Mediocrity Quotes - Page 15

• A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

  Charles Horton Cooley

  Genius, World, Talent

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• There's so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee.

  Benedict Cumberbatch

  Century, Bureaucracy, Committees

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• Mediocrity is contextual.

  David Foster Wallace

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• I've relaxed my feelings about other companies performing my works. I have never in principle been against my ballets being danced by other companies. Rather, it is that we lack the time, space and money to insure that they are done well. To me, the only sin is mediocrity.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Sin

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none of these come, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don't come, I choose the ones that pay the rent.

  Michael Caine

  Funny, Humorous, Theatre

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• Mechanization best serves mediocrity.

  Frank Lloyd Wright

  Mechanization

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• 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

  Og Mandino

  Memorable, Giving, Accomplishment

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• I think there is probably no better person to aspire to emulate than Steve Jobs and what he has done at Apple in terms of his leadership, his innovation, not settling for mediocrity.

  Howard Schultz

  Jobs, Thinking, Apples

  "Starbucks legend delivers recovery by thinking smaller". Interview with David Teather, www.theguardian.com. January 21, 2010.

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• My biggest concern is that America is drifting towards mediocrity and that people don't recognize - and by people I'm meaning Washington - don't recognize the sense of urgency and the fact that I don't think this is a crisis anymore. I think it's an emergency.

  Howard Schultz

  Thinking, America, People

  "Howard Schultz: 'We Can't Wait for Washington' and CEOs Need to Show Confidence in the Economy" by Lauren Effron, abcnews.go.com. September 7, 2011.

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• Without love, loyalty, desires, passion, courage, dignities, faith, beliefs and all the other ingredients that go into making the human soul something so elevated that only God knows its limits, we are only shells bobbing aimlessly in a calm sea of mediocrity. ...And if you can figure that out, please write and explain it to me because you're a better man than I am.

  Sylvester Stallone

  Loyalty, Writing, Passion

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• Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.

  Haruki Murakami

  Smart, Character, Winter

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Sep 25, 2015

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• It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure - in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.

  Trevanian

  Fun, Opportunity, Justice

  Trevanian (2005). “Shibumi: A Novel”, p.137, Broadway Books

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

  Thomas Mann

  Mediocre, Honorable

  Thomas Mann (1995). “The magic mountain: a novel”, Random House, Inc.

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• It's hard to make something that's interesting. It's really, really hard. It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity... So what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such an act of will.

  Ira Glass

  Writing, Law, Aerodynamics

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• A Christian has no business being satisfied with mediocrity. He's supposed to reach for the stars. Why not? He's not on his own anymore. He has God's help now.

  Catherine Marshall

  Christian, Stars, Why Not

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• Caricature is the tribute which mediocrity pays to genius.

  Oscar Wilde

  Genius, Pay, Tribute

  Oscar Wilde (1971). “Witticisms of Oscar Wilde”

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

  Oscar Wilde

  Giving, Enemy, Produce

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.812, GENERAL PRESS

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

  Sarah Vowell

  Individuality, Groups, Knows

  Sarah Vowell (2005). “Assassination Vacation”, p.144, Simon and Schuster

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• Mediocrity's like a spot on a shirt—it never comes off.

  Haruki Murakami

  Shirts, Spots

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• Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity and kindness is for losers. The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts – and let’s face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field – is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by almost anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good.

  Jasper Fforde

  Kindness, Evil, Serenity

  "The Eyre Affair". Book by Jasper Fforde, July 19, 2001.

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

  Tom Robbins

  Rise Above, Stakes

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• ... one doesn't want to read badly any more than live badly, since time will not relent. I don't know that we owe God or nature a death, but nature will collect anyway, and we certainly owe mediocrity nothing, whatever collectivity it purports to advance or at least represent.

  Harold Bloom

  Want, Collectivity, Knows

  Harold Bloom (2001). “How to Read and Why”, p.27, Simon and Schuster

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• In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can to education today is to teach few subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life.

  C. S. Lewis

  Wise, Boys, Thinking

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• We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

  Peter Drucker

  Jobs, Skills, Numbers

  Peter Drucker, Alan Kantrow, Rick Wartzman, Julia Kirby (2016). “Get the Right Things Done: The Drucker Collection (6 Items)”, p.12, Harvard Business Review Press

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• We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Lying, Writing

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