Greatness And Mediocrity Quotes

Throw leaders into an extreme environment, and it will separate the stark differences between greatness and mediocrity. ~ James C. Collins

Greatness is lonely and mediocre people feel consoled by that thought.
One has to choose between greatness and mediocrity oneself and the responsibility is all theirs if they accept greatness. ~ John Steinbeck

The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake. ~ Nelson Boswell

There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It's not an uncommon disease. But it's nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world. ~ John Steinbeck

Goodness is weakness, pleasantness is poisonous, serenity is mediocrity, and kindness is for losers. ~ Jasper Fforde

At every turn you have to find a new kind of self-sovereignty over your environment. Every kid I see is at the mercy of Periscope, Twitter, or an Angry Bird of some description. People are shackled to their mediocrity by companies and businesses who want to consume your life with theirs. ~ Daniel Gillies

We who bore the mark might well be considered by the rest of the world as strange, even as insane and dangerous. We had awoken, or were awakening, and we were striving for an ever perfect state of wakefulness, whereas the ambition and quest for happiness of the others consisted of linking their opinions, ideals, and duties, their life and happiness, ever more closely with those of the herd. They, too, strove; they, too showed signs of strength and greatness. But as we saw it, whereas we marked men represented Nature's determination to create something new, individual, and forward-looking, the others lived in the determination to stay the same. For them mankind
which they loved as much as we did
was a fully formed entity that had to be preserved and protected. For us mankind was a distant future toward which we were all journeying, whose aspect no one knew, whose laws weren't written down anywhere. ~ Hermann Hesse

No great soul, as they say, lives for very long. Because God desperately wants all the great people near him. ~ Pawan Mishra

What like the apprehension of free forgiveness (and that apprehension must come in through a sight of the greatness of sin, and of inability to do any thing towards satisfaction), to engage the heart of a rebel to love his prince, and to submit to his laws? ~ John Bunyan

True greatness, first of all, is a thing of the heart. It is alive with robust and generous sympathies. It is neither behind its age nor too far before it. It is up with its age, and ahead of it only just so far as to be able to lead its march. It cannot slumber, for activity is a necessity of its existence. It is no reservoir, but a fountain. ~ Roswell Dwight Hitchcock

Before you were born, and were still too tiny for the human eye to see, you won the race for life from among 250 million competitors. And yet, how fast you have forgotten your strength, when your very existence is proof of your greatness. ~ Suzy Kassem

3I will stand and offer You my thanks, Eternal One, in the presence of others; I will sing of Your greatness among the nations no matter where I am. 4For Your amazing love soars overhead far into the heavens; Your truth rises up to the clouds where passing light bends. 5O God, that You would be lifted up above the heavens in the hearts of Your people until the whole earth knows Your glory. ~ Anonymous

If you're an artist and you're on Twitter, you are doomed to mediocrity. ~ Maria Semple

So does a whole world, with all of its greatness and littleness, lie in a twinkling star. ~ Charles Dickens

I want our leaders to lead our country to greatness, but President Obama and his misguided policies and ideology have really fundamentally changed our country in the wrong way, more so than any president in our history. ~ Ben Quayle

I am not suggesting that everything bad that happens to us is sent directly by a knowing hand - cooked up specially for our personal development. Nor do I mean that by using the stuff of life as grist for the mill you will learn what you need to learn and move on into a problem-free world. And I also don't recommend courting drama and disaster so that you can be broken open to the truth. A catastrophe is not a sign that God has singled you out for greatness. What I do mean is that you can use anything - everything - as a wake-up call; you can find a treasure trove of information about yourself and the world in the big trials and the little annoyances of daily life. If you turn around and face yourself in times of loss and pain, you will be given the key to a more truthful - and therefore a more joyful - life. ~ Elizabeth Lesser

Everyone has faults and problems, everyone is wishing to have someone but, you see, people keep falling in and out of love so quickly, people give up on relationships so easily nowadays for, we always keep craving for something more, something new and trendy but you know, you are not trained to see the greatness in old school love. ~ Jyoti Patel

I want to be in the big show, and to be in the big show, you have to practice. I have this attitude now that I'm going to take all the greatness I can. Nothing's going to stop me. ~ Steven Adler

