Mediocrity Quotes

You are your own business, so micro manage it as though your life depended on it, because it does. ~ Jevon Scott

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius. ~ Fulton J. Sheen

MEDIOCRITY IS A CHOICE... PROCRASTINATION IS A VIRUS THE FIRST ERROR IS INDECISION ~ Marsha Wright

Acceptable hypocrisy is often called politeness. ~ Shannon L. Alder

Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes a person's noblest impulses. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved. ~ Seth

be fair, when I was young, the elections could not have been less interesting; the mediocrity of the 'political offerings' was almost surprising. A centre-left candidate would be elected, serve either one or two terms, depending how charismatic he was, then for obscure reasons he would fail to complete a third. When people got tired of that candidate, and the centre-left in general, we'd witness the phenomenon of democratic change, and the voters would install a candidate of the centre-right, also for one or two terms, depending on his personal appeal. Western nations took a strange pride in this system, though it amounted to little more than a power-sharing deal between two rival gangs, and they would even go to war to impose it on nations that failed to share their enthusiasm. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Pessimists are second rate people. They do not believe in life ... All they want to do is drag you down and appease their own feelings of mediocrity and fear. ~ Uell Stanley Andersen

Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence. ~ Anthony Hecht

I shall be in Paris in two days. Well, all is finished. The waves of
human mediocrity rise to the sky and they will engulf the refuge whose
dams I open. Ah! courage leaves me, my heart breaks! O Lord, pity the
Christian who doubts, the sceptic who would believe, the convict of
life embarking alone in the night, under a sky no longer illumined by
the consoling beacons of ancient faith. ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! You aren't a child anymore. The sooner you set yourself to your spiritual program, the happier you will be. The longer you wait, the more you'll be vulnerable to mediocrity and feel filled with shame and regret, because you know you are capable of better. From this instant on, vow to stop disappointing yourself. Separate yourself from the mob. Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do – now. ~ Epictetus

He had not even the self-complacency that enables stupid people to accept their mediocrity with unction; he had on the contrary an engaging modesty. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

the fallen of the baboon into the river is the risen of the joy of the crocodile. Though the crocodile becomes happy, it conceals its joy until it deploys all its necessary deft and strength to take captive of the Baboon ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15 minutes worth of absolute genius in a film is so much better than two hours of mediocrity. I would rather pay to see something different like that. ~ Kim Cattrall

Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in recent years and are often treated with contempt by politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching profession - and I don't find that to be true at all. ~ Jonathan Kozol

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

Defending mediocrity is exhausting. ~ Seth Godin

When all that's left mediocrity and each day just bleeds into the next. ~ Andy Carrington

Never surrender to the momentum of mediocrity. ~ Marlon Brando

A step towards complacency is a step towards mediocrity;
a step towards diligence is a step towards brilliance. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

The real zombie-apocalypse is the pandemic of drama and mediocrity. ~ Bryant McGill

Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak. ~ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Still, I kept writing. I had no guarantee that I would someday win awards for writing. Heavens, the only person during that time who seemed to think I could write something worth publishing was my loyal husband. But I always remembered the professor from graduate school who urged me to write and who recommended me for that first writing assignment in 1964. When I protested to Sara Little that I didn't want to add another mediocre writer to the world, she gently reminded me that if I didn't dare mediocrity, I would never write anything at all. ~ Katherine Paterson

We are not built for mediocrity, but we build it into our lives nonetheless. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

If a book can save - redeem us from the mediocrity of the mundane - surely, there must be a God. ~ Chila Woychik

Admiration was a sentiment unknown to her - first, as always more or less tainted with mediocrity, and next, as being in a way an admission of inferiority. And both were frankly inconceivable to her nature. ~ Joseph Conrad

The mediocrity with which Africa has been ruled is responsible for its underdevelopment. ~ Raila Odinga

And I've learned to hit the brakes at these kinds of stop signs rather than t-boning a tanker truck filled with 200 proof mediocrity. ~ Benjamin Kane Ethridge

