130 Excellence Quotes

The good and the bad mix themselves so thoroughly in our thoughts, even in our aspirations, that we must look for excellence rather in overcoming evil than in freeing ourselves from its influence.

For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or an artist, and, in general, for all things that have a function or activity, the good and the well is thought to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function.

If I give you a good wine, you will see how it tastes and after you ask where it comes from.

Why not be a top-notcher? A top-notcher is simply an individual who works for the institution of which he is a part, not against it.

Respect the masterpiece. It is true reverence to man. There is no quality so great, none so much needed now.

For I think it is the case with genius that it is not when quiescent so very much above mediocrity as the difference between the two might lead us to think, but that it has the power and privilege of rising from that level to a height utterly far from mediocrity: in other words that its greatness is that it can be so great.

I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.

If you don't try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody's back yard. The thrill of competing carries with it the thrill of a gold medal. One wants to win to prove himself the best.

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

There is always some frivolity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, but also stray.

We do not do well except when we know where the best is and when we are assured that we have touched it and hold its power within us.

A good drama critic is one who perceives what is happening in the theatre of his time. A great drama critic also perceives what is not happening.

I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.

What actions are the most excellent? Those, certainly, which most powerfully appeal to the great primary human affections: to those elementary feelings which subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of time. These feelings are permanent and the same; that which interests them is permanent and the same also.

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

Make the workmanship surpass the materials.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

I don't believe in perfection. I don't think there is such a thing. But the energy of wanting things to be great is a perfectionist energy.

Certain things in Mozart will and can never be excelled.

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.

There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.

In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.

What I want is to be number one.

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Whenever I go on a ride, I'm always thinking of what's wrong with the thing and how it can be improved.

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

If ... we state the function of man to be a certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate excellence ... human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.

I am the best player in the world and I am here to prove it.

'If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.'

'The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.'

The jabroni beating, pie eating, trail blazing, eye brow raising, the best in the present, future and past, and if ya'll don't like me you can kiss the people's ass!

With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.

He was the best driver who ever lived.

Ayrton was the best friend I ever had in F1, closer to me than anybody else in the business. During my three years driving with him at McLaren, I came to realize that he was the best, one level higher than the rest of us.

I decided to pick out the greatest hitter to watch and study, and Jackson was good enough for me.

I have met all the most gifted people in our generation and you're the best.

His chess technique is nearly a miracle. In their youth, only a few players could handle the endgame so precisely. Only two such players are known to me, Smyslov and Capablanca.

If Bruce Lee wasn't the greatest martial artist of all time, then certainly he is the number one candidate.

In addition he was that best of all things, Hellenic - mankind has no quality more precious: everything beyond that belongs to the gods.

He set standards of excellence that remain unsurpassed.

He is the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times... you see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a move there. It was all Astaire originally.

I can watch Astaire anytime. I don't think he ever made a wrong move. He was a perfectionist. He would work on a few bars for hours until it was just the way he wanted it. Gene was the same way. They both wanted perfection, even though they were completely different personalities.

Mr Dyson is absolutely unusual in his ability and accomplishments. I can say without reservation that he is the best I have ever had or observed.

He was a verray, parfit gentil knyght.

I just always wanted to do the very best I could.

The best among you are those who are best to their wives.

Require rising standards of adequacy.

Be number 1 or 2 in your business or get out.

Don't do what they ask you. Do what they ask you plus other insight.

'He's an unbelievable player. He's God's gift, something that's going to flash before our eyes and I don't think it's every going to happen again. The only person I can think about he's catching up with is Michael Jordan.' - w:Rashard Lewis[10]

'I think Kobe Bryant should be at the top of the (MVP) list. His game is unstoppable.' - w:Amare Stoudemire[12]

'To me he is the best player in the world right now. That guy doesn't know fear at all. He doesn't care. He would have won it for the Americans single-handedly.' - w:Dirk Nowitzki[14]

Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

Ever since I was a little boy, I would study composition. And it was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most. If you take an album like Nutcracker Suite, every song is killer, every one. So I said to myself, 'Why can't there be a pop album where every...' - People used to do an album where you'd get one good song, and the rest were like B-sides, they'd call them 'album songs' - and i'd say to myself 'Why can't every one be like a hit song? Why can't every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you could release it as a single?. So I always tried to strive for that. That was the purpose for the next album. ~Michael Jackson on influences, Ebony Magazine December 2007.

