Henry E. Steinway Quotes

Quality survives.

Quality is everything to me, and I perfect everything I do.

Excellence is the accumulation of hundreds of minute decisions; it is execution at the most granular level. Once you accept the idea that you should give in to things that make no sense because other people do those things and you want to appear reasonable, you are on a path towards mediocrity.

Results are a consequence of doing things well and having high standards, improving the detail of how we play.

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.

If you can't do it and do it well, you can't do it, period.

Quality is easy to talk but hard to make.

Never cut corners, or accept anything that's second-rate.

Good enough never is.

It's all about perfection, isn't it?

I'm constantly looking for perfection.

You have to be a professional in every single thing you do.

Luxury is research in quality. It's quality with no compromise. What does that mean? That you don't think about how much something will cost to be able to achieve the very, very best.

It's not enough to do good. It must be done well.

Anything less than the best is a felony.

If you do it first class and you don't compromise values, and you don't compromise quality, and you don't compromise service, and you don't compromise cleanliness, then everybody else who is the competitor has got to play catch-up.

Only mediocrity escapes criticism.

Excellence costs a great deal.

There is no room in the world, as you say, for second rate work.

For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.

I don't care if you're doing haute cuisine or burgers and pizza, just do it right.

Our goal, simply stated, is to be the best.

I won't do anything unless it's the absolute best.

Commit yourself to quality from day one... it's better to do nothing at all than to do something badly.

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