The greatest secret in the world is that you only have to be a small measurable amount better than mediocrity. . . and you've got it made.
A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.
I believe that mediocrity is self-inflicted and that genius is self-bestowed.
The signature of mediocrity is not an unwillingness to change. The signature of mediocrity is inconsistency.
Private-equity and hedge-fund guys typically come into a situation of mediocrity, where rapid change may result in a profit.
Complacency is the forerunner of mediocrity. You can never work too hard on attitudes, effort and technique.
Ultimately, everyone has to ask himself or herself how they're going to fail. We all do, you know, so let's get that out of the way. The choice isn't between success and failure; it's between choosing risk and striving for greatness, or risking nothing and being certain of mediocrity.
There's a lot of mediocrity being celebrated, and a lot of wonderful stuff being ignored or discouraged.
Neat trick: to be roused to ambition and reconciled to one's mediocrity at the same time.
Artists and creative workers - people who have accomplished work worthwhile have had a very high sense of the way to do things. They haven't been contented with mediocrity. They haven't confined themselves to the beaten tracks; they have never been satisfied to do things just as others do them, but always a little better. Few are those who see with their own eyesand feel with their own hearts.
The overwhelming pressure of mediocrity, sluggish and indomitable as a glacier, will mitigate the most violent, and depress the most exalted revolution.
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.
Regulators are power-lusting mediocrities.
Once you start compromising your thoughts, you're a candidate for mediocrity.
There is plenty of room at the top because very few people care to travel beyond the average route. And so most of us seem satisfied to remain within the confines of mediocrity
Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good.
Never surrender to the momentum of mediocrity.
Something deep in the human heart breaks at the thought of a life of mediocrity.
There is a real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.
Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.