Selected standards quotes

1. I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot.

2. It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.

3. If you want to do your duty properly, you should do just a little more than that.

4. We are in the process of creating what deserves to be called the idiot culture. Not an idiot sub-culture, which every society has bubbling beneath the surface and which can provide harmless fun; but the culture itself. For the first time, the weird and the stupid and the coarse are becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal.

5. American business long ago gave up on demanding that prospective employees be honest and hardworking. It has even stopped hoping for employees who are educated enough that they can tell the difference between the men's room and the women's room without having little pictures on the doors.

6. Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

7. We still have many shortcomings and failures to fulfill the Party's demands, especially as regards the liquidation in some of our people of survivals of the accursed past in consciousness and conduct and the fulfillment of the demands of our Soviet ethics and military discipline.

8. Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

9. When a sonnet is mediocre it is bad, for it should be sublime.

10. Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

11. When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

12. No one today knows what is indecent.

13. In my time and neighborhood (and in my soul) there was only one standard by which a woman measured success: did some man want her?

14. When you hear something you don't like, don't ever play it again.

15. There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.

16. Where humor is concerned there are no standards - no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.

17. The world is full of vulgar Purists, who bring discredit on all selection by the silliness of their choice; and this the more, because the very becoming a Purist is commonly indicative of some slight degree of weakness, readiness to be offended, or narrowness of understanding of the ends of things.

18. In general, an implementation must be conservative in its sending behavior, and liberal in its receiving behavior.

19. Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send.

20. You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?

21. 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.

22. Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.

23. The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.

24. Modern PCs are horrible. ACPI is a complete design disaster in every way. But we're kind of stuck with it. If any Intel people are listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now, before you reproduce.

25. You have to be careful who you let define your good.

26. Use truth as your anvil, nonviolence as your hammer and anything that does not stand the test when it is brought to the anvil of truth and hammered with nonviolence, reject it.

27. As late as the summer of 1941, the Atlantic Monthly, then a still respected magazine for literates and edited by White men, published a long article by Albert Jay Nock, in which he proved that the Jews are an Oriental race that is incompatible with ours. He was not punished and the magazine was not destroyed, strange and almost incredible as that seems today.

28. Junk journalism is the evidence of a society that has got at least one thing right, that there should be nobody with the power to dictate where responsible journalism begins.

29. The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

30. I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

31. Unless you think you can do better than Tolstoy, we don't need you.

32. Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.

33. I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. de Maupassant. I've fought two draws with Mr. Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody's going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I'm crazy or I keep getting better.

34. An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.

35. I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get.

36. One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.

37. My only objection to the arrangements there is the two-in-a-bed system. It is bad.... But let your words and conduct be perfectly pure - such as your mother might know without bringing a blush to your cheek.... If not already mentioned, do not tell your mother of the doubling in bed.

38. It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.

39. Franklin: Have you ever thought, Headmaster, that your standards might perhaps be a little out of date? Headmaster: Of course they're out of date. Standards always are out of date. That is what makes them standards.

40. Don't judge yourself by somebody else's standards. You will always lose.

41. Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.

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

43. John Barnes is incredibly variable. Pete's Rule (Never buy a Barnes with sodomy in it) is a good one but unfortunately the publisher does not put that kind of stuff on the cover.

44. When the sun of culture is low, even dwarves will cast long shadows. (Wenn die Sonne der Kultur tief steht, werfen selbst Zwerge lange Schatten, famous German aphorism which is contributed to Karl Kraus, yet there seems no reliable source)

45. You can't trust the quality any more...

46. 'This age of globalisation is marked by the adoption of universal principles governing such matters as democracy, human rights, trade and development. Today, I reaffirm here that Fiji accepts these precepts. But we also say that countries like ours should not be held to unrealistic standards, we need time to evolve to adapt and to adhere. Do not judge us by what might be inappropriate at our stage of development.'

