Mediocrity Quotations | Page 3

The mediocrity with which Africa has been ruled is responsible for its underdevelopment.

I've always sworn that not having enough money has saved me from mediocrity.

Trying to be cool is the easiest path to mediocrity

We live in an age of mediocrity.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three. Even among men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was.

In business, what distinguishes leaders from laggards and greatness from mediocrity is the ability to uniquely imagine what could be.

He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

Mediocrity is not worth the trip.

They filled us full of false illusions and promiscuity, and they led us down that class-less road of mediocrity.

You have not yet learned that in this life you have to be like everyone else: the perfect mediocrity--no better, no worse. Individuality is a monster and it must be strangled in its cradle to make our friends feel comfortable.

In sum, all actions and habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the commonwealth, and not by their mediocrity, nor by their being commended. For several men praise several customs, and, contrarily, what one calls vice, another calls virtue, as their present affections lead them.

But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation.

We only rise above mediocrity when there's something at stake. p. 174

Certainly that sputterless little candleflame of the mediocre mind known as 'common sense' has never produced anything worth celebrating.

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.

When something is just bad, it's often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't attempted to do anything really outlandish.

It is a lack of commitment, not a lack of talent, that damns you to mediocrity.

We will meet our challenges head on and we will do it by rejecting the politics of mediocrity and corruption. You voted for change; I intend to deliver it. ... I will govern as a reformer.

A fiery, good beginner always stands higher than a master in mediocrity...

What was alien was being ordinary, being humdrum, being trapped into appeasing...having to crush and stifle my opinions, not being allowed to be brilliant, tricking myself into mediocrity.

We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity.

You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.

The amount of financial and imaginative energy that's put into mediocrity is just amazing, which I find to be fundamentally offensive as a human being.

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper.

Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success.

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity.

Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions.

in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.

Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity.

Something deep in the human heart breaks at the thought of a life of mediocrity.

As a rule, the man who can do all things equally well is a very mediocre individual.

Caricature is the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius.

When we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.

Leaders set high standards. Refuse to tolerate mediocrity or poor performance.

Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it.

Attain and maintain a reputation, for it is the usufruct of fame. A stiff climb, for it is the issue of excellence, as rare as mediocrity is common.

Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.

Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.

Unpretending mediocrity is good, and genius is glorious; but a weak flavor of genius in an essentially common person is detestable. It spoils the grand neutrality of a commonplace character, as the rinsings of an unwashed wine-glass spoil a draught of fair water.

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.

Nothing is to be had for gold but mediocrity

It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one's neighbor.

That, however, is - mediocrity, though it be called moderation.

The greatest secret in the world is that you only have to be a small measurable amount better than mediocrity ...and you've got it made.

Without enthusiasm you are doomed to a life of mediocrity, but with it you can accomplish miracles.

A mathematician of the first rank, Laplace quickly revealed himself as only a mediocre administrator; from his first work we saw that we had been deceived. Laplace saw no question from its true point of view; he sought subtleties everywhere; had only doubtful ideas, and finally carried the spirit of the infinitely small into administration.

One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.

Nobody rises above mediocrity unless they use the brains of other people.

The person who stops studying merely because he has finished school is forever hopelessly doomed to mediocrity, no matter what may be his calling. The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

Mediocrity is the worst enemy of prosperity.

Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.

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

Mediocrity is the most effective mask a superior spirit can wear, because to the great majority, which is to say, to the mediocre,it will not suggest a disguise:--and yet it is precisely for their sake that he puts it on--so as not to arouse them, and, indeed, not infrequently to avoid this out of pity and benevolence.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.

If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism, if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend upon it, the truth is not found in such a writer.

Caricature is the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius.

Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

The English public always feels perfectly at ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.

I've known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way to mediocrity! But you'll never get beyond it.

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

There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.

No wonder we are all more or less pleased with mediocrity, since it leaves us at rest, and gives the same comfortable feeling as when one associates with his equals.

Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you.

Let others lead small lives, but not you

Probability is a kind of penance, which God made, suitable, I presume to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness, and liableness to error.

Don't settle for mediocrity; never let good enough be good enough.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.

Be the best, but get ready to be attacked. Only mediocrity is safe.

Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.

Just as your hand has the power to hide the sun, mediocrity has the power to hide your inner light. Do not blame others for your own incompetence.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

The thinker without a paradox is like a lover without a feeling: a paltry mediocrity.

The height of mediocrity is still low.

The overwhelming pressure of mediocrity, sluggish and indomitable as a glacier, will mitigate the most violent, and depress the most exalted revolution.

Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

Being realistic is the quickest path to 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.