Our actions in the present build the staircase to the future. The question is whether that staircase is going up or down. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Often we don't see the majesty of God's design because we're caught up in the mediocrity of our own designs. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The weak will try to convince you that weakness is strength. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

The wise begin with whys." Everyone wants to be happy, healthy, and successful, but wanting is rarely an effective strategy for getting. Those who overcome the temptations of mediocrity and achieve everything they want in life have an extraordinarily compelling why that drives them. They ~ Hal Elrod

I'm not looking for a road to walk. Rather, I'm looking for a path to create. For creating a path shapes men, while walking a road simply appeases them. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Perfection is an illusion that I have mastered. It is the weak who suffer in mediocrity. But my fears are very real and the story of my past is what nightmares are made of. The monsters no longer hide under my bed. I welcome them under the covers. Popularity is a contest after all and I was anything but a loser. ~ Teresa Mummert

i was poised for greatness, but the poising game me a cramp so i have instead just settled for comfortable mediocrity... (Vimrod # 4904) ~ Ralph Lazar

(a) A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published.
(b) A writer has a duty and an obligation never to be understood by his own generation; convinced, as he is, that he has been born into an age of mediocrity, he believes that being understood would mean losing his chance of ever being considered a genius. A writer revises and rewrites each sentence many times. The vocabulary of the average man is made up of 3,000 words; a real writer never uses any of these, because there are another 189,000 in the dictionary, and he is not the average man.
(c) Only other writers can understand what a writer is trying to say. Even so, he secretly hates all other writers, because they are always jockeying for the same vacancies left by the history of literature over the centuries. And so the writer and his peers compete for the prize of 'most complicated book': the one who wins will be the one who has succeeded in being the most difficult to read.
(d) A writer understands about things with alarming names, like semiotics, epistemology, neoconcretism. When he wants to shock someone, he says things like: 'Einstein is a fool', or 'Tolstoy was the clown of the bourgeoisie.' Everyone is ~ Paulo Coelho

That, however, is - mediocrity, though it be called moderation. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

'Good enough' stopped being good enough a long time ago. so why not be great? ~ Seth Godin

You have to break your vow to mediocrity ~ Michael Bernard Beckwith

I always thought I'd get farther. I'd like to blame the world for what I've failed to do, but the failure - the failure that sometimes washes over me as anger, makes me so angry I could spit - is all mine, in the end. What made my obstacles insurmountable, what consigned me to mediocrity, is me, just me. I thought for so long, forever, that I was strong enough
or I misunderstood what strength was. ~ Claire Messud

I think there is probably no better person to aspire to emulate than Steve Jobs and what he has done at Apple in terms of his leadership, his innovation, not settling for mediocrity. ~ Howard Schultz

You have to have a habitual vision of greatness ... you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity ... believe in fact that living is connected to giving. ~ Cornel West

The path to mediocrity is wide; the path to greatness is narrow, and the path to genius is hidden; few find it. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Maturity is the ability to harness your abilities and your energies and do more than is expected. The mature person refuses to settle for mediocrity. He/she would rather aim high and miss the mark than low-and make it. ~ Ann Landers

There is doubtless such a thing as a 'national character'. In art, it is the lowest common denominator. The more specific the character, the more commonplace it is. That is why creation always requires overcoming such a character.

An artist, if he is anything, is an individual. But to be an individual means embodying your own truths, suffering your own experiences, and inventing your own style. But these things can only occur by renouncing facility, and the most unfortunate facility comes from these so-called national characters, formed by the sedimentation of collective mediocrity, which lies there ready-made. National character is by definition that which remains in a culture after you have removed the personal effort involved in thinking, the personal experience of life and the triumph of individual creation. ~ Mihail Sebastian

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness. ~ Oscar Wilde

The American Naming Authority, a collective of women studying the effects of names on behavior, decrees that a name should only have one user. The nearly 1 million American users of the name Mary, for example, do not constitute a unified army who might slaughter all users of the name Nancy, as was earlier supposed, but rather a saturation of the Mary Potential Quotient. Simply stated: Too many women with the same name produces widespread mediocrity and fatigue. ~ Ben Marcus

