Quotes and Sayings About Excellence
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Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
-- A. E. Housman -
Excellence is a continuous process and not an accident.
-- Abdul Kalam -
I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?
-- Adriana TrigianiSource : Adriana Trigiani (2010). “Viola in Reel Life”, p.36, Simon and Schuster
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Neither a life of anarchy nor one beneath a despot should you praise; to all that lies in the middle a god has given excellence.
-- Aeschylus -
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The pursuit of perfection is frustrating and a waste of time, because nothing is ever perfect. The pursuit of excellence is commendable and worthwhile. Therefore strive for excellence not perfection.
-- Alan Kulwicki -
The Dark Side of the Moon has flash - the true flash that comes from the excellence of a superb performance.
-- Alan Parsons -
Reading is the occupation of the insomniac par excellence.
-- Alberto Manguel -
What's wrong with creative block? Might it not just be that periods--even extended ones--of productive hiatus are essential mechanisms of gestation designed to help us attain higher standards in our pursuit of creative excellence?
-- Alexi Murdoch -
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PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Tenacious practice, practice, practice is crucial for excellence; rote repetition is underrated in America.
-- Amy ChuaSource : Amy Chua (2011). “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, Bloomsbury Publishing
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Nike has always been a business about excellence and achievement.
-- Andrew Young -
Recognise excellence. Celebrate weirdness and innovation. Oddballs should be cherished, if they can do something other people can't do.
-- Anthony Bourdain -
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I want to explore and do things with excellence. I want to write songs that resonate with me and will resonate with a live audience. I'm exploring fresh sounds.
-- Anthony EvansSource : "A conversation with recording artist and The Voice contestant Anthony Evans". Interview with Chad Bonham, www.beliefnet.com.
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Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence.
-- Anthony HechtSource : Anthony Hecht (2012). “Collected Earlier Poems”, p.72, Knopf
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I believe in striving for excellence. I sweat the big and small stuff! I do not apologize for this.
-- Anthony S. Fauci -
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation.
-- Aristotle -
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If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.
-- Aristotle -
There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness.
-- Aristotle -
Happiness is the utilization of one's talents along lines of excellence.
-- Aristotle -
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.
-- Aristotle -
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Of cases where a man is truthful both in speech and conduct when no considerations of honesty come in, from an habitual sincerity of disposition. Such sincerity may be esteemed a moral excellence; for the lover of truth, who is truthful even when nothing depends on it, will a fortiori be truthful when some interest is at stake, since having all along avoided falsehood for its own sake, he will assuredly avoid it when it is morally base; and this is a disposition that we praise.
-- Aristotle -
a masterpiece doesn't so much transcend its time as perpetuate it; it keeps its moment alive.
-- Arlene CroceSource : Arlene Croce (2003). “Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker: An Arlene Croce Reader”, p.129, Macmillan
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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!
-- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. -
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The Grammys are supposed to be awards for artistic excellence… Iggy Azalea’s not excellent,
-- Azealia BanksSource : "Azealia Banks And Iggy Azalea Are Going At It Again" by Adam Fleischer, www.mtv.com. December 19, 2014.
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There is none who cannot teach somebody something, and there is none so excellent but he is excelled.
-- Baltasar Gracian -
I'm not interested in a marketable product: I'm interested in what I know from my life experience to be standards of excellence
-- Barney Kessel -
One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once, life would collapse. There are simply no definitive answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light.
-- Barry Lopez -
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All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant.
-- Bayard Taylor