishing them 100% correctly.

40.

It isn't by size that you win or fail -- be the best of whatever you are.

Malloch, Douglas

41.

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

42.

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

Sir Winston Churchill

43.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown Jr.

44.

The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else.

Gaberino, Geoffrey

45.

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

Da Vinci, Leonardo

46.

There's a way to do better... find it.

Edison, Thomas A.

47.

Always strive to excel, but only on weekends.

Rorty, Richard

48.

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.

Godin, Andre

49.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Carlyle, Thomas

50.

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