Excelling Quotes

Catch Either/Or Thinking

Anxious perfectionists will typically think "I need to perform flawlessly at all times," with their underlying assumption being "or else it will result in disaster." This is a common type of thinking trap termed either/or thinking. In this case, the either/or is this: Either there is flawless performance or complete and utter failure, and nothing in between.
Not only can this style of thinking make you feel crushed when you don't meet your own ideal standards, but it also often leads to perfectionism paralysis. Take, for example, an artist who sees his future career prospects as becoming either the next Picasso or a penniless flop; this person doesn't see other possible outcomes in between. You can see how this would give the artist a creative block.
For other folks, their hidden assumption may be slightly different: "Either I need to perform flawlessly at all times, or other people will reject me." When I look back at my clinical psychology training, I realize I had this belief at that time. At a semiconscious level, I thought that the only way to prevent getting booted out of the program was to score at the top of the class for every test or assignment.
Ultra-high standards often arise because a person is trying to hide imagined catastrophic flaws. In this scenario, people often think that if their flaws get revealed they'll be shunned, and so the only way to conceal their defects is by always excelling. When people who hav ~ Alice Boyes

What Hollywood truly wants is for people to be themselves. I think what it's designed for is to kind of turn people into something and just make them saleable. But what it really stands for, what it really loves, are people who are unafraid to be themselves, and as you can see, these are people who are excelling in their careers. ~ Troian Bellisario

I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. ~ William Shakespeare

Dear Mama,
I hope this letter finds you well. It contains all my love and affection. (It also contains all my questions about how you could ever have loved a man like Professor Miller.)
You asked about where I live. I cannot believe I haven't mentioned it, but I suppose I'm so used to it now I don't think of it. The dorms are small and plain, but as a student I don't need much more. (I cannot afford the dorms. I do not live in them.) The food is dreadful, all heavy meat and sauce. I miss fruit! (I am always hungry; a supper with a strange man was the fullest my stomach has been since I got here.)
As I have mentioned in every letter, my professors are all interesting and I take copious notes during lectures. (If you do not bring up my father, I am certainly not going to offer you information on that louse of a man.) The course work is challenging but I am excelling. (I have to be perfect so they can find no excuse to dock my grades.)
I have delivered Aunt Nani's package to Jacabo. He was so happy to receive it, and I take tea with him once a week. It is a great comfort to speak Melenese with someone. (I live in the hotel where Jacabo works. He saved me when I realized I could not afford room and board at the school. I work long, hard hours in the evenings to earn a tiny hole of a servant's room and whatever scraps of food are left over.)
Please give everyone my love and tell them how much I am learning to bring back to the island as a teacher. (I will ~ Kiersten White

If someone doesn't fit in your company, you have an obligation to get rid of them, because you're holding them back from excelling elsewhere. ~ Barbara Corcoran

There's nothing better than excelling at a game you love. There's nothing worse than thinking your accomplishments as a player outweigh your responsibilities as a person. ~ Doug Flutie

Everyone has a head but not everyone get ahead ~ Saji Ijiyemi

A definite view, by contrast, favors firm convictions. Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it "well-roundedness," a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. Instead of working tirelessly to make herself indistinguishable, she strives to be great at something substantive - to be a monopoly of one. This is not what young people do today, because everyone around them has long since lost faith in a definite world. No one gets into Stanford by excelling at just one thing, unless that thing happens to involve throwing or catching a leather ball. ~ Anonymous

Being unashamedly Muslim while excelling in whatever you do is of the greatest forms of Dawah. ~ Omar Suleiman

Our young immigrants have a lot to offer. They are motivated and hard-working, and in many cases have already contributed significantly to our society - by excelling in school, by volunteering in their communities, or by serving in the military. ~ Gerald Chertavian

Communication is vital when it comes to excelling in the workplace and in your personal relationships. ~ Chelsea Krost

Compassion- which means, literally, "to suffer with"- is the way to the truth that we are most ourselves, not when we differ from others, but when we are the same. Indeed the main spiritual question is not, "What difference do you make?" but "What do you have in common?" It is not "excelling" but "serving" that makes us most human. It is not proving ourselves to be better than others but confessing to be just like others that is the way to healing and reconciliation. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Like most ghetto kids I knew it was important to be 'somebody' so I became a good soccer player, because excelling at a sport seemed to make you special. ~ Vidal Sassoon

