Quotes on Mediocrity

The business world worships mediocrity. Officially we revere free enterprise, initiative and individuality. Unofficially we fear it.

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.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

Being realistic is the most commonly traveled road to mediocrity. Why would you be realistic? What's the point of being realistic? I'm going to do it. It's done. It's already done. The second I decide it's done, it's already done.

Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I'm not afraid of total failure because I don't think that will happen. I'm not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It's being in the middle that scares me.

"Mediocrity" doesn't mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.

Minds of moderate caliber ordinarily condemn everthing which is beyond their range.

The boy gathers materials for a temple, and then when he is thirty, concludes to build a woodshed.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet's bombast!

The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.

Some Christians want enough of Christ to be identified with him but not enough to be seriously inconvenienced; they genuinely cling to basic Christian orthodoxy but do not want to engage in serious Bible study; they value moral probity, especially of the public sort, but do not engage in war against inner corruptions; they fret over the quality of the preacher's sermon but do not worry much over the quality of their own prayer life. Such Christians are content with mediocrity.

Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

Every memorable act in the history of the world is a triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it because it gives any challenge or any occupation, no mater how frightening or difficult, a new meaning. Without enthusiasm you are doomed to a life of mediocrity but with it you can accomplish miracles

Ninety-nine percent of people believe they can't do great things, so they aim for mediocrity.

Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world.

Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it's a lot easier to launch work that matters.

Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with Women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmered Dorian.