Concentrate on your strengths and talents to change your situation, and avoid those pity-parties. Absorbing the blows and present pain is a quality of greatness. Measure yourself against the goals and standards you have set for yourself, rather than comparing yourself to others and feeling discouraged or useless. ~ Archibald Marwizi

As we mature and develop awareness to match our potential, our ability to enjoy full health is realized. As we enjoy this fruit, we sow the seeds of greatness in our children. ~ Rand Olson

After you have done a great thing for a great glory, sit and think and understand the journey thereon, for a little mistake can erase a great glory! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

In my fantasy world everyone has a happy ending. No one is told who they should be, how they should feel, who they are allowed to love, what they should believe and how they should look. Sadly, everyone in my world can't seem to get along with one another because everyone is so darn different. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Hallelujah! Praise God in his holy house of worship, praise him under the open skies; Praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his magnificent greatness; Praise with a blast on the trumpet, praise by strumming soft strings; Praise him with castanets and dance, praise him with banjo and flute; Praise him with cymbals and a big bass drum, praise him with fiddles and mandolin. Let every living, breathing creature praise GOD! ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Many of the ugly pages of American history have been obscured and forgotten. A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay. If it loses the will to finish or slackens in its determination, history will recall its crimes and the country that would be great will lack the most indispensable element of greatness - justice. ~ Martin Luther

The career of a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man dies and disappears, but his thoughts and acts survive and leave an indelible stamp upon his race. ~ Samuel Smiles

Don't be reluctant to give of yourself generously, it's the mark of caring and compassion and personal greatness. ~ Brian Tracy

Your future is dependent on your thought today, therefore think good and lovely thoughts now! ~ Jaachynma N.E. Agu

To most observers, innovation is a solitary process that requires creativity and genius, perhaps even greatness. It can't, in their view, be managed or predicted, just hoped for and, perhaps, facilitated. But for me innovation was and still is more than that. It was a battle in the marketplace between innovators or attackers trying to make money by changing the order of things, and defenders protecting their cash flow. ~ Richard J. Foster

They contemn one another, and yet they seek to please one another: and whilest they seek to surpass one another in worldly pomp and greatness, they most debase and prostitute themselves in their better part one to another. ~ Marcus Aurelius

America has always been greatest when we dared to be great. We can reach for greatness again. We can follow our dreams to distant stars, living and working in space for peaceful, economic, and scientific gain. Tonight, I am directing NASA to develop a permanently manned space station, and to do it within a decade. ~ Ronald Reagan

They forget that the Woman is the source of mercy and joy
Many men do respect her greatness, except the playboy
We sail in life searching for fair equality
We should not focus on gender but our humanity ~ Yasser Kashef

The Delusion of Lasting Success promises that building an enduring company is not only achievable but a worthwhile objective. Yet companies that have outperformed the market for long periods of time are not just rare, they are statistical artifacts that are observable only in retrospect. Companies that achieved lasting success may be best understood as having strung together many short-term successes. Pursuing a dream of enduring greatness may divert attention from the pressing need to win immediate battles.

The Delusion of Absolute Performance diverts our attention from the fact that success and failure always take place in a competitive environment. It may be comforting to believe that our success is entirely up to us, but as the example of Kmart demonstrated, a company can improve in absolute terms and still fall further behind in relative terms. Success in business means doing things better than rivals, not just doing things well. Believing that performance is absolute can cause us to take our eye off rivals and to avoid decisions that, while risky, may be essential for survival given the particular context of our industry and its competitive dynamics.

The Delusion of the Wrong End of the Stick lets us confuse causes and effects, actions and outcomes. We may look at a handful of extraordinarily successful companies and imagine that doing what they did can lead to success - when it might in fact lead mainly to higher volatility and a lower over ~ Philip M. Rosenzweig

What was then produced of art and of thought has never been surpassed and very rarely equalled, and the stamp of it is upon all the art and all the thought of the Western world. And yet this full stature of greatness came to pass at a time when the mighty civilizations of the ancient world had perished and the shadow of "effortless barbarism" was dark upon the earth. In that black and fierce world a little centre of white-hot spiritual energy was at work. A new civilization had arisen in Athens, unlike all that had gone before. ~ Edith Hamilton

