Mediocrity Quotes

Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

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

Dividing meager resources across a host of medium term operational goals creates mediocrity on a broad scale.

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre

Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity.

Indiscriminate pursuit of perfection infallibly leads to mediocrity.

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

There is no greater path to mediocrity in life than trying to be realistic.

Pumpkin pie is a living symbol of mediocrity. The best pumpkin pie you ever ate wasn't all that much different from the worst pumpkin pie you ever ate.

It is very difficult to be like the other guy, to be ordinary. Mediocrity takes a great deal of energy. But to be ourselves is very easy. You don't have to do a thing.

Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.

If you have to fear something, fear mediocrity.

Cherish your friends and family as if your life depended on it. Because it does.

You have to believe that you are the one who creates your success, that you are the one who creates your mediocrity, and that you are the one creating your struggle around money and success.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

Stupidity lies in wanting to draw conclusions.

Mediocrity is a hand-rail.

The function of genius is not to give new answers, but to pose new questions which time and mediocrity can resolve.

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.

It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity.

The goal is to avoid mediocrity by being prepared to try something and either failing miserably or triumphing grandly.

I believe that mediocrity is self-inflicted and that genius is self-bestowed.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

I take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.

It is not a question of skimming the surface of the art, it must be probed to its depths, for to seize upon superficial things only is to degenerate into mediocrity and obscurity.

Mediocrity is more dangerous in a critic than in a writer.

A man who fears ridicule will never go far, for good or ill: he remains on this side of this talents, and even if he has genius, he is doomed to mediocrity.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.

Pat answers to complex problems are the hallmark of intellectual mediocrity

Once genius is submerged by bureaucracy, a nation is doomed to mediocrity.

Contrary to popular belief, all evolving artists are in a full time battle with mediocrity.

It is better to excel in any single art than to arrive only at mediocrity in several, so moderate skill in several is to be preferred where one cannot attain to perfection in any.

Just as your hand has the power to hide the sun, mediocrity has the power to hide your inner light. Do not blame others for your own incompetence.

Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.

We have more possibilities, more freedom, more options than any people who have ever lived. Yet there is more junk, more mediocrity, more garbage to sort through than ever, too.

Mediocrity always attacks excellence.

Greatness is always envied - it is only mediocrity that can boast of a host of friends.

In business, what distinguishes leaders from laggards and greatness from mediocrity is the ability to uniquely imagine what could be.

I've always sworn that not having enough money has saved me from mediocrity.

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

Ninety-nine percent of people believe they can't do great things, so they aim for mediocrity.

The exhibition has now become no more than a bazaar where mediocrity spreads itself out with impudence. The exhibitions are useless and dangerous... they ought to be abolished.

It is not always the highest talent that thrives best. Mediocrity, with tact, will outweigh talent oftentimes.

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

We live in an age of mediocrity. Stars today are not the same stature as Bogie [Humphrey Bogart], James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart [James Stewart].

We often reward mediocrity because it is comforting. If they can do it, anyone can do it.

Low standards are a tactic that takes pressure off teachers unions by accepting mediocrity and failure for kids.