They did not ask my permission for their mediocrity, why should I ask theirs for excellence? ~ Murad S. Shah

Like a weighted diver sinking in an ocean
of mediocrity, under the pressure of men with
gelatin eyes, rubber voices, spiral-shaped
convictions, non-committal souls and non-committing
hands ... ~ Ayn Rand

As far as I'm concerned, it's a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

For every decision a 'man' makes, he makes it with the best of the depth of knowledge he possess at that particular instant and the quality of experiences he's passed through. It's not an excuse though for mediocrity, but an avenue to learn, rise, and conquer your inefficient self. By inference, beyond an extreme line, there might not necessarily be a qualification of a choice as wrong or right, but an avenue to grow depending on how the intricacies of such a choice and its consequences are handled. ~ Ufuoma Apoki

Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself or success as a team. You have to share the pain and the responsibility and if you do then you will also share in the rewards. ~ Michael Bloomberg

Amor fati: this is the very core of my being - And as to my prolonged illness, do I not owe much more to it than I owe to my health? To it I owe a higher kind of health, a sort of health which grows stronger under everything that does not actually kill it! - To it, I owe even my philosophy. ... Only great suffering is the ultimate emancipator of spirit, for it teaches one that vast suspiciousness which makes an X out of every U, a genuine and proper X, i.e., the antepenultimate letter. Only great suffering; that great suffering, under which we seem to be over a fire of greenwood, the suffering that takes its time - forces us philosophers to descend into our nethermost depths, and to let go of all trustfulness, all good-nature, all whittling-down, all mildness, all mediocrity, - on which things we had formerly staked our humanity. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Cockroaches are survivors. Turn on the lights and you will see a scattering of casino hosts in three thousand dollar bespoken suits, corporate fruit flies in empty suits, lawyer-class slime on their way to the courthouse to go shopping for other people's money, bankers shilling bad loans by bundling them together with good ones and sending them down the financial pipeline knowing that they stand protected by the political scum from every level of government who have risen to breathtaking heights of mediocrity, tossing a couple of bucks from the public till to the obedient myrmidons in exchange for their votes. While decaying empire crumble, cockroaches multiply among the ruins. - Bonjour Amigos ~ David Gustafson

The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, With emotion, to the man I used to be. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

We were meant to live courageous and bold lives and not lives of mediocrity. However, we have to live our lives actively and on purpose each day to be unstoppable. ~ Thomas Narofsky

Forget the mediocrity, live an extraordinary life. ~ Debasish Mridha

The aficionado prefers a crazy bomb to a mediocrity, because the musical as a form has such potential as entertainment that the merely adequate can fatigue the spirit while the disaster can amuse with its drastic misjudgments and desperation gambles. ~ Ethan Mordden

Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. ~ Albert Einstein

Desire is the ingredient that changes the hot water of mediocrity to the steam of outstanding success. ~ Zig Ziglar

Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring - but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down. ~ Trevanian

Individuality is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization. ~ Frederick E. Crane

The goal of comfort is at the self-same time the abandonment of great accomplishments. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The way that I am now, I don't want to accept mediocrity. I don't want to accept the easy road. ~ Joe Nichols

Be fearful of mediocrity. ~ Jonathan Ellery

Today we've learned to celebrate mediocrity. Back in the day we had creative artists; today we have created artists. ~ Lionel Richie

Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity. ~ Will Smith

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly. ~ Ned Rorem

Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise. ~ Florence King

As a homosexual, my job is simply to sodomize mediocrity. ~ Bradford Cox

Do a few things at mastery versus many things at mediocrity. ~ Robin Sharma

Today we hear a great deal about Organizational Men, Mass Culture, Conformity, the Lonely Crowd, the Power Elite and its Conspiracy of Mediocrity. We forget that the very volume of this criticism is an indication that our society is still radically pluralistic. Not only are there plenty of exceptionalists who take exception to the stereotyping of the mass culture but that very string of epithets comes from a series of books that have been recent best-sellers, symptoms of a popular, living tradition of dissent from things as they are. ~ Kenneth Rexroth

