A Quote by John W. Gardner

The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

John W. Gardner

Quote Topics

Amiable Every Excellence Free Free Man Goal Highest Idea Implies Life Man Mediocrity Nation Phase Set Standards Stands Striving Survive Themselves Which Will

Quote Author

John W. Gardner
American - Educator
October 8, 1912 - February 16, 2002

Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.

John W. Gardner

Going far beyond that call of duty, doing more than others expect, this is what excellence is all about! And it comes from striving, maintaining the highest standards, looking after the smallest detail, and going the extra mile. Excellence means doing your very best. In everything! In every way.

Jack Johnson

My idea of the Christian religion is, that it is an inspiration and its vital consequences--an inspiration and a life--God's life breathed into a man and breathed through a man--the highest inspiration and the highest life of every soul which it inhabits; and, furthermore, that the soul which it inhabits can have no high issue which is not essentially religious.

J. G. Holland

If you live for the highest goal, you are living a life of the spirit-whether or not you consider yourself to be on a spiritual path. If you consciously notice the larger aspects of life, always consider whether what you are doing coincides with these aspects, never forget the times when you were enlivened by the power of the highest goal, use those memories in new situations, and act with the knowledge of the support you have and the journey you are on-you will be living for the highest goal.

Michael Ray

Excellence is the eternal quest. We achieve it by living up to our highest intellectual standards and our finest moral intuitions. In seeking excellence, take life seriously-but never yourself!

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

The highest and greatest goal that every soul has to reach is God. As everything needs renunciation, that highest goal needs the highest renunciation.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Life is teleology par excellence; it is the intrinsic striving towards a goal, and the living organism is a system of directed aims which seek to fulfill themselves.

Carl Jung

The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.

William Hazlitt

Religion means goal and way, politics implies end and means. The political end is recognizable by the fact that it may be attained--in success--and its attainment is historically recorded. The religious goal remains, even in man's highest experiences, that which simply provides direction on the mortal way; it never enters into historical consummation.

Martin Buber

Perfection, fortunately, is not the only alternative to mediocrity. A more sensible alternative is excellence. Striving for excellence is stimulating and rewarding; striving for perfection--in practically anything--is both neurotic and futile.

Ed Bliss

A sincere seeker knows what his goal is: the highest Truth. He will not delay his journey. In spiritual life, we aspire for the highest Truth, for God, nothing else.

Sri Chinmoy

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth - that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

Viktor E. Frankl

No limits are set to the ascent of man, and to each and everyone the highest stands open. Here it is only your personal choice that decides.

Martin Buber

The unwillingness of most leaders to set standards, to administer feedback when standards are not met, to praise clearly when standards are met, stands in the way of the development of excellence. The leader who makes no demands of his disciples cannot really lead them at all. The sense of new excitement and new challenge generated by the gospel will be blunted by leaders who shield followers from the full demands of fellowship.

Neal A. Maxwell

To create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language - That's who I am. That's what I am doing. That's my life goal.