Quotes About Excellence

As the excellence of steel is strength, and the excellence of art is beauty, so the excellence of mankind is moral character.

Perfectionism is the counterfeit of excellence. Excellence is Kingdom, while perfectionism is religion. What ever you do, do it with all you might, and as unto the Lord. That is excellence.

I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.

Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!

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.

The secret of living a life of excellence is merely a matter of thinking thoughts of excellence. Really, it's a matter of programming our minds with the kind of information that will set us free.

I just want to keep having the courage to raise the bar for myself, and to keep striving for excellence in artistic integrity and public service. And to continue to challenge myself to move outside of my comfort zone, personally and professionally.

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters.

When a team outgrows individual performance and learns team confidence, excellence becomes a reality.

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will... An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

Ancient history, besides the still unequalled excellence of the writers, is the best instrument for cultivating the historical sense.

The gold standard makes the money's purchasing power independent of the changing, ambitions and doctrines of political parties and pressure groups. This is not a defect of the gold standard; it is its main excellence.

Failure is the price of excellence.

Excellence is my presence. Never tense, never hesitant.

It is said that it takes 10,000 hours to develop mastery and excellence. How many hours have you clocked today on your passion?

I think that more diversity is a good thing, and fresh points of view articulated by people who are committed to excellence in journalism is a beneficial change in the American media landscape.

To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. Now the only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature, and for uniformity in general, is to suppose them results of evolution.

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

When [the saints] perform actions to God, then the soul says: 'Oh! that I could do what pleases God!' When they come to suffer any cross: 'Oh, that what God does might please me!' I labour to do what pleases God, and I labour that what God does shall please me: here is a Christian indeed, who shall endeavour both these. It is but one side of a Christian to endeavour to do what pleases God; you must as well endeavour to be pleased with what God does, and so you will come to be a complete Christian when you can do both, and that is the first thing in the excellence of this grace of contentment.

If you ever come to one of my seminars, you will notice I have volunteer workers. When I work with individuals like that, I expect a level of excellence displayed. Everything has to be done perfectly.

You cannot learn very much about excellence from studying failure.

The piano is the social instrument par excellence... drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which the young are tortured in the name of education and the grown-up in the name of entertainment.

Your character is your destiny. Building character is a task for the brave and dedicated. There are no shortcuts when it comes to building character. If you wish to cure minimalism in your own life, to develop a complete commitment to excellence and an absolute rejection of mediocrity, the question you need to start asking yourself is, "What is the most I can do?"

To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

Find something that you're really interested in doing in your life. Pursue it, set goals, and commit yourself to excellence. Do the best you can.

Excellence in life seems to me to be the way in which each human being makes the most of the adventure of living and becomes most truly and deeply himself, fulfilling his own nature in the context of a good life with other people.

Beyoncé means so much to me. Throughout my transition, Beyoncé has been there as a style icon, an example of excellence, of beauty, of vulnerability. She's shared so much of herself, and it's inspiring.

Demand perfection of yourself and you'll seldom attain it. Fear of making a mistake is the biggest single cause of making one. Relax - pursue excellence, not perfection.

Even though . . . 9/11 happened because . . . Bush's FBI and CIA did not detect the Al Qaeda conspiracy . . . , Bush not only failed to apologize to the nation or the victims' survivors, he demonstrated his total lack of leadership by refusing to fire or even criticize those in these agencies who, like Bush, let this nation down. As in private life, to stimulate excellence, good performances have to be rewarded and gross negligence and incompetence punished.

You have achieved excellence as a leader when people will follow you anywhere if only out of curiosity.

I think everyone is their harshest critic, but I strive for excellence as much as I can because I think it shows.

I think there's inherently an issue that models will literally never be able to handle, which is that when somebody comes along with a new way of doing something that's really excellent, the models will not recognize it. They only know how to recognize excellence when they can measure it somehow.

Excellence is a choice, and you must make that choice over and over again until "doing your best" is all you know.

The brave are born from the brave and good. In steers and in horses is to be found the excellence of their sire; nor do savage eagles produce a peaceful dove.

Since the birth of our nation, the steady performance of the Marine Corps in fighting America's battles has made it the very symbol of military excellence. The Corps has come to be recognized worldwide as an elite force of fighting men, renowned for their physical endurance, for their high level of obedience, and for the fierce pride they take, as individuals, in the capacity for self discipline.

What is our praise or pride but to imagine excellence and try to make it? What does it say over the door of heaven; but, homo (sapiens) fecit?

We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

Those who serve upon our juries have maintained a standard of fairness and excellence and demonstrated a vision toward the administration of justice that is a wellspring of inspiration.

Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in defeating the enemy without ever fighting.

Excellence is going the extra mile.

The virtues [moral excellence] therefore are engendered in us neither by nature nor yet in violation of nature; nature gives us the capacity to receive them, and this capacity is brought to maturity by habit.

I want my name to be a brand in comedy. I hope my name stands for comedic excellence.

There is no excellence in archery without great labour.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

Be aware that even before you have reached your ultimate professional destination, if you always strive for excellence, you can and should have a substantial impact on the world in which you live.

We need excellence in public education and if the teachers can't do it, we'll send in a couple of policemen.

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.