Mediocrity Quotes - Page 8

• I've known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way to mediocrity! But you'll never get beyond it.

  John C. Maxwell

  People, Weakness, Might

  John C. Maxwell (2015). “The Leadership Handbook: 26 Critical Lessons Every Leader Needs”, p.59, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Such a superiority do the pursuits of literature possess above every other occupation, that even he who attains but a mediocrity in them, merits the pre-eminence above those that excel the most in the common and vulgar professions.

  David Hume

  Literature, Occupation, Merit

  David Hume (1782). “The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688”, p.197

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• I thought I might teach philosophy but the atmosphere of a college faculty repelled me; the few islands of greatness seemed to be washed by seas of pettiness and mediocrity.

  I. F. Stone

  Philosophy, Greatness, College

  F. Stone's Bi-Weekly, December 14, 1971.

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• Imposing an alleged uniform general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very exceptional. And measuring originality by deviation from the mass breeds eccentricity in them.

  John Dewey

  Uniforms, Originality, Deviation

  John Dewey (2015). “Democracy and Education”, p.176, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• in architecture, mediocrity is more glaringly obvious than in other lines - because there's a huge, physical object such as a building to demonstrate it.

  Ayn Rand

  Lines, Architecture, Building

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.156, Penguin

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• Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

  Allan Sloan

  Gold, Columns, Constant

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• Intolerance of mediocrity has been the main prop of my independence.

  Elsa Maxwell

  Independence, Intolerance, Props

  Elsa Maxwell (1955). “I married the world”

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• I wake up every morning thinking...this is my last day. And I jam everything into it. There's no time for mediocrity. This is no damned dress rehearsal.

  Anita Roddick

  Morning, Thinking, Dresses

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• There is no greatness apart from self control. Development that does not include self government will only guarantee our mediocrity.

  Graham Cooke

  Greatness, Self, Government

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• If you want to earn a million bucks a year, eliminate mediocrity from your thinking and your life.

  John Assaraf

  Thinking, Years, Want

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• It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that.

  Joseph Sobran

  Morning, Exercise, Men

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• Passionately protest mediocrity.

  Danielle LaPorte

  Protest

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• There is no gap as wide as the one between mediocrity and genius.

  Rutvik Oza

  Genius, Gaps, Wide

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• Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet.

  Winifred Holtby

  Writing, Wings, Long

  Winifred Holtby, Alice Holtby (1941). “Letters to a friend”

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• Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.

  James Madison

  Rights, Law, Comfort

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• Cooking saved my life! Sure, there were some miserable moments, but that was sort of the point, to find something challenging and consuming enough to take a place in the center of my life into which was creeping a horrible feeling of stasis and the doom of mediocrity.

  Julie Powell

  Food, Challenges, Cooking

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• In an age of militant mediocrity, an 'extremist' is anyone who takes a position.

  John Loeffler

  Age, Position, Extremist

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• Your close men friends should be willing to challenge your mediocrity by suggesting a concrete action you can perform that will pop you out of your rut, one way or the other. And you must be willing to offer them your brutal honesty, in the same way, if you are all to grow.

  David Deida

  Honesty, Men, Challenges

  David Deida (2008). “The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire: Easyread Super Large 24pt Edition”, p.53, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• There, I was just a secretary-shaped confederation of atoms, fighting the inevitability of mediocrity and decay. But here, in the Juliaverse... energy was never lost, merely converted from one form to another. Here, I took butter and cream and meat and eggs and I made delicious sustenance.

  Julie Powell

  Fighting, Eggs, Atoms

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• I hope this series is good work, but it is in the half-hour medium, which is limited to a kind of mediocrity that sponsors are just dying to have right now, and the public, for some reason, is unconsciously demanding.

  Jackie Cooper

  Dying, Half, Kind

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• What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity.

  Alfred North Whitehead

  Hands, Ideas, Secret

  Alfred North Whitehead (1967). “Aims of Education”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Rules are foolish, arbitrary, mindless things that raise you quickly to a level of acceptable mediocrity, then prevent you from progressing further.

  Bruce Barnbaum

  Progress, Arbitrary, Levels

  Bruce Barnbaum (2017). “The Art of Photography, 2nd Edition: A Personal Approach to Artistic Expression”, p.165, Rocky Nook, Inc.

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• Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness. It is the magic quality that opens all doors for you, and makes everything else possible. With self-discipline, the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him. But without self-discipline, a person with every blessing of background, education and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity.

  Brian Tracy

  Blessing, Opportunity, Greatness

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• The person who stops studying merely because he has finished school is forever hopelessly doomed to mediocrity, no matter what may be his calling. The way of success is the way of continuous pursuit of knowledge.

  Napoleon Hill

  School, Forever, Matter

  Napoleon Hill (2015). “Think and grow rich: Brazilian edition”, p.72, CDG Edições e Publicações LTDA

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• Discipline in typography is a prime virtue. Individuality must be secured by means that are rational. Distinction needs to be won by simplicity and restraint. It is equally true that these qualities need to be infused wiht a certain spirit and vitality, or they degenerate into dullness and mediocrity.

  Stanley Morison

  Mean, Discipline, Simplicity

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