Mediocrity Quotes - Page 2

In the race of life I would rather to be around the best and sink than to be around mediocrity and swim.

I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can’t graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us.

Get off the treadmill of consumption, replication, and mediocrity. Begin lifting the weights of creativity, originality, and success.

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government.

Too often, we put up with mediocrity, telling ourselves that later in life we’ll do what we want.

Mediocrity is the companion of passivity and will not heed the call of great things. Courage is the companion of sacrifice and cannot help but heed the call of great things. And we are left of our own accord to choose one or the other.

If you stay passionate and committed, mediocrity will never be eager to befriend you.

Mediocrity is a pit that swallows people who have rested on seats of complacency for long.

It's because I haven't courage,' said Samuel. 'I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called his name - but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.''I'd think there are degrees of greatness,' Adam said.'I don't think so,' said Samuel. 'That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other - cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He's suffering over the choosing right now. It's a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn't that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.

Stumbling towards greatness is better than sprinting towards mediocrity.

The general air of insecurity and affection made it too easy for him to imagine these once-a-year fabulous creatures as the cubicle dwellers most of them were in everyday life.

So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.

The world admires wealth and velocity—these are the things for which everyone strives. Railroads, the post, steamboats, and all possible modes of communication are the means by which the world overeducates itself and freezes itself in mediocrity.

There exist words of mediocrity, songs of mediocrity, and life lessons of mediocrity. Advice of mediocrity, books of mediocrity and companions of mediocrity are also available.One may also meet songs of purpose that can make us ponder to wonder and advice filled with authority to dare in life. We may also hear life lessons that can challenge and change us. What do you listen to? If what you listen to will not make you, it will mar you.

He knows how to market himself well. Nowadays, that's all that seems to count. He's rebellious in a way that appeals to people with vain, shallow taste. So of course he manipulates his audiences with the blessing of his recording company and the financial investors behind his brand.

God doesn't call us to mediocrity. He calls us to a greater standard that doesn't teach us to tear people down to reach him, but to lift others up. Be the type of person that when people walk away from you, they know who you represent!

A gifted violin player in danger of becoming a virtuoso and thus too attached to his instrument handed it over to the Oneida authorities and never played again. When a visiting Canadian teacher complained that the community did not foster “genius or special talent,” Noyes was delighted, replying, “We never expected or desired to produce a Byron, a Napoleon, or a Michelangelo.” You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.

Change makers take risks and are ready to die for excellence than to give excuses and live for mediocrity.

We think that boxes take everything that’s bad and they lock all that nasty stuff out, when in reality they take everything that we are and they lock all of those great things in.

They did not ask my permission for their mediocrity, why should I ask theirs for excellence?

In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.

Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign, and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness.

The uncertainties in life are so uncertain for us to determine the kind of woe we shall be entangled in in the next future. When you stay dormant, your life is at risk; when you dare to take a step, you take a step to take a risk. We have a choice. Yes! a choice to choose to dare to get to our real reasons on earth or to choose to live in mediocrity and conformity, but, we ought to note that, it is riskier to risk nothing when the life we live is always at risk

Surrender is a choice, it is never a calling.

The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, a priori, abnormal.

Negotiation is permissible for mediocrity not for excellence.

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

An important step in escaping mediocrity is to stop worrying about what other people think of you.

Step out of the crowd of average people. Enter that game and change the values on the scoreboard.

question the status quo; rebuke the existing rules, though it may be at the discomfort of the masses. They may however come to a later realization that it was really worth it and you may now have the status quo

Leaders do not conform; they reform. If you conform, you are nurturing mediocrity. If you reform, you are breeding change.

If life gives you a passport size dream, don't frame it... Order for a reprint... Go for the bigger picture of you! You deserve a bigger and bright image of you... Go and soar like an eagle!

The spirit of excellence exorcises the demon of mediocrity.

If you are not angry with your average performance, you can't effect a change! You must get upset to grab the energy to break the fence confining you!

The thorny path to greatness is better than the rosy path to mediocrity.

Greatness begins where mediocrity ends.

When you lower the definition of success to such a level that any person can reach it, you don’t teach people to have big dreams; instead you inspirit mediocrity and nurture people’s inadequacies.

One of the most terrifying questions of all might be, ‘Will I unleash myself to live before death unleashes me from the ability to be unleashed?’ And in retrospect, maybe it’s not the question that’s terrifying. Maybe what’s terrifying is the answer.

Do no drown me with mediocrity, give me passion, desire, make me inhale breaths of lust and love in the dark hours that tingle down my spine...

Generally places that are comfortable with excellence don’t call themselves centers of excellence. Has anyone heard of a Princeton University Center of Excellence? Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of Excellence?

As I contemplate a relationship with God, I find that I’m afraid to ride on the coattails of the infinite. But what I fear more than that is spending my life in the coat closet.

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.

The high cost of greatness is better than the low cost of mediocrity.

Comfort is not a goal that I seek, rather it is a place that I hide.

Do not go for conformity that breeds mediocrity! Choose instead to stand for transformation that does not only transforms lives, but true purpose and living as well.

fear is dangerous but fear is good

Apathy is giving up when we need to get up.

If truth be told, the easy road is nothing more than an armchair in clever disguise. And if you look around, it seems that there are a whole lot of people in the furniture business.

By choosing comfort we are in the very same decision choosing to miss every great thing in life, and that thought should be anything but comforting.

If we’re honest, what makes something impossible is not our fear. Rather, it is our indifference.

Mediocrity comforts the masses. Mediocrity is a likeable attribute.

Comparing ourselves instead of taking lessons from ourselves is not only a catalyst to diminishing our true purpose but also a great ingredient to thinking negative and staying in mediocrity

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

Integrity is the antithesis of compromise and the sworn enemy of comfort. It bases its decisions not on how much discomfort we might be able to avoid, but on how much we need to avoid the compromise of comfort.

There are no intermediaries when it comes to matters of change. Anyone who is not for change is against it. Anyone who is against change is an enemy of nature!

Often we don’t see the majesty of God’s design because we’re caught up in the mediocrity of our own designs.

We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.

for me, to say I yet to begin gives me reasons not to look back and see what I have done but ,to look ahead and see, understand and plan for what I am yet to do

Birds that cannot fly high into the sky rejoice exceedingly and sing sweet melodies when they get to the top of the tallest tree on the highest mountain!

The dividing line between those who will be great and those who will be mediocre is the amount of time each person converts into added value to himself.