Excellence quotes
715 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"Cultivate a deep understanding of yourself - not only what your strengths and weaknesses are but also how you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make the greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence."
"Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership."
"Excellence is my presence. Never tense, never hesitant."
"Let excellence be your brand... When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you're doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you."
"Excellence" is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice. We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent", in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly"."
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside excellence — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We are what we repeatedly do... excellence, therefore, isn't just an act, but a habit and life isn't just a series of events, but an ongoing process of self-definition."
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit."
"The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity."
"Be great in act, as you have been in thought."
"I'm on the pursuit of awesomeness, excellence is the bare minimum."
"You have to be doing something you enjoy. That is a definition of happiness: Complete use of one's faculties along lines leading to excellence in a life affording them scope. It applies to women as well as to men. We can't all reach it, but we can try to reach it to some degree."
"I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."
"It's a fine thing to rise above pride, but you must have pride in order to do so."
"Intensity is the price of excellence."
"Talk to yourself atleast once in a Day.. Otherwise you may miss a meeting with an EXCELLENT person in this World."
"Success is not something to wait for, it is something to work for."
"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it."
"Strive for excellence, not perfection, because we don't live in a perfect world."
"What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action."
"Adequacy is the enemy of excellence."
"Everything should be first-rate in a person, his face, clothes, soul and thoughts."
"Excellence does not require perfection."
"Perfection belongs to the Gods; the most we can hope for is excellence."
"The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words."
"one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty−one that everything afterward savors of anti−climax."
