Mediocre Quotes

The most mediocre of males feels himself a demigod as compared with women. (Simone de Beauvoir)
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. View quote
William Arthur Ward
Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible. View quote
Margaret Mead
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. View quote
Joseph Heller
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. View quote
Lily Tomlin
I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists. View quote
Brigitte Bardot
We must overcome the notion that we must be regular... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. View quote
Uta Hagen
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding. View quote
François de La Rochefoucauld
Only the mediocre are always at their best. View quote
Jean Giraudoux
A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent. View quote
Logan Pearsall Smith
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent. (Sophia Loren)
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. View quote
Albert Einstein
I don't believe in luck, Sam. Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius. View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. View quote
Robert Louis Stevenson
A man can be a hero if he is a scientist, or a soldier, or a drug addict, or a disc jockey, or a crummy mediocre politician. A man can be a hero because he suffers and despairs; or because he thinks logically and analytically; or because he is "sensitive"; or because he is cruel. Wealth establishes a man as a hero, and so does poverty. Virtually any circumstance in a man's life will make him a hero to some group of people and has a mythic rendering in the culture-in literature, art, theater, or the daily newspapers. View quote
Andrea Dworkin
A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp. View quote
Carson McCullers
Mediocre men work at their best; men seeking excellence strive to do better. View quote
Edwin Louis Cole
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. Pfah! View quote
Robert A. Heinlein
We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes. View quote
Chris Hedges
The modernist thirst for originality makes the mediocre artist believe that the secret of originality consists simply in being different. View quote
Nicolás Gómez Dávila
The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work. (Ayn Rand)
Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes. View quote
Tom Peters
[I]t is necessary to insist upon this extraordinary but undeniable fact: experimental science has progressed thanks in great part to the work of men astoundingly mediocre, and even less than mediocre. That is to say, modern science, the root and symbol of our actual civilization, finds a place for the intellectually commonplace man and allows him to work therein with success. View quote
José Ortega y Gasset
At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre. View quote
Norman Mailer
Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration. View quote
Emil Cioran