Dear Mama,
I am most certainly not dead. Thank you for your tender concern. I will try to write more often so you don't have to worry so between letters. (Because a week's silence surely means I have fallen prey to a wasting illness or been murdered in these boring, gray streets.)
School is going well. I am excelling in all of my classes. (Apparently, some things never change, and girls are not challenged in Albion in the same way they weren't on Melei.) My professors are all intelligent and kind. (Kind of horrible.) None stand out. (I refuse to mention him by name, no matter how many obviously "subtle" questions you ask.) The other students are also quite focused on their schooling, and none of us has much time for socializing. Boys and girls attend separate classes as well, so no, I have not met many interesting young men. (I am neither courting nor being courted. Please stop hoping.)
Tell Aunt Li'ne thank you for the mittens. They are very much appreciated in this cold, damp climate I am so unused to. And please tell the sun hello and I miss her very much! I also miss you, of course. (I do. Very much.)
All my love,
Jessamin ~ Kiersten White

If you desire it, you must punish yourself for the sake of learning, seek every advantage in keeping up with the other clerks and in excelling them. You must study with the fervor of the blessed or the cursed. ~ Noah Gordon

Why is it there's no aisle in a grocery or department in a store or menu on a website for "average stuff" or "beige products"? FACT: People never got passionate about mediocre and average. While consumers and clients can find "best deals" and "natural foods" and "artisan goods," one doesn't find an aisle or a website menu tab offering "average stuff" without excelling in something (which might explain that while vanilla is necessary for the ice cream sundae, it's the hot fudge we all crave and talk about). ~ David Brier

Speak as educated nature suggests to you, and you will do well, but let it be educated and not raw, rude, uncultivated nature. Demosthenes took unbounded pains with his voice, and Cicero, who was naturally weak, made a long journey into Greece to correct his manner of speaking. With far nobler themes, let us not be less ambitious to excel. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Less gossiping, more learning. Less complaining, more excelling. Less walls, more bridges. Less fear, more courage ~ Robin Sharma

Everybody knows I got a temper. It's not a temper temper-not an off-the-field temper. It's a competitive temper, wanting to do good. But as far as being a guy who disrupts a lot of things, who doesn't want to listen? Nah, man. That's false. That's false because I'm excelling. ~ Randy Moss

I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility I wish the history to be natural though the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable, though their behaviour is excelling. ~ Frances Burney

We praise Thee, Lord, of all the earth, for love and joy, for light and mirth, for every charm of sense and right, and blessings boundless as Thy might ... But most we praise the love that gave thine own dear Son to seek and save, for joy all other joys excelling, for purest light and life indwelling. ~ Cecil Frances Alexander

And so this has become Louis' life.
Feeling just as much pain as he does pleasure. Excelling academically and maintaining an excellent group of friends and being in love with the one person in the world who is incapable of falling in love. ~ Velvetoscar

A person needed to experience real danger or they would never find joy in excelling. There had to be a risk of failure, the chance to die. ~ Brandon Sanderson

excelling at actions without being attached to them or to their results becomes the key to a balanced life. ~ Jayant Kalawar

If grief kills us not, we kill it. Not that I cease to grieve; for each hour, revealing to me how excelling and matchless the being was, who once was mine, but renews the pang with which I deplore my alien state upon earth. But such is God's will; I am doomed to a divided existence, and I submit. Meanwhile I am human; and human affections are the native, luxuriant growth of a heart, whose weakness it is, too eagerly, and too fondly, to seek objects on whom to expend its yearning. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

He embraces all things that are lovely: he seals up the sum of all loveliness. Things that shine as single stars with a particular glory, all meet in Christ as a glorious constellation. Col. 1:19, "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." Cast your eyes among all created beings, survey the universe: you will observe strength in one, beauty in a second, faithfulness in a third, wisdom in a fourth; but you shall find none excelling in them all as Christ does. Bread has one quality, water another, raiment another, medicine another; but none has them all in itself as Christ does. He is bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, a garment to the naked, healing to the wounded; and whatever a soul can desire is found in him, 1 Cor. 1:30 ~ John Flavel

Think of your day as a blank canvas, and everything you say, your art upon it. Then join your loved ones and friends, and create lasting beauty together, worthy of your inner Rembrandt. ~ Tom Althouse