Mediocrity Quotes - page 2

In the first Manifesto that we launched on the 8th of March, 1910, from the stage of the Chiarella Theater in Turin, we expressed our deep-rooted disgust with, our proud contempt for, and our happy rebellion against vulgarity, mediocrity, the fanatical and snobbish worship of all that is old, attitudes which are suffocating Art in our Country. (Umberto Boccioni)
Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions. View quote
William Ewart Gladstone
As it is far better to excel in any single art, than to arrive only at a mediocrity in several; so on the other hand, a moderate skill in several is to be preferred, where one cannot attain to excellency in any. View quote
Pliny the Younger
The mark of mediocrity is to look for precedent. View quote
Norman Mailer
There is plenty of room at the top because very few people care to travel beyond the average route. And so most of us seem satisfied to remain within the confines of mediocrity. View quote
Nnamdi Azikiwe
What the learned world tends to offer is one second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity. View quote
Alfred North Whitehead
Watch, listen, and learn. You can't know it all yourself-anyone who thinks that they do is destined for mediocrity. View quote
Donald Trump
I always wanted to be commander-in-chief of my one-woman army, But I can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour. View quote
Ani DiFranco
Economic analysis is the first principle of Marxism. Professors who were genuine leftists would have challenged the entire economics-driven machinery of American academe the wasteful multidepartmental structure, the divisive pedantry of overspecialization, the cronyism and sycophancy in recruitment and promotion, the boondoggling ostentation of pointless conferences, the exploitation of graduate students and part-time teachers, the subservience of faculty to overpaid administrators, the mediocrity and folly of the ruling cliques of the Modern Language Association. View quote
Camille Paglia
Men have made a virtue of moderation to limit the ambition of the great, and to console people of mediocrity for their want of fortune and of merit. View quote
François de La Rochefoucauld
Every effort that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity. (Oscar Wilde)
As we celebrate mediocrity, All the boys upstairs want to see How much you'll pay for What you used to get for free. View quote
Tom Petty
For I think it is the case with genius that it is not when quiescent so very much above mediocrity as the difference between the two might lead us to think, but that it has the power and privilege of rising from that level to a height utterly far from mediocrity: in other words that its greatness is that it can be so great. View quote
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Democracy is always, by nature and constitution, the triumph of mediocrity. View quote
Indro Montanelli
A good number of works owe their success to the mediocrity of their authors' ideas, which match the mediocrity of those of the general public. View quote
Nicolas Chamfort
Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success. View quote
Zig Ziglar
Music is a Place to take Refuge. It's a Sanctuary from Mediocrity and Boredom. It's Innocent and it's a Place you can loose yourself in Thoughts, Memories and Intricacies. View quote
Lisa Gerrard
The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man's. View quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered. View quote
Napoleon Bonaparte
We mistrust anything that too strongly challenges our ideal of mediocrity. View quote
Robertson Davies
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)
Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers. View quote
Horace
The real geniuses know where their writing has to be good and where they can get away with some mediocrity. View quote
Dmitri Shostakovich
In truth, I am nothing but a plodding mediocrity - please observe, a plodding mediocrity - for a mere mediocrity does not go very far, but a plodding one gets quite a distance. There is joy in that success, and a distinction can come from courage, fidelity and industry. View quote
Benjamin N. Cardozo
There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority. View quote
Orison Swett Marden