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don't accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness. ~ Robin S. Sharma

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. ~ Michael J. Gelb

Birds that cannot fly high into the sky rejoice exceedingly and sing sweet melodies when they get to the top of the tallest tree on the highest mountain! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead ... ~ Og Mandino

To become a better you, admit that you were not born for the floor. Refuse to embrace mediocrity anytime anywhere. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Unfortunately, Bretorius had found mediocrity too high a bar. He had advanced in the fleet the old-fashioned way: he'd stuck around so long they had to give him a command, or muster him out. ~ John Jackson Miller

A life of mediocrity is a waste of life. ~ Colleen Hoover

There is no gap as wide as the one between mediocrity and genius. ~ Rutvik Oza

I'd think there are degrees of greatness," Adam said.
"I don't think so," said Samuel. "That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility - that hugeness - you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I'm glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? ~ John Steinbeck

A society that lacks good people willing to speak against evil or low standards can only devolve into darkness and mediocrity. ~ Brendon Burchard

Parodies are hard to do well, as is shown by the mediocrity of so many recent attempts. No matter how ripe a genre is for satirizing, unless you know how to do it, there are no guarantees. ~ James Berardinelli

Fuckarounditis: A behavioral disorder characterized by a mediocre physique and complete lack of progress, despite significant amounts of time spent in the gym. ~ Martin Berkhan

You don't need a hand-out, you need a hand-up! And that's what we need to portray: 'Look, do you want to live in mediocrity? Because that's all that the entitlements are going to do for you. Keep you living in the lowest socio-economic scale. ~ Rafael Cruz

Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet ... ~ Winifred Holtby

It is a lack of commitment, not a lack of talent, that damns you to mediocrity. ~ Roy H. Williams

The ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity. He likes his candidate to be sensible, vigorous, and, above all, what he calls 'magnetic,' and does not value, because he sees no need for, originality or profundity, a fine culture or a wide knowledge. ~ James Bryce

Everyone chooses one of two roads in life - the old and the young, the rich and the poor, men and women alike. One is the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity, the other road to greatness and meaning. ~ Stephen Covey

I have never been against new art as such; some of it is good, much is crap, most is somewhere in between. ~ Robert Hughes

Those who build and perpetuate mediocrity ... are motivated more by the fear of being left behind. ~ James C. Collins

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

Anyone could be in the orchestra, or sports team, or arts club at my school. It was precisely the kind of inclusivity that now meets with a sort of scorn and derision as a prizes-for-all culture that generates only mediocrity. There's something so insulting about the idea that including lots of people means mediocrity. ~ Elizabeth Price

Public Opinion, this invisible, intangible, omnipresent, despotic tyrant; this thousand-headed Hydra - the more dangerous for being composed of individual mediocrities ... ~ H. P. Blavatsky

Don't fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest ~ Gary Keller

When we are honest about the limitations we are self imposing it becomes necessary to cry out with determination and state you've had enough of the mediocrity of stagnation. ~ Heidi Reagan

Like a tide-race, the waves of human mediocrity are rising to the heavens and will engulf this refuge, for I am opening the flood-gates myself, against my will. Ah! but my courage fails me and my heart is sick within me!
Lord, take pity on the Christian who doubts, on the unbeliever who would fain believe, on the galley-slave of life who puts out to sea alone, in the night, beneath a firmament no longer lit by the consoling beacon-fires of the ancient hope!
(A Rebours, final words) ~ Joris-Karl Huysmans

What importance can we attach to the things of this world? Friendship? It disappears when the one who is liked comes to grief, or the one who likes becomes powerful. Love? it is deceived, fleeting, or guilty. Fame? You share it with mediocrity or crime. Fortune? Could that frivolity be counted a blessing? All that remains are those so-called happy days that flow past unnoticed in the obscurity of domestic cares, leaving man with the desire neither to lose his life nor to begin it over. ~ Francois-Rene De Chateaubriand

The hard truth is, bad meetings almost always lead to bad decisions, which is the best recipe for mediocrity. ~ Patrick Lencioni