An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

Whoever I am, or whatever I am doing, some kind of excellence is within my reach.

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.

I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.

The cynic says, "One man can't do anything". I say, "Only one man can do anything."

When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.