Excellence Quotes - Page 7

• Badness you can get easily, in quantity. The road is smooth and lies close by. But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to do it, and rough at first. But when you come to the top, then it is easy, even though it is hard.

  Hesiod

  Sports, Lying, Sweat

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• Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. It argues no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry without the pleasure of perceiving those advances, which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Men, Hands, Mind

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (2009). “Seven Discourses on Art”, p.36, The Floating Press

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• The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

  Sallust

  Fleeting, Riches, Splendid

  Sallust (1921). “Sallust”

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• I have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle, it's not going to be satisfying.

  Greg LeMond

  Inspirational, Struggle, Cycling

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• Yet Aristotle's excellence of substance, so far from being associated with the grand style, is associated with something that at times comes perilously near jargon.

  Irving Babbitt

  Style, Substance, Jargon

  Irving Babbitt (2005). “On Literature, Cultures, and Religion”, p.108, Transaction Publishers

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• There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Weed, Marijuana, Vices

  'The Good-Natured Man' (1768) act 1

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• You've just got to focus on excellence and try not to be distracted by the news and the rumors and the absurdities of the stories that were coming out.

  James Daly

  Focus, Rumor, Trying

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• 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.

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Running, Horse, Giving

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (2000). “Life's Instructions for Wisdom, Success, and Happiness”, p.189, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• If we want to make something really superb on this planet, there is nothing whatever that can stop us.

  Shepherd Mead

  Want, Planets, Superb

  Shepherd Mead (1974). “How to Get to the Future Before it Gets to You”

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• There is only one boss. The customer.

  Sam Walton

  Business, Loyal Customers, Boss

  "2010 BPM and Workflow Handbook" by Layna Fischer, Future Strategies Inc., (p. 178), 2010.

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• No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did.

  David Halberstam

  America, Quality, Paper

  David Halberstam (2012). “The Powers That Be”, p.538, Open Road Media

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• Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Found

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• Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude

  Colin Powell

  Attitude, Perfection, Prevailing

  Colin L. Powell (1995). “My American Journey”, Random House Incorporated

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• All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners. Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing and not moving toward excellence.

  Denis Waitley

  Life, Education, Moving

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• My philosophy all my life has been the pursuit of excellence.

  John Kluge

  Philosophy, Perfection, Pursuit

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• Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

  Samuel Johnson

  Encouragement, Hard Work, Lifetime

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• Whatever your discipline, become a student of excellence in all things. Take every opportunity to observe people who manifest the qualities of mastery.

  Tony Buzan

  Opportunity, Discipline, People

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• Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.

  Vince Lombardi

  Truth, Mind, Sacred

  Vince Lombardi (2003). “What It Takes to Be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership”, McGraw-Hill Education

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• Some people may have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly, by “doin' what comes naturally”; and they don't stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

  John W. Gardner

  Greatness, Discipline, People

  "Excellence: Can We Be Equal And Excellent Too?".

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• The supreme excellence is not to win a hundred victories in a hundred battles. The supreme excellence is to subdue the armies of your enemies without having to fight them.

  Sun Tzu

  Art, War, Fighting

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• If you truly expect to realize your dreams, abandon the need for blanket approval. If conforming to everyone's expectations is the number one goal, you have sacrificed your uniqueness, and therefore your excellence.

  Hope Solo

  Soccer, Football, Dream

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• Quality doesn't mean we have to be 100 percent better in any one thing; it means we strive to be 1 percent better in 100 things.

  Jan Carlzon

  Mean, Quality, Strive

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• 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.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Stars, Fate, Men

  "Of Personal Merit". "Characters", Book by Jean De La Bruyère, www.ourcivilisation.com. 1688.

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• Losing a game is heartbreaking. Losing your sense of excellence or worth is a tragedy.

  Joe Paterno

  Softball, Sports, Running

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• The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Exaltation, Delight

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.229, Routledge

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