Mediocrity Quotes - Page 10

• It is not a question of skimming the surface of the art, it must be probed to its depths, for to seize upon superficial things only is to degenerate into mediocrity and obscurity.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Art, Superficial Things, Ballet

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• It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.

  Pope John Paul II

  Jesus, Catholic, Desire

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• We will meet our challenges head on and we will do it by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and corruption. You voted for change; I intend to deliver it. ... I will govern as a reformer.

  Rod Blagojevich

  Challenges, Corruption, Reformers

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• There are no such men today. We have created a mechanism that makes it practically impossible for a real genius to appear. In my own field the biochemist Fritz Lipmann or the much maligned Linus Pauling were very talented people. But generally, geniuses everywhere seem to have died out by 1914. Today, most are mediocrities blown up by the winds of the time.

  Erwin Chargaff

  Real, Men, Wind

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• A village in a country which is taking pains to become altogether standardized and pure, which aspires to succeed Victorian England as the chief mediocrity of the world, is no longer merely provincial, no longer downy and restful in its leaf-shadowed ignorance. It is a force seeking to conquer the earth. Sure of itself, it bullies other civilizations, as a traveling salesman in a brown derby conquers the wisdom of China and tacks advertisements of cigarettes over arches for centuries dedicated to the sayings of Confucius.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Country, Pain, Ignorance

  "Main Street". Book by Sinclair Lewis, 1920.

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• It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity.

  Peter Drucker

  Moving, Excellence, Energy

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• Let some holy ambition invade our souls, so that, dissatisfied with mediocrity, we shall eagerly desire the highest things and shall toil with all our strength to obtain them, since we may if we wish.

  Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

  Ambition, Soul, Wish

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• Today I begin a new life. Today I shed my old skin which hath, too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity. Today I am born anew and my birthplace is a vineyard where there is fruit for all.

  Og Mandino

  Long, Skins, Vineyards

  Og Mandino (2011). “The Greatest Salesman in the World”, p.45, Bantam

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• Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.

  Robin Sharma

  Dream, Greatness, Mind

  Robin Sharma (2003). “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny”, p.133, Jaico Publishing House

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• Rules are foolish, arbitrary, mindless things that raise you quickly to a level of acceptable mediocrity, then prevent you from progressing further.

  Bruce Barnbaum

  Progress, Arbitrary, Levels

  Bruce Barnbaum (2017). “The Art of Photography, 2nd Edition: A Personal Approach to Artistic Expression”, p.165, Rocky Nook, Inc.

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• If you have to fear something, fear mediocrity.

  Alex Bogusky

  Ifs

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• In an age of militant mediocrity, an 'extremist' is anyone who takes a position.

  John Loeffler

  Age, Position, Extremist

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• Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you, and makes everything else possible. With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.

  Brian Tracy

  Blessing, Opportunity, Greatness

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• The person who stops studying merely because he has finished school is forever hopelessly doomed to mediocrity, no matter what may be his calling. The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

  Napoleon Hill

  School, Forever, Matter

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.72, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

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• Ultimately, everyone has to ask himself or herself how they're going to fail. We all do, you know, so let's get that out of the way. The choice isn't between success and failure; it's between choosing risk and striving for greatness, or risking nothing and being certain of mediocrity.

  Keith Ferrazzi

  Greatness, Choices, Risk

  Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz (2014). “Never Eat Alone, Expanded and Updated: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time”, p.61, Crown Business

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• I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.

  Ernst Lubitsch

  Sometimes, Said, Standards

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you’re not failing from time to time, you’re not pushing yourself. And if you’re not pushing yourself, you’re coasting.

  Eric Zorn

  Pushing, Tickets, Fear Of Failure

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• Homo sapiens Yuck You contemporary fools laugh at religious and political lies spewed by sociopaths, lies that tether you forever to poverty and mediocrity. Yet, when your ears come upon the truth, the facts of life, you hide your faces and cry, not able

  Bobby Miller

  Religious, Lying, Laughing

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• Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?

  George Eliot

  Men, Average, Careers

  George Eliot (1883). “The Essays of George Eliot”, p.34, Jazzybee Verlag

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• It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that.

  Joseph Sobran

  Morning, Exercise, Men

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• If you want to earn a million bucks a year, eliminate mediocrity from your thinking and your life.

  John Assaraf

  Thinking, Years, Want

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• We need imagination in programming, not sterility; creativity, not imitation; experimentation, not conformity; excellence, not mediocrity. Television is filled with creative, imaginative people. You must strive to set them free.

  Newton N. Minow

  Creativity, People, Imagination

  Television and the Public Interest, delivered 9 May 1961, National Association of Broadcasters, Washington, DC

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• But if it's tolerable mediocrity, and you're like, 'Well, you know it could be worse. At least I'm getting paid.' Then you wind up in a job that is slowly killing your soul and you're allowing that to happen. Comfort can be a very, very dangerous thing.

  Tim Ferriss

  Jobs, Wind, Soul

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• As a homosexual, my job is simply to sodomize mediocrity.

  Bradford Cox

  Jobs, Homosexual

  "Bradford Cox Talks "Shocking" Minneapolis Show" by Jenn Pelly, pitchfork.com. March 7, 2012.

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• It's true he was a sinner. But don't pass so final a judgement. Have pity in your heart and don't forget that he may yet be an Augustine, while you remain just another mediocrity.

  Josemaria Escriva

  Heart, Judgement, Saint

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