47. EFI is this other Intel brain-damage (the first one being ACPI).

48. 'Guess what? Wheels have been round for a really long time, and anybody who 'reinvents' the new wheel is generally considered a crackpot. It turns out that 'round' is simply a good form for a wheel to have. It may be boring, but it just tends to roll better than a square, and 'hipness' has nothing what-so-ever to do with it.'

49. When the curtain came down at the Ethel Barrymore theater on Dec. 3, 1947, our standards for performance, our expectations of what an actor should offer us in the way of psychological truth and behavioral honesty, were forever changed.

50. The longer it takes me to find Mr. Right, the more he's going to pay for keeping me waiting.

51. Lady, it rose below vulgarity.

52. 'Man, that's my style!' -- When asked by the producer of 'Tears Are Not Enough' (the Canadian counterpart to 'We Are The World') to sing his line again because it sounded 'a little flat'.

53. I am a firm believer in women-in their ability to do things & in their influence & power. Women set the standards for the world, and it is for us, women of Canada, to set the standards high.

54. If you can't make fun of bad movies on serious subjects, what's the point?

55. 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.

56. The final chapter in Robert Byrd's history is not likely to be written for some time, yet it is safe to say that he has set a standard as a Senator, as a legislative leader, and as a statesman that will stand among the best as long as there is a Senate.

57. It is incumbent on all, regardless of where we work and serve, to preserve Islamic standards before all services.

58. In the pretext of the academic being detestable, the worst in the class was made a hero! He opens the door to the ethics of shit! Newness at whatever cost and art becomes just a latrine!

59. Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven: but this does not refute my general assertion.

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

61. What is your level? Tell me, so I can sink or rise to it.

62. An act like ours wouldn't even be around today if someone hadn't brought us along and let us make mistakes and grow at our own pace. Today it seems that if you don't have a hit - or even if you do - they have no use for you the next time.

63. I was tough on myself because I feared being a lazy procrastinator and the inevitable result: being mediocre or second best. I always went the extra mile.

64. Mark: That was the best you could do.

65. 'We're casting for flat-chested tap-dancing freaks.' (from 'Diva')

66. The limit to our growth should be the quality of our services.

67. Fine, now that I know that, to you, medical ethics are nothing, you've told me all I need to know. I'm not trying to persuade you. Do you think I care whether you agree with me? No. I'm telling you why I disagree with you. That I do care about. I have no further interest in any of your opinions. There's nothing you wouldn't make an excuse for. You know what? I wouldn't want you on my side. I was telling you why I knew that Howard Dean was a psycho and a fraud, and you say 'That's O.K.' Fuck off. No, I mean it: fuck off. I'm telling you what I think are standards and you say, 'What standards? It's fine, he's against the Iraq War.' Fuck. Off. You're MoveOn.org. Any liar will do. He's anti-Bush. Fuck off...Save it sweetie, for someone who cares. It will not be me. You love it, you suck on it. I now know what your standards are, and now you know what mine are, and that's all the difference -- I hope -- in the world.

68. Except for times Fred worked with real professional dancers like Cyd Charisse, it was a twenty five year war

69. Since the Chernobyl accident, we have worked all over the globe to raise nuclear safety performance. And since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, we have worked with even greater intensity on nuclear security. On both fronts, we have built an international network of legal norms and performance standards. But our most tangible impact has been on the ground. Hundreds of missions, in every part of the world, with international experts making sure nuclear activities are safe and secure. I am very proud of the 2,300 hard working men and women that make up the IAEA staff - the colleagues with whom I share this honour. Some of them are here with me today. We come from over 90 countries. We bring many different perspectives to our work. Our diversity is our strength. We are limited in our authority. We have a very modest budget. And we have no armies. But armed with the strength of our convictions, we will continue to speak truth to power. And we will continue to carry out our mandate with independence and objectivity.

