Mediocrity Quotes - Page 21

• I just wanted friends. I just wanted people to like me. I just wanted for things to be simple and good. So, for five years I actively sought out mediocrity.

  Evangeline Lilly

  Simple, Years, People

  Source: www.justjared.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Mean-spirited mediocrities, especially those with a smattering of learning, are the most likely to be opinionated. Only strong minds know how to correct their opinions and abandon a bad position.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Strong, Mean, Learning

  5 Copy quote

• There is a certain hidden mediocrity in those who are stationed above us in life, an ability to take liberties in their pursuit of pleasures and diversions, without injuring the honor and respect we owe to them.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Life, Respect, Honor

  7 Copy quote

• I made a conscious decision when I was about 17 years old to strive towards mediocrity. I completely abandoned the idea of grandeur and importance, and I wanted to be mediocre.

  Evangeline Lilly

  Ideas, Years, Decision

  Source: www.justjared.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any.

  Pliny the Younger

  Art, Skills, Perfection

  Pliny (the Younger) (1807). “The Letters of Pliny the Consul: With Occasional Remarks”, p.195

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Over and over again mediocrity is promoted because real worth isn't to be found.

  Kathleen Norris

  Real, Found

  Kathleen Thompson Norris (1931). “Hands Full of Living: Talks with American Women”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Think you are weak, think you lack what it takes, think you will lose, think you are second class - think this way and you are doomed to mediocrity.

  David J. Schwartz

  Thinking, Class, Way

  David J. Schwartz (2014). “The Magic of Thinking Big”, p.118, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Probability is a kind of penance, which God made, suitable, I presume to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness, and liableness to error.

  John Locke

  Kindness, Errors, Might

  5 Copy quote

• We are the mediocre, we are the half givers, we are the half lovers, we are the savourless salt. Break the hard crust of complacency. Quicken in us the sharp grace of desire.

  Caryll Houselander

  Grace, Desire, Complacency

  Caryll Houselander (1945). “The Flowering Tree”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Parodies are hard to do well, as is shown by the mediocrity of so many recent attempts. No matter how ripe a genre is for satirizing, unless you know how to do it, there are no guarantees.

  James Berardinelli

  Genre Is, Guarantees, Matter

  "Robin Hood: Men in Tights (United States, 1993)". Movie review, www.reelviews.net.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.

  Ilana Mercer

  Party, Writing, Thinking

  "National Review Eunuchs". www.wnd.com. April 12, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.

  Indro Montanelli

  Democracy, Triumph, Constitution

  10 Copy quote

• We often reward mediocrity because it is comforting. If they can do it, anyone can do it.

  Jessica Zafra

  Comforting, Rewards, Can Do

  8 Copy quote

• In business, what distinguishes leaders from laggards and greatness from mediocrity is the ability to uniquely imagine what could be.

  Robert Fritz

  Greatness, Leader, Imagine

  9 Copy quote

• Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.

  Gore Vidal

  Business, Useless Stuff, Time Management

  10 Copy quote

• In the age of mediocrity and clones, John Stowell's uniqueness and originality are a breath of fresh air. I love playing with him.

  Paul Horn

  Air, Age, Originality

  4 Copy quote

• The industrial age brought compliance and compliance brought fear and fear brought us mediocrity.

  Seth Godin

  Age, Compliance

  25 Copy quote

• Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it.

  Graham Cooke

  Passion, Invisible, Shows

  FaceBook post by Graham Cooke from Mar 06, 2011

  87 Copy quote

  Show source

• Greatness is always envied - it is only mediocrity that can boast of a host of friends.

  Marie Corelli

  Greatness, Envy, Host

  Marie Corelli (1972). “Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct”, p.332, Health Research Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you recall when [John] Kennedy passed an edict, 'Every person you hire in the Post Office must be African American,' the challenge with that is if all of a sudden, you are hired just because of the color of your skin, ability has nothing to do with it.And if ability has nothing to do with it, what does it do? It promotes mediocrity.

  Rafael Cruz

  Color, Office, African American

  Source: www.buzzfeed.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity.

  Herbert Hoover

  Mean, Men, Modern Life

  Herbert Hoover (1938). “Addresses upon the American road”, C. Scribner's sons

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When Americans decry our politicians, we must remember that ultimately, politicians reflect us. When we demand more than mediocrity - and the passing comforts it bestows - we will certainly attain it. One hopes and prays it doesn't take an historic crisis for us to demand and reward excellence in public service.

  James M Strock

  Excellence, Comfort, Praying

  4 Copy quote

• Neat trick: to be roused to ambition and reconciled to one's mediocrity at the same time.

  Mason Cooley

  Time, Ambition, Tricks

  5 Copy quote

• Attaining even mediocrity is often a struggle.

  Mason Cooley

  Struggle, Achievement

  4 Copy quote

• Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra - the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities...

  H. P. Blavatsky

  Tyrants, Public Opinion, Hydra

  75 Copy quote