41 Excellence Quotes For Inspiration

Are you seeking a spark of motivation or a dose of inspiration to help you strive for greatness? Look no further. We've meticulously gathered 41 of the most powerful quotes on excellence, each one chosen to ignite your inner drive and push you closer to your personal and professional goals. These insightful words from renowned thinkers, leaders, and creators serve as timeless reminders that the pursuit of excellence is a journey worth embarking on. Whether you're aiming to elevate your career, enhance your personal growth, or simply find a bit of encouragement, these quotes are here to guide and uplift you. Dive in and let the wisdom of the ages inspire your path to excellence.

1. “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

2. “Do your best, and be a little better than you are.” - Gordon B. Hinckley

3. “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.” - Abraham Lincoln

4. “These virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions ... The good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life.” - Aristotle

5. “To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don't isolate.” - Michael Jordan

6. “I have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up” - Frank O'Hara

7. “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” - Booker T. Washington

8. “Anything worth doing, is worth doing right.” - Hunter S. Thompson

9. “We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.” - Henry Ward Beecher

10. “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have the time to do it over?” - John Wooden

11. “Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (The perfect is the enemy of the good.)” - Voltaire

12. “Some people insist that 'mediocre' is better than 'best.' They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can't fly. They despise brains because they have none.” - Robert A. Heinlein

13. “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way” - Martin Luther King Jr.

14. “People of excellence go the extra mile to do what's right.” - Joel Osteen

15. “Good human work honors God's work. Good work uses no thing without respect, both for what it is in itself and for its origin. It uses neither tool nor material that it does not respect and that it does not love. It honors nature as a great mystery and power, as an indispensable teacher, and as the inescapable judge of all work of human hands. It does not dissociate life and work, or pleasure and work, or love and work, or usefulness and beauty. To work without pleasure or affection, to make a product that is not both useful and beautiful, is to dishonor God, nature, the thing that is made, and whomever it is made for. This is blasphemy: to make shoddy work of the work of God. But such blasphemy is not possible when the entire Creation is understood as holy and when the works of God are understood as embodying and thus revealing His spirit. (pg. 312, Christianity and the Survival of Creation)” - Wendell Berry

16. “But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.” - Thornton Wilder

17. “To have a man whose name is on the label showing such interest, commitment, and determination for the best is a wonderful thing. This is someone who will throw money at quality, who believes in being the best. Never knock it. Would you prefer to have a bean counter in corporate headquarters, someone who never comes near the brewery, making decisions solely on the basis of the bottom line and profit margins?” - Charles Bamforth

18. “Focus on making yourself better, not on thinking that you are better.” - Bohdi Sanders

19. “You've baked a really lovely cake, but then you've used dog shit for frosting.” - Steve Jobs

20. “There were far worse strategies in life than to try to make each aspect of one's existence a minor work of art.” - Pat Conroy

21. “To stay vigorous, a company needs to provide a stimulating and challenging environment for all these types: the dreamer, the entrepreneur, the professional manager, and the leader. If it doesn't, it risks becoming yet another mediocre corporation.” - Howard Schultz

22. “Coach said. "the quality of a man's life is in direct proportion to his commitment to excellence, regardless of his chosen field of endeavor".” - Sherman Alexie

23. “To be acceptable is for one to ignore his weakness while knowing his strength, to cover the scar even though it's always there, however, to be impossible is for one to see his weakness as, not an adversary, but the cherry on top of his strength, to rearrange the scar so that it compliments his features.” - Criss Jami

24. “The rewrites are a struggle right now. Sometimes I wish writing a book could just be easy for me at last. But when I think about it practically, I am glad it's a struggle. I am (as usual) attempting to write a book that's too hard for me. I'm telling a story I'm not smart enough to tell. The risk of failure is huge. But I prefer it this way. I'm forced to learn, forced to smarten myself up, forced to wrestle. And if it works, then I'll have written something that is better than I am.” - Shannon Hale

25. “There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?” - Thomas Mann

26. “To seek greatness is the only righteous vengeance.” - Criss Jami

27. “If you’re any good at all, you know you can be better.” - Lindsay Buckingham

28. “Excellence must be achieved through the eyes of those who judge us; once achieved it can only be maintained with constant innovation.” - Tom Collins

29. “Just make up your mind at the very outset that your work is going to stand for quality... that you are going to stamp a superior quality upon everything that goes out of your hands, that whatever you do shall bear the hallmark of excellence.” - Orison Swett Marden

30. “What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare.” - Robert Farrar Capon

31. “The present and the future belong to believers and practitioners of excellence; not the "dinosaurs.” - Rex Resurreccion

32. “As sure as shadow follows substance and the sun rises on the east and sets on the west, a person who exercises professional excellence will be followed by success.” - Rex Resurreccion

33. “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.” - Steve Jobs

34. “Only the mediocre artist is always at his best.” - Victor J. Banis

35. “Never allow your desires to lead you away from God; allow nothing else to control you other than God and His Word. No matter what you see or pass through, don’t allow them to define you.” - Agu, Jaachynma N.E.

36. “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” - Socrates

37. “Be driven with purpose. Be relentless in your alignment with excellence. Pay no mind to the disimpassioned impotent haters.” - Steve Maraboli

38. “Happiness, Success, Excellence: They are not something you get for knowing the path; they are something you experience by walking it.” - Steve Maraboli

39. “You unlock the door to greater levels of excellence and success when you accept who you are. It is from the point of acceptance that we can create a masterful life.” - Steve Maraboli

40. “True sportsmanship is excellence in motion!” - Lorii Myers

41. “Excellence prospers in the absence of excuses.” - Lorii Myers