70. Chomsky proceeds on the almost unthinkably subversive assumption that the United States should be judged by the same standards that it preaches (often at gunpoint) to other nations- he is nearly the only person now writing who assumes a single standard of international morality not for rhetorical effect, but as a matter of habitual, practically instinctual conviction. --Christopher Hitchens, For the Sake of Argument ('The 'We' Fallacy'), February 1988

71. Unlike you, Wiggin, I do give the other guy a chance to learn what he's doing before I insist on perfection

72. Nafi knew the rule: when a man acts like a child, he's boyish, and everyone's delighted; when a boy acts the same way, he's childish, and everyone tells him to be a man

73. I know that in my public life I fell below the standards that I had set myself... I have seen what is wrong but not done enough to put it right. I have been more critical than correct. I have had opportunities of great positions in the service of the state, but I have put them aside. I know that I have not devoted myself enough to promoting the good of others.

74. Why not the best?

75. The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous flow of money into bad defacto standards for unsophisticated buyers using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas.

76. I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.

77. To create a new standard, it takes something that's not just a little bit different; it takes something that's really new and really captures people's imagination - and the Macintosh, of all the machines I've ever seen, is the only one that meets that standard.

78. The question of integrity will get finer and finer and more delicate and more beautiful.

79. 'To be merely good enough is to never succeed.'

80. Il n'appartient qu'aux grands hommes d'avoir de grands defauts.

81. I sent the club a wire stating, 'PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER'.

82. [Variant:] 'Please accept my resignation. I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member'.

83. Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all.

84. I'm not going to be joining ZZ Top. You know they can't play my stuff. It's too complicated.

85. Pure and spotless must the victim be if the sacrifice is to be acceptable.

86. A cookbook is only as good as its worst recipe.

87. There should be an unspoken rule that anything shown before, say, nine o'clock will be fairly inoffensive. After that, anything goes.

88. It is safer to try to understand the low in the light of the high than the high in the light of the low. In doing the latter one necessarily distorts the high, whereas in doing the former one does not deprive the low of the freedom to reveal itself as fully as what it is.

89. On matters of intonation and technicalities I am more than a martinet- I am a martinetissimo.

90. It's hard to find a good man, but it's good to find a hard one.

91. Think of it: the lowest common denominator in being digital is not your operating system, modem, or model of computer. It's a tiny piece of plastic, designed decades ago by Bell Labs' Charles Krumreich, Edwin Hardesty, and company, who thought they were making an inconspicuous plug for a few telephone handsets. Not in their wildest dreams was Registered Jack 11 - a modular connector more commonly known as the RJ-11 - meant to be plugged and unplugged so many times, by so many people, for so many reasons, all over the world.

92. I'm an absolute perfectionist. I'm never happy with a finished album. There's always something I don't like.

93. The mystery story is a kind of writing that need not dwell in the shadow of the past and owes little if any allegiance to the cult of the classics. It is a good deal more than unlikely that any writer now living will produce a better historical novel than Henry Esmond, a better tale of children than The Golden Age, a sharper social vignette than Madame Bovary, a more graceful and elegant evocation than The Spoils of Poynton, a wider and richer canvas than War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov. But to devise a more plausible mystery than The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Purloined Letter should not be too difficult. Nowadays it would be rather more difficult not to.

94. There are no 'classics' of crime and detection. Not one. Within its frame of reference, which is the only way it should be judged, a classic is a piece of writing which exhausts the possibilities of its form and can never be surpassed. No story or novel of mystery has done that yet. Few have come close. Which is one of the principal reasons why otherwise reasonable people continue to assault the citadel.

95. The whole principle is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.

96. Please note that Wikiquote articles should contain quotations. To contribute encyclopedic information, please go to the corresponding Wikipedia Roy Blount, Jr article and edit it instead.

97. Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education. We are 35th in the world league of education standards - 35th. At every level, radical improvement and reform.

98. He really did make us raise our sights. ~ Diane Sawyer, Good Morning America co-anchor

99. Think big, or go home.