Mediocrity Quotes - Page 6

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

  Roy H. Williams

  Commitment, Talent, Lack Of Commitment

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• Follow your bliss. That which you love you must spend your life doing, as passionately and as perfectly as your heart, mind and instincts allow. The sooner you identify that bliss, which surely resides in the soul of most human beings, the greater your chance of a truly successful life. In the act of creativity, being careful guarantees sameness and mediocrity, which means your work will be invisible. Better to be reckless than careful. Better to be bold than safe. Better to have your work seen and remembered, or you've struck out. There is no middle ground.

  George Lois

  Love You, Heart, Creativity

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• Men in general are too material and do not make enough human contacts. If we search for the fundamentals which actually motivate us we will find that they come under four headings: love, money, adventure and religion. It is to some of them that we always owe that big urge which pushes us onward. Men who crush these impulses and settle down to everyday routine are bound to sink into mediocrity. No man is a complete unit of himself; he needs the contact, the stimulus and the driving power which is generated by his contact with other men, their ideas, and constantly changing scenes.

  Edward S. Jordan

  Love, Crush, Adventure

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

  George S. Patton

  Tradition, Walks, Untrue

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• Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

  Blaise Pascal

  Majority, Way, Approved

  "Thoughts of Blaise Pascal".

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

  Oscar Wilde

  Greatness, Pay, Flattery

  36 Copy quote

• Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

  Oscar Wilde

  Revenge, World, Indifference

  Oscar Wilde (2012). “The Wit and Humor of Oscar Wilde”, p.202, Courier Corporation

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• There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.

  Sean Penn

  Inspiration, Being Ignored, Individuality

  29 Copy quote

• The absence of risk is a sure sign of mediocrity.

  Charles de Foucauld

  Peace, Risk, Absence

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• Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Flower, Way, Normal

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• Perfection, fortunately, is not the only alternative to mediocrity. A more sensible alternative is excellence. Striving for excellence is stimulating and rewarding; striving for perfection--in practically anything--is both neurotic and futile.

  Ed Bliss

  Perfection, Excellence, Alternatives

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• It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Lying, Excellence, Taste

  'Curiosities of Literature' (9th ed., 1834) 'On Quotation'

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• There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.

  Norman Vincent Peale

  Attitude, Real, Enthusiasm For Life

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• Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity.

  Charles G. Dawes

  Inspirational, Dignity, Aloofness

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• Mediocrity is no answer to violence. In fact, it probably invites violence. At least the mediocre and the violent appear together as in the old Western movies - the ruffian outlaw band shooting up main street and the little white church with the little white schoolteacher wringing her hands. To cool violence you need rhythm, humor, tempering; you need dance and rhetoric. Not therapeutic understanding.

  James Hillman

  Hands, White, Understanding

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• Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Intelligent, Political, Genius

  Isaac Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli (1858). “Curiosities of Literature”, p.104

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• Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

  Oscar Wilde

  Genius, Tribute, Ridicule

  31 Copy quote

• Mediocrity is gonna kill the world before Armageddon ever does.

  Emmylou Harris

  Doe, World, Armageddon

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• A brand new mediocrity is thought more of than accustomed excellence.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Excellence, Strive, Accuracy

  Baltasar Gracian (2006). “The Art of Worldly Wisdom”, p.108, Shambhala Publications

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• Democracy: a festival of mediocrity.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Cynical, Democracy, Festivals

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• Mediocrity triumphs because it presents itself as democratic and because it is dull, and so for many does not seem worth struggling against.

  Anthony Daniels

  Struggle, Triumph, Doe

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• In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity — please observe, a plodding mediocrity — for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry.

  Benjamin Cardozo

  Distance, Joy, Doe

  "Nine Old Men". Book by Drew Pearson and Robert Sharon Allen, 1936.

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• One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Trying, Literature, Want

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1896). “Household papers and stories”

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• Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest impulses.

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Spiritual, Atmosphere, Woven

  Commencement address at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 8 June 1978

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• Mix sheer hypocrisy with mediocrity, You play it safe every time.

  Cyndi Lauper

  Play, Hypocrisy, Safe

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