Excellence Quotes - Page 40

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  Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.

  Peter Drucker

  Organization, Confusion, Three

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• Reducing our dependence on foreign energy - that is critically important to America's economic future. Excellence in education - if we're not the best educated, we're not going to be the most powerful for very long.

  Kent Conrad

  Powerful, America, Long

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• The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.

  Lou Gerstner

  Culture, I Have Learned, Ibm

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• There has to be a way to redirect employee's driving ambition and to channel it more productively. There is. Create heroes in every role. Make every role, performed at excellence, a respected profession.

  Marcus Buckingham

  Hero, Ambition, Roles

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• Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve.

  Marcus Buckingham

  Curves, Hands, Looks

  Marcus Buckingham, Curt Coffman (1999). “First, Break All The Rules: What The Worlds Greatest Managers Do Differently”, p.163, Simon and Schuster

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• What the world calls virtue is a name and a dream without Christ. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer's cross, and in the power of His resurrection.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Dream, Blood, Names

  Frederick William Robertson (1857). “Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton: Second Series”, p.94

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• Humility is the softening shadow before the stature of Excellence, And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Humility, Lovely, Shadow

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1857). “Complete poetical works: containing: Proverbial philosophy, A thousand lines, Hactenus, Geraldine, and miscellaneous poems. With a portrait of the author”, p.41

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• It seems then that it is not the excellence of any two things (or more) in themselves, but those two things as viewed by the light of each other, that makes beauty.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Light, Two, Seems

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Illustrated)”, p.90, Delphi Classics

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• Everybody keeps calling for Excellence - excellence not just in schooling, throughout society. But as soon as somebody or something stands out as Excellent, the other shout goes up: "Elitism!" And whatever produced that thing, whoever praises that result, is promptly put down. "Standing out" is undemocratic.

  Jacques Barzun

  Calling, Praise, Excellent

  "Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning" by Jacques Barzun, ("Schooling No Mystery"), 1991.

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• If you desire a man to tell you comfortable lies about your prowess, and so fetter any hope of true excellence, I'm sure you may find one anywhere. Not all prisons are made of iron bars. Some are made of feather beds.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Lying, Men, Iron

  "The Curse of Chalion". Book by Lois McMaster Bujold, 2001.

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• First, the desert is the country of madness. Second, it is the refuge of the devil, thrown out into the "wilderness of upper Egypt" to "wander in dry places." Thirst drives man mad, and the devil himself is mad with a kind of thirst for his own lost excellence--lost because he has immured himself in it and closed out everything else. So the man who wanders into the desert to be himself must take care that he does not go mad and become the servant of the one who dwells there in a sterile paradise of emptiness and rage.

  Thomas Merton

  Country, Men, Egypt

  Thomas Merton (2011). “Thoughts In Solitude”, p.21, Macmillan

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• Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated.

  Richard Hofstadter

  Needs, Kind, Claims

  Richard Hofstadter (2012). “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life”, p.46, Vintage

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• In urging all writers to be steadfast in reliance on the ultimate victory of excellence, we should no less strenuously urge upon them to beware of the intemperate arrogance which attributes failure to a degraded condition of the public mind. The instinct which leads the world to worship success is not dangerous. The book which succeeds accomplishes its aim. The book which fails may have many excellencies, but they must have been misdirected.

  George Henry Lewes

  Book, Victory, Arrogance

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• Every artist wants his work to be permanent. But what is? The Aswan Dam covered some of the greatest art in the world. Venice is sinking. Great books and pictures were lost in the Florence floods. In the meantime we still enjoy butterflies.

  Romare Bearden

  Happiness, Time, Art

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• Newton expected no money from establishing his originality but rather desired recognition for his excellence.

  Tyler Cowen

  Recognition, Originality, Newton

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• We must die to become true human beings.

  Rumi

  Humans, Dies, Human Beings

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• Happiness comes from the dissolution of the mind, not from external objects. Through meditation we can achieve everything including bliss, health, strength, intelligence and vitality. But it should be practiced properly in solitude and with care.

  Mata Amritanandamayi

  Meditation, Solitude, Mind

  Amritanandamayi (Mata) (1994). “For My Children: Selected Teachings of Divine Mother Ammachi”

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• If the goal is to realize the Supreme Being, you should become egoless. That requires self-effort. The sadhak should work hard. He should pray sincerely for the removal of the negative tendencies. This prayer is not to achieve anything or to fulfill any desires. It is to go beyond all achievements. It is to transcend all desires.

  Mata Amritanandamayi

  Prayer, Hard Work, Self

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• Meditation was invented as a way for the soul to venture inward, there ultimately to find supreme identity with Godhead. Whatever else it does, and it does many beneficial things, meditation is first and foremost a search for the God within.

  Ken Wilber

  Meditation, Soul, Identity

  Ken Wilber (2001). “Grace and Grit: Spirituality and Healing in the Life and Death of Treya Killam Wilber”, p.78, Shambhala Publications

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• Which are you drinking? The water or the wave?

  John Fowles

  Drinking, Water, Wave

  John Fowles (1968). “The Magus”, Pan

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• No good government can ever want more than two things for its support: 1st, Its own excellence; and, 2dly, a people sufficiently instructed, to be aware of that excellence. Every other pretended support, must ultimately tend to its subversion, by lessening its dependence upon these.

  James Mill

  Government, Two, People

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• Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness.

  Leo Strauss

  Greatness, Perfect, Humans

  Leo Strauss (1995). “Liberalism Ancient and Modern”, p.6, University of Chicago Press

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• Dostoevsky believed that the gods of rationalism and materialist utilitarianism had joined in conspiracy against all other ethical systems. ... The accumulation of capital, or the acquisition of money, are endeavors par excellence which establish a quantifiable goal: hence they are directly amenable to maximization formulae.

  John Carroll

  Goal, Acquisition, Ethical

  John Carroll (2010). “Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky”, p.120, Taylor & Francis

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• There may be one fault in a man that conceals a thousand qualities, or one excellence that conceals a thousand faults. The little indicates much.

  Shams Tabrizi

  Men, Quality, May

  "Me and Rumi: The Autobiography of Shams-I Tabrizi". Book by Shams Tabrizi, translated by William C. Chittick, 2004.

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• If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It makes you go into detail that you can avoid. It takes a lot of energy out of you but that's the only way you finally actually achieve excellence. So in that sense, being finicky is essential.

  J. R. D. Tata

  Perfection, Essentials, Want

  "JRD Tata — A retrospective". tata.com. July 29, 2004.

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