Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.
Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.
At independence Kenya's economic indicators were equal to those of South Korea, but 45 years down the road, Korea's economy is 40 times that of Kenya. The mediocrity of leadership is across the continent.
Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.
If a Christian is not willing to rise early and work late, to expend greater effort in diligent study and faithful work, that person will not change a generation. Fatigue is the price of leadership. Mediocrity is the result of never getting tired.
There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.
Anything you do fearless, you do in mediocrity.
Do a few things at mastery versus many things at mediocrity.
Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence.
. . . nothing could eclipse the stain of his dirty, mortal mediocrity.
How sad that we often diminish our best gifts by struggling valiantly to develop in someone else's area of ability. It is better to focus on your uniqueness and do that with excellence than to end up with mediocrity in several areas.
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.
Mediocrity's easy, the good things take time, the great need commitment.
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.
Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.
Mediocrity always attacks excellence.
Once you decide that mediocrity is unthinkable, your only choices are excellence and quitting.
Think you are weak, think you lack what it takes, think you will lose, think you are second class - think this way and you are doomed to mediocrity.
Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.
Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.