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.
Because I have a dog, it's easier to work at home: I sit in a horrible weird 'Mastermind'-style chair and bask in my own mediocrity. Being single, I've no family life to distract me at the end of the day. Apart from taking the dog for a walk, I have no other responsibilities.
We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself.
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.
My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.
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.
Only mediocrity of enjoyment is allowed to man.
Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.
A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.
It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.
Being famous is not something that would make me feel successful - unless one was striving for mediocrity.
Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.
There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.
Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people. Otherwise, you settle for mediocrity - or you burn yourself out.
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises... the best excellence in the children of any other land.
We shouldn't accept mediocrity as the best a politician can do.
The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.
Everything about mediocrity kills me.
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.
Any corporate policy and plan which is typical of the industry is doomed to mediocrity. Where this is not so, it should be possible to demonstrate that all other competitors are at a distinct disadvantage.
There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
Mediocrity was the dominating element of big conglomerates and, in the new digital age, digitalization goes exactly after mediocrity.
When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
Malice is only another name for mediocrity.
Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.
There's so much in the 21st century that is stymied by bureaucracy and mediocrity and committee.
It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.
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.
I do respond well to a director, a teacher - someone who doesn't accept mediocrity.
I could've just walked away but I never could have forgiven myself to allow Starbucks to drift into mediocrity or not be relevant. I just couldn't be a bystander.
I react very badly when mediocrity throws a tantrum of entitlement.
