146 quotes about Excellence



The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Alexander, Shana quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Aristotle quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Aristotle quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Aristotle quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Whatever you do, don't do it halfway.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Beamon, Bob quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Resolve to make each day the very best and don't let anyone get in your way. If they do, step on them.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Benson, Ivan quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Berry, Wendell quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

People who produce good results feel good about themselves.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Blanchard, Ken quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

All you owe the public is a good performance.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bogart, Humphrey quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Do your work; not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing's sake -- that little more which is worth all the rest.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Briggs, Dean quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Brown Jr., H. Jackson quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Brown, Les quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Brown, Les quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Bruyere, Jean De La quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Carlyle, Thomas quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Carnegie, Andrew quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I can do small things in a great way.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Clarke, James Freeman quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I have offended God and mankind because my work didn't reach the quality it should have.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Da Vinci, Leonardo quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Darwin, Francis quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Disraeli, Isaac quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I start where the last man left off.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Edison, Thomas A. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There's a way to do better... find it.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Edison, Thomas A. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Excellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual wealth of the world.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Eliot, George quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is always a best way of doing everything.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Emerson, Ralph Waldo quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

He who has put a good finish to his undertaking is said to have placed a golden crown to the whole.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Eustachius quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Feinstein, Dianne quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Good enough never is.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Field, Debbi quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I use nothing but the best ingredients. My cookies are always baked fresh. I price cookies so that you cannot make them at home for any less. And I still give cookies away.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Fields, Debbie quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

You get the best out of others when you get the best out of yourself.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Firestone, Harvey S. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Fischer, Edward quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

If I play my best, I can win anywhere in the world against anybody.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Floyd, Ray quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Ford, Henry quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gaberino, Geoffrey quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Garcia, Jerry quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gardner, John W. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gardner, John W. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gardner, John W. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The fact is, the difference between peak performers and everybody else are much smaller than everybody else thinks.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Garfield, Charles A. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Excellence means when a man or woman asks of himself more than others do.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gasset, Jose Ortega Y quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gasset, Jose Ortega Y quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The man who comes up with a means for doing or producing almost anything better, faster or more economically has his future and his fortune at his fingertips.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Getty, J. Paul quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The quality of expectations determines the quality of our action.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Godin, Andre quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Goldsmith, Oliver quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Goodsell, Jane quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Gracian, Baltasar quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Harriman, Edward H. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

One shining quality lends a luster to another, or hides some glaring defect.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hazlitt, William quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is no top. There are always further heights to reach.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Heifetz, Jascha quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It's enough for you to do it once for a few men to remember you. But if you do it year after year, then many people remember you and they tell it to their children, and their children and grandchildren remember and, if it concerns books, they can read them. And if it's good enough, it will last as long as there are human beings.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hemingway, Ernest quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hesiod quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hill, Napoleon quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hill, Napoleon quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hill, Napoleon quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

You have to create a track record of breaking your own mold, or at least other people's idea of that mold.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Hurt, William quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Iacocca, Lee quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The noblest search is the search for excellence.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Johnson, Lyndon B. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Joubert, Joseph quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Keats, John quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo 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 streetsweeper who did his job well.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | King Jr. Martin Luther quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Kingsley, Charles quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Knight, Charles quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lincoln, Abraham quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

If you'll not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your lives.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lombardi, Vince quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

When we have done our best, we should wait the result in peace.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lubbock, Sir John quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Lucado, Max L. quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Macauley, Ed quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It isn't by size that you win or fail -- be the best of whatever you are.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Malloch, Douglas quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mandino, Og quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mandino, Og quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mandino, Og quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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!
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mandino, Og quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

The person who knows one thing and does it better than anyone else, even if it only be the art of raising lentils, receives the crown he merits. If he raises all his energy to that end, he is a benefactor of mankind and its rewarded as such.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mandino, Og quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Mansfield, Katherine quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Doing common things uncommonly well.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority...
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

Great men are but common men more fully developed and ripened.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or UKBooks from this quote author on Amazon UK

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.
Email this quotation to a friend     View quote | Marden, Orison Swett quotes
      Related items on Amazon USABooks from this quotation author on Amazon US or