Excellence Quotes - Page 37

• Of course, we need not be surprised if artistic excellence goes unrecognized on account of being unknown; but there should be the greatest indignation when, as often, good judges are flattered by the charm of social entertainments into an approbation which is a mere a pretence.

  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio

  Judging, Needs, Entertainment

  "The Ten Books On Architecture". Book by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, Book III, Preface, Sec. 1, c. 15 BC.

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• Man is the yokel par excellence, the booby unmatchable, the king dupe of the cosmos. He is chronically and unescapably deceived, not only by the other animals and by the delusive face of nature herself--by his incomparable talent for searching out and embracing what is false, and for overlooking and denying what is true.

  H. L. Mencken

  Kings, Animal, Men

  H. L. Mencken (2009). “Prejudices: Third Series”, p.128, Cosimo, Inc.

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• You should go to picture-galleries and museums of sculpture to be acted upon, and not to express or try to form your own perfectlyfutile opinion. It makes no difference to you or the world what you may think of any work of art. That is not the question; the point is how it affects you. The picture is the judge of your capacity, not you of its excellence; the world has long ago passed its judgment upon it, and now it is for the work to estimate you.

  Anna Brackett

  Art, Thinking, Museums

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• The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than "newness") and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).

  William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Art, America, Issues

  "Our Mission Statement" by William F. Buckley Jr., www.nationalreview.com. November 19, 1955.

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• The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. But we cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for; that task is left to others. With the desire for excellence comes, therefore, the desire for approbation. And this distinguishes intellectual excellence from moral excellence; for the latter has no necessity of human tribunal; it is more inclined to shrink from the public than to invite the public to be its judge.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Judging, Intellectual, Wish

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• Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts.

  Anton Chekhov

  Clothes, Soul, Faces

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• Has your work become very easy? Do you find you can do it with little effort? Has it ceased to impose any strain or fatigue upon you? Do you no longer feel loss of vitality after a long spell of it? Can you now do it as easy as water rolls off a duck's back? If so, look out! Do some stock-taking. Examine your output.... Work done with little effort is likely to yield little result. Every job can be done excellently or indifferently. Excellence necessitates effort-hard, sustained, concentrated effort.

  B. C. Forbes

  Jobs, Work, Loss

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• Can you know excellence if you've never seen it? Can you know good if you have seen only bad?

  E. L. Konigsburg

  Knows, Ifs

  E.L. Konigsburg (2010). “The View from Saturday”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

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• The excellence and inspiration of truth is in the pursuit, not in the mere having of it. The pursuit of all truth is a kind of gymnastics; a man swings from one truth with higher strength to gain another. The continual glory is the possibility opening before us.

  Edwin Hubbel Chapin

  Truth, Inspiration, Gymnastics

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• The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing than worshipping ... 'Tis mad idolatry that makes the service greater than the god.

  C. S. Lewis

  Military, War, Thinking

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• A good taste in art feels the presence or the absence of merit; a just taste discriminates the degree--the poco piu and the poco meno. A good taste rejects faults; a just taste selects excellences. A good taste is often unconscious; a just taste is always conscious. A good taste may be lowered or spoilt; a just taste can only go on refining more and more.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Art, Degrees, Goes On

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• Imitation both unconscious and conscious is par excellence the educational method of the family. It is plain that a considerable part of the adaptation of living beings to their environment, i.e., of beings that are born plastic, is passed on from generation to generation through imitation. Were this not so, much if not all of the road traversed by one generation would have to be travelled by the next generation from the very beginning and without short-cuts. Consequently there would be little chance for the novel adaptation, the propitious individual variation, that constitutes progress.

  Elsie Clews Parsons

  Educational, Cutting, Progress

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• A man reacheth not to excellence with one language.

  Roger Ascham

  Men, Language Words, Language Acquisition

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• Talented people almost always know full well the excellence that is in them.

  Charlotte Bronte

  People, Talent, Wells

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• I would urge that the yeast of education is the idea of excellence, and the idea of excellence comprises as many forms as there are individuals, each of whom develops his own image of excellence. The school must have as one of its principal functions the nurturing of images of excellence.

  Jerome Bruner

  Education, School, Ideas

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• Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Honesty, Truth, Government

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• To be faithful to your instincts and the impulses that carry you in the direction of the excellence you most desire and value ... surely that is to lead the noble life.

  George Edward Woodberry

  Faithful, Desire, Noble

  George Edward Woodberry (1933). “Selected letters of George Edward Woodberry”

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• Excellence in life seems to me to be the way in which each human being makes the most of the adventure of living and becomes most truly and deeply himself, fulfilling his own nature in the context of a good life with other people.

  Eda LeShan

  Good Life, Adventure, People

  Eda J. LeShan (1967). “The Conspiracy Against Childhood”, New York : Atheneum

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• Science is not sacrosanct. The mere fact that it exists, is admired, has results is not sufficient for making it a measure of excellence. Modern science arose from global objections against earlier views and rationalism itself, the idea that there are general rules and standards for conducting our affairs, affairs of knowledge included, arose from global objections to common sense.

  Paul Feyerabend

  Views, Ideas, Common Sense

  "Against Method". Book by Paul Feyerabend, 1975.

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• I cannot see why a taste for the country should be held so very indispensable a requisite for excellence; but really people talk of it as if it were a virtue, and as if an opposite opinion was, to say the least of it, very immoral.

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon

  Country, Opposites, People

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1860). “The Complete Works of L.E. Landon”, p.100

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• I want to emphasize in the great concentration which we now place upon scientists and engineers how much we still need the men and women educated in the liberal tradition, willing to take the long look, undisturbed by prejudices and slogans of the moment, who attempt to make an honest judgment on difficult events.

  John F. Kennedy

  Education, Truth, Honesty

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• Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What possesses interest for us is thenatural of each, his constitutional excellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot be satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the conversation with Nature cherishes and guards.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Character, Men, Knowing

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1912). “Emerson's Complete Works: Society and solitude”

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• Human excellence, parted from God, is like a fable flower, which, according to Rabbis, Eve plucked when passing out of paradise--severed from its native root, it is only the touching memorial of a lost Eden; sad, while charming--beautiful, but dead.

  Charles Villiers Stanford

  Beautiful, Flower, Roots

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• Excellence is never an accident.

  Jerold Panas

  Character, Accidents

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• To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.

  George McGovern

  Military, War, Failure

  1973 Lecture at Oxford University, 21 Jan.

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