There were many, too, who hated him. Hated him for being young, for being excellent, for having made their victories look paltry and weak.

Every really able man, in whatever direction he work, - a man of large affairs, an inventor, a statesman, an orator, a poet, a painter,-if you talk sincerely with him, considers his work, however much admired, as far short of what it should be.

Try to enhance morality among this nation. It is by morality that you can preserve your independence and attain to stages of excellence.

And yet I think that the Full House model does teach us to treasure variety for its own sake-for tough reasons of evolutionary theory and nature's ontology, and not from a lamentable failure of thought that accepts all beliefs on the absurd rationale that disagreement must imply disrespect. Excellence is a range of differences, not a spot. Each location on the range can be occupied by an excellent or an inadequate representative-and we must struggle for excellence at each of these varied locations. In a society driven, often unconsciously, to impose a uniform mediocrity upon a former richness of excellence-where McDonald's drives out the local diner, and the mega-Stop & Shop eliminates the corner Mom and Pop-an understanding and defense of full ranges as natural reality might help to stem the tide and preserve the rich raw material of any evolving system: variation itself.

'Steve captures perfectly what you want your quarterback to be.'

'I believed that he was the greatest man I was ever likely to meet, and I believe that all the more firmly today'

Endeavor to do well with everything you undertake.

He is unquestionably one in a million. A professional whose perceptions are correct, whose plans are thorough and complete, whose executions are artistic, and whose success is inevitable....I have never been more impressed with an officer's talent and dedication. He should rank with men like Douglas MacArthur, Maxwell Taylor, Creighton Abrams...

'She's at the top of her class.' Diane Warren, writer

'Clay I think, without a doubt, this performance, that song, is the best performance of the entire competition that I've ever known. Unbelievable, unbelievable. - Paula Abdul on 'Unchained Melody' -

:the outstanding Marine of all time:

... for Davies and Service, it was the end of two brilliant careers. For the country they served, it would have even darker implications because they were the best of an era, and the Foreign Service does not produce that many men of rare excellence.

Why not the best?

My best field marshal.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

There'll be no oiling up with this band. The oil has been there for years and it only gets better.

What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself-and thus make yourself indispensable.

For a work to become immortal it must possess so many excellences that it will not be easy to find a man who understands and values them all; so that there will be in all ages men who recognise and appreciate some of these excellences; by this means the credit of the work will be retained throughout the long course of centuries and ever-changing interests, for, as it is appreciated first in this sense, then in that, the interest is never exhausted.

I'm anxious to have a really terrific act. Whatever it takes, it takes.

Cannavaro is having a fantastic World Cup. He is without question the strongest defender at this tournament and the absolute number one in the world.

We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through sufferings.

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

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

The ladder of success is never crowded at the top.

This one's from the Book!

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things with art- lessness.

It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.

In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.

The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.

Before Mozart, all ambition turns to despair.

21 piano sonatas, 27 piano concertos, 41 symphonies, 18 masses, 13 operas, 9 oratorios and cantata, 2 ballets, 40 plus concertos for various instruments, string quartets, trios and quintets, violin and piano duets piano quartets, and the songs. This astounding output includes hardly one work less than a masterpiece.

Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music.

'The great thing is that he's always looking to improve. How good can he be? Well, we're talking about a guy who is Hall of Fame caliber.' --Lou Piniella

'She was the greatest performer. No one has been her equal.' ~ Mickey Rooney

In my dreams of heaven, I always see the great Masters gathered in a huge hall in which they all reside. Only Mozart has his own suite. ~ Victor Borge

Mozart touched no problem without solving it to perfection. ~ Donald Francis Tovey