Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nietzsche should not be taken seriously as a political theorist, at least not at the level of his positive prescriptions. But the Nietzsche who denounces the insipidity and mediocrity that result from democracy's levelling impulses could not be more acute.
Education in India has made monumental progress since Independence but continues to face daunting challenges at multiple levels, particularly in terms of quality, infrastructure and dropout rates. We have islands of excellence floating in a sea of mediocrity.
The ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity. He likes his candidate to be sensible, vigorous, and, above all, what he calls 'magnetic,' and does not value, because he sees no need for, originality or profundity, a fine culture or a wide knowledge.
Well, teachers have been profoundly demoralized in recent years and are often treated with contempt by politicians. There's a great deal of reckless rhetoric in Washington about the mediocrity of the teaching profession - and I don't find that to be true at all.
The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse.
I've relaxed my feelings about other companies performing my works. I have never in principle been against my ballets being danced by other companies. Rather, it is that we lack the time, space and money to insure that they are done well. To me, the only sin is mediocrity.
Love It, is to increase by forgetting. It's escape through a single being to mediocrity of all other. It's one more for trying to be less. It's become like everyone else in the belief that we become as a person. It is giving appointment to happiness in the palace of chance.
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.
You don't hire for mediocrity. Instead, you bring people onto your team because you know that they'll make a valuable contribution and turn in amazing work. But, in order to have that expectation, you need to make sure you're fostering an environment that allows them to do so.
... one doesn't want to read badly any more than live badly, since time will not relent. I don't know that we owe God or nature a death, but nature will collect anyway, and we certainly owe mediocrity nothing, whatever collectivity it purports to advance or at least represent.
We humans can get used to anything. It really is remarkable. The problem is that we often use this glorious ability of ours to stay stuck in mediocrity. Oh, the years we waste adapting to lousy marriages, soul-sucking jobs, being friends with people who are rude to waitresses.
Tradition! We scarcely know the word anymore. We are afraid to be either proud of our ancestors or ashamed of them. We scorn nobility in name and in fact. We cling to a bourgeois mediocrity which would make it appear we are all Americans, made in the image and likeness of George Washington.
You have to connect with your market and your employees. First, understand that what your market says is fact and what you say is opinion. Then, take the time to create a good connection with your employees. Without those two key connections, your business will be stuck in mediocrity forever.
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.
When Americans decry our politicians, we must remember that ultimately, politicians reflect us. When we demand more than mediocrity - and the passing comforts it bestows - we will certainly attain it. One hopes and prays it doesn't take an historic crisis for us to demand and reward excellence in public service.
Probability is a kind of penance, which God made, suitable, I presume to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness, and liableness to error.
Mediocrity is the most effective mask a superior spirit can wear, because to the great majority, which is to say, to the mediocre,it will not suggest a disguise:--and yet it is precisely for their sake that he puts it on--so as not to arouse them, and, indeed, not infrequently to avoid this out of pity and benevolence.
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.
There are those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behaviour and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity.
There are the those whose own vulgar normality is so apparent and stultifying that they strive to escape it. They affect flamboyant behaviour and claim originality according to the fashionable eccentricities of their time. They claim brains or talent or indifference to mores in desperate attempts to deny their own mediocrity.
You can always spot a 'television personality', even when they aren't actually on television, because they carry their 'made-up' persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on that fulsome mediocrity of talent detailed above has become frozen in their faces.
Even if feminists tear down the bogeyman patriarchy and dominate men in all areas of life, they still won't be happy because deep down, they'll know it's a false victory. Achievement obtained by lowering your opponent to your standard as opposing to rising and surpassing their standard of output isn't achievement. It's mediocrity.
I am uncompromising to the point of huge dissension in the studio. And it's served me very well. My theory and my philosophy is, 'Compromise breeds mediocrity.' Obviously, you have to pick your battles, and the more success an artist has, the more they want to be involved in their own career, which is not necessarily a good thing.
I've known people who thought that reaching their potential would come from shoring up their weaknesses. But do you know what happens when you spend all your time working on your weaknesses and never developing your strengths? If you work really hard, you might claw your way all the way to mediocrity! But you'll never get beyond it.
Each time a mediocre singer performs, he is saying, in effect, "This is good enough for you." The audience, thrust into that familiar American mood of knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is, unconsciously absorbs the insult and projects it back onto the mediocre performer in the form of inattention, rudeness and noise.
A strong accountability system needs to broaden, not narrow, the curriculum. That cannot happen if you only have accountability without adequate school funding. Until Tallahassee understands the need to raise the bar as well as the financial investment, Florida will continue to celebrate mediocrity at the expense of true achievement.
To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with Women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmered Dorian.
Anthony and I are putting together a company where we won't lose our jobs based on quarterly earnings and can afford to play a longer game. That short game is what creates a glut of mediocrity in the market because people are desperate for hits, and it puts so much pressure on executives to deliver them. We will take that pressure off the artists.