John Donne Quotes

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

To me, the only sin is mediocrity.

Aspiration lifts the life; groveling lowers it. When we are striving for excellence in everything we do the entire life grows and expands, but if we allow our standards to drop, there is a natural progression that follows, a tendency for a downward effort in all that we do thereafter.

A man is a man to the extent that he is a superman. A man should be defined by the sum of those tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition.

The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.

One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent.

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity.

If more people would try and reach up instead of going to the lowest common denominator, I think we'd be a lot better off.

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

I know I want to always do the best I can.

I'd say Harvard graduates leave here with a sense of the possible and the limit - and a sense that there are no limits to what humans can do and that you can always be pushing, whatever limit you think might be there.

Mediocre men work at their best; men seeking excellence strive to do better.

Do not sit down in Satan's easy chair of do-little, but arise and aim at the elevated standard which it is your privilege to attain.

I want to be regarded as the best guy in the world, and I want to beat the best guy in the world.

I've always been a mediocre student, so I never won an award in school. I'm not very athletic, so I've never won a sports award. So, I'm a mediocre person.

It's always nice to be among the best teams but not everyone can do that.

I just want to do as good as I can. What that is, I don't know.

I don't think anybody wants to be mediocre.

I don't wanna be bare minimum. I wanna be successful.

The biggest fear in my life is being mediocre.

I remembered that throughout my growing up and education and pursuing my dreams and desires, going into acting, and, of course, getting through Yale University and on and on and on, that being average, being mediocre was not an option that you should be proud of.

I believe in excellence. It is a basic need of every human soul. All of us can be excellent, because, fortunately, we are exceedingly diverse in our ambitions and talents.

Success is the brand on the brow of the man who aimed too low.

There is a human striving for self-transcendence. It's part of what makes us human. With all of our flaws we want to go a little bit further than we've gone before and maybe even further than anyone else has gone before.