Excellence Quotes - Page 31

• As far as the job of President goes, its rewarding and I've given before this group the definition of happiness for the Greeks. I'll define it again: the full use of your powers along lines of excellence. I find, therefore, that the Presidency provides some happiness.

  John F. Kennedy

  Happiness, Jobs, Greek

  4 Copy quote

• We do not do well except when we know where the best is and when we are assured that we have touched it and hold its power within us.

  Joseph Joubert

  Power, Wells, Assured

  4 Copy quote

• But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great.

  Andy Hertzfeld

  Leadership, Passion, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• Love is the bond of perfection.

  John Winthrop

  Love, Ties, Perfection

  John Winthrop, Richard S. Dunn, Laetitia Yeandle (1996). “The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649”, p.5, Harvard University Press

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perfection irritates as well as it attracts, in fiction as in life.

  Louis Auchincloss

  Perfection, Fiction, Wells

  1965 Pioneers and Caretakers: A Study of Nine American Women Novelists.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I work, I work. I don't think about anything else. I just wanna get the work done. And I'm a perfectionist.

  Coco Lee

  Thinking, Perfection, Done

  7 Copy quote

• People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.

  Paul Simon

  Alaska, People, Perfection

  6 Copy quote

• PERFECTION, n. An imaginary state of quality distinguished from the actual by an element known as excellence; an attribute of the critic.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Perfection, Quality, Elements

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.161, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that'll kill you. You're just in this murk. And you're with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it's just like you're in this plastic bag and you can't quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.

  Neko Case

  Depression, Skills, People

  4 Copy quote

• It is those who have this imperative demand for the best in their natures, and who will accept nothing short of it, that holds the banners of progress, that set the standards, the ideals, for others.

  Orison Swett Marden

  Motivational, Nature, Progress

  Orison Swett Marden (2007). “Do It to a Finish!”, p.19, Cosimo, Inc.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nobody I know is as committed to excellence as Donald Palmisano. He symbolizes everything that is good about our country. If Horatio Alger were alive today, heʼd want to be just like Dr. Palmisano, one of the true Renaissance men Iʼve had the privilege and pleasure of knowing! On Leadership continues in his tradition of excellence.

  Paul Galanti

  Country, Men, Knowing

  4 Copy quote

• And with a few moments like that, with doubt from here and there, and within ourselves we were just striving for excellence. We had somehow understood and felt that all the musicians who would come to the House later on, that all the singers, the big artists, were striving for excellence in their life and we thought a house for them, there’s no limit to the excellence it should have because it should match their strive for perfection

  Jørn Utzon

  Artist, Should Have, Perfection

  42 Copy quote

• I believe excellence is being able to perform at a high level over and over.

  Jay-Z

  Believe, Levels, Able

  23 Copy quote

• Anyone who has achieved excellence in any form knows that it comes as a result of ceaseless concentration.

  Louise Brooks

  Form, Results, Concentration

  68 Copy quote

• If you strive for excellence, success will follow

  Shreya Ghoshal

  Strive, Ifs

  21 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Turner

  War, Democracy, Canada

  John Turner's speech at Liberal Party Leadership convention at Ottawa Civic Centre in Ontario, April 5, 1968.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• My father once told me that anyone who worked for three dollars an hour owed it to himself to put in four dollars' worth of work.

  Bill Russell

  Father, Dollars, Three

  Bill Russell, David Falkner (2001). “Russell Rules: 11 Lessons on Leadership from the Twentieth Century's Greatest Winner”, p.71, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• You have achieved excellence as a leader when people will follow you anywhere if only out of curiosity.

  Colin Powell

  People, Leader, Curiosity

  4 Copy quote

• The specific excellence of verbal expression in poetry is to be clear without being low.

  Aristotle

  Expression, Lows, Clear

  Aristotle, Gerald Frank Else (1970). “Poetics”, p.58, University of Michigan Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are what we do.
  Excellence, therefore, is not an act,  but a habit.

  Aristotle

  Motivational, Positive, Perseverance

  116 Copy quote

• My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I've lost what's really there been seduced by someone else's standard of beauty or by the sitter's own idea of the best in him. That's not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest.

  Richard Avedon

  Reading, Ideas, Sitting

  10 Copy quote

• There can be no other criterion, no other standard than gold. Yes, gold which never changes, which can be shaped into ingots, bars, coins, which has no nationality and which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Gold, Bars, Fiduciary

  14 Copy quote

• 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.

  Audre Lorde

  Destiny, Luxury, Giving

  Audre Lorde (2012). “Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches”, p.54, Crossing Press

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.

  Jack Welch

  People, Asking, Engagement

  "Jack: Straight from the Gut". Book by Jack Welch, 2001.

  62 Copy quote

  Show source

• We believe this combination of excellence in operations and strong execution of our strategy is critical to achieve our vision. We will continue to focus on both in future as well.

  Azim Premji

  Strong, Believe, Focus

  54 Copy quote