Quotes About Excellence

To capture the enemy's entire army is better than to destroy it; to take intact a regiment, a company, or a squad is better than to destroy them. For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the supreme of excellence. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.

The educational process should not be one of homogenizing. It should be one of encouraging excellence... when we fail to make financial aid depend upon performance, we eliminate the incentive to excellence.

In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence.

It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

Excellence in one area is the beginning of excellence in every area.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

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!

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Top to bottom Michigan is about excellence, greatness. You have my pledge I will carry forward the excellence of Michigan football.

No good government can ever want more than two things for its support: 1st, Its own excellence; and, 2dly, a people sufficiently instructed, to be aware of that excellence. Every other pretended support, must ultimately tend to its subversion, by lessening its dependence upon these.

Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human goodness, since the good or happiness which we set out to seek was human good and human happiness. But human goodness means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of body.

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

The implausible, well-nigh-miraculous functioning anarchy that we know as New York is adorned with every excellence of Western art. It is a city of manifold suggestions, which ministers to every ambition, engenders a thousand talents, nurtures ingenuity and experimentation.

Many people can reach for and achieve excellence. To do this consistently is what separates masters and geniuses from everyone else.

All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.

The Dark Side of the Moon has flash - the true flash that comes from the excellence of a superb performance.

There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence.

Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly quite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded.

The power of excellence is overwhelming. It is always in demand, and nobody cares about its color.

Excellence is a process, not just an outcome. Sure, we have to hold out for high standards in the products or services we provide. The goods must be more than "good enough." But so must our approach - you know, our methodology, the way we do business and deal with people. How could the ends be considered excellent if we can't be proud of the means?

Usually I object when someone makes over-much of men's work versus women's work, for I think it is the excellence of the results which counts.

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.

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

What house, bloated with luxury, ever became prosperous without a woman's excellence?

As its best, SF is the medium in which our miserable certainty that tomorrow will be different from today in ways we cant predict, can be transmuted to a sense of excitement and anticipation, occasionally evolving into awe. Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it is par excellence the literature of the open mind.

Lack of respect for the worker. This nourishes disconnection, fear, anger, phoniness, and all the bad stuff that impedes excellence.

Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness. The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom-loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy.

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.

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

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit.

Education, they [philosophers] felt, is the only answer to the always pressing question, to the political question par excellence, of how to reconcile order which is not oppression with freedom which is not license.

Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit

It is not quite true that there are no good letters written in America: among my own circle of correspondents there, there are ladies and gentlemen whose letters would stand a comparison with any for frankness, grace, and epistolary beauty of every kind. But I am not aware of any medium between this excellence and the boarding-school insignificance which characterizes the rest.

No good book or good thing of any kind shows it best face at first. No the most common quality of in a true work of art that has excellence and depth, is that at first sight it produces a certain disappointment.

But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence.

The future is too soon the past. So make perseverance your excellence and go confidently in the direction of your dreams.

I've always had that obsessive will to win and a commitment to excellence.

A centre of excellence is, by definition, a place where second class people may perform first class work.

To be well skilled in the mystery of Christian contentment is the duty, glory and excellence of a Christian.

If we are to keep our flock at the highest pitch of excellence, there should be as many unions of the best of both sexes, and as few of the inferior as possible, and that only the offspring of the better unions should be kept.

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

Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.

I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers...creativity above fact regurgitation...individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance..... And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy.

Because of its independence of surface limitations and its superior speed the airplane is the offensive weapon par excellence.

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.

I don't want to cower at somebody's interpretation of what I'm about. I'm supposed to be doing it and I'm going to throw this word out there-with excellence. There's no reason for me to give anything less that all I've got in everything I do. That's scriptural. For me, that's the foundation of who I am.

Pursue excellence; ignore success.

The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, which highlights customer satisfaction, workforce empowerment, and increased productivity, has come to symbolize America's commitment to excellence.