I wanted to say two further things to you today: irony: Do not let yourself be governed by it, especially not in unproductive moments. In productive ones try to make use of it as one more means of seizing life. Used purely, it is itself pure, and one need not be ashamed of it; and when you feel too familiar with it, when you fear the growing intimacy with it, then turn towards great and serious subjects, before which it becomes small and helpless. Seek for the depth of things: there irony never descends - and when you have thus brought it to the edge of greatness, test at the same time whether this mode of perception springs from a necessity of your being. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

[T]his is how it will remain until ... literary criticism discards its sociological, religious, philosophical and other textbooks, which only help mediocrity to admire itself. Only then will you be free to say what you please. [F]or God's sake stop that irrelevant chitchat. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Raging winds and clashing seas
should not keep you from victory.
Stormy winds and raging seas
give birth to great destinies. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

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

What he didn't say, because it was too heavy a burden for any man to bear, was that Aden was already a leader who was on his way to greatness. If he didn't lose his way, if he didn't break under the strain, he'd become a man who would be written of in history. To make it, he needed someone to walk with him, to hold him when things became too hard, and to fight for his right to his own happiness. Aden needed love more than anyone Walker had ever met. ~ Nalini Singh

Some people don't need the others' approval. They build themselves a pedestal and they climb it. One stupid person is enough to admire them, and you cannot escape their greatness. ~ Natașa Alina Culea

Ya Allah, envelop our hearts with a shield of your light and mercy, so the pain doesn't penetrate. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

We can choose to allow our experiences to hold us back, and to not allow us to become great or achieve greatness in this life. Or we can allow our experiences to push us forward, to make us grateful for every day we have and to be all the more thankful for those who are around us. ~ Elizabeth Smart

Don't fall in trap of mediocrity and loose thinking. Surround yourself with intellectual people and thinkers. Be an awesome version of yourself day after day!! ~ Reshma Wable

Power gives no purchase to the hand, it will not hold, soon perishes, and greatness goes. ~ Euripides

There exist no purposeful life without the 'sanballat's and the 'Tobiah's'
The oppositions in life. they will give you all the necessary reasons why you will fail. Kites do rise by oppositions.
Oppositions in life are therefore a necessity for growth. Your oppositions in life will position or disposition you depending on how you position your oppositions.
courage, wisdom and God will see you to the top. Beware of tongues of mediocrity as it can be a detriment to your mind and purpose.
We were born to be fruitful and multiply. ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

You gotta run more than your mouth to escape the treadmill of mediocrity. A true hustler jogs during the day, and sleepwalks at night. ~ Jarod Kintz

To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love. ~ Timothy Keller

It has become obligatory to fulfil a function which shall in some way be regarded as useful to the masses ... Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstition without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants. ~ Karl Jaspers

The Magus,the sorcerer, the alchemist, are seized with the fascination of the unknown; and they desire a greatness that is inaccessible to mankind. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Most people define greatness through wealth and popularity and position in the corner office. But what I call everyday greatness comes from character and contribution. ~ Stephen Covey

when you do great things, think as if you missed the mark by an inch; walk as if you are yet to face the greatest task; talk as if you are yet to have the best preparation for the momentous moment and dream as if you are fighting a battalion of tasks ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The Naked Truth ©2012 Lyrics and Music by Michele Jennae

V. 1
We dress ourselves in the lies of others
Lessening who we are
We clothe ourselves in our own self doubt
Holding on to scars
Take off the mask of uncertainty,
Let me see your face
Remove your disguise of hopelessness
Stand tall in this place

CHORUS
The naked truth is that you're… beautiful
You always have been
The naked truth is that you're… incredible
You're a perfect ten (I'm going to say it again)


V. 2
We robe ourselves in mediocrity
And all for what
We hide behind our fear and frustration
Who says you didn't make the cut?
Strip off the feelings of inferiority
Show us who you are
Let me see the winner inside you
Baby you're gonna go far

BRIDGE
Why would you want to be anybody else
Other than who you are?
Because the fact of the matter is
you're a shining star ~ Michele Jennae

But he (Nietzsche) never would be able to realize that he is like ordinary people and he should realize that too. For instance, if he were really a sage, he would say to himself "Go out into the street, go to the little people, be one of them and see how you like it, how much you enjoy being such a small thing. That is yourself." And so he would learn that he was not his own greatness. ~ C. G. Jung