A Quote by Baltasar Gracian

Attain and maintain a reputation, for it is the usufruct of fame. A stiff climb, for it is the issue of excellence, as rare as mediocrity is common.

Baltasar Gracian

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Attain Climb Common Excellence Fame Issue Maintain Mediocrity Rare Reputation Stiff

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Baltasar Gracian
Spanish - Philosopher
January 8, 1601 - December 6, 1658

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

It takes more energy to maintain mediocrity than it takes to pursue excellence.

Matthew Kelly

A man's heart must be very frivolous if the possession of fame rewards the labor to attain it. For the worst of reputation is that it is not palpable or present - we do not feel or see or taste it.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Samuel Johnson

Every activity performed in public can attain an excellence never matched in privacy; for excellence, by definition, the presence of others is always required.

Hannah Arendt

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.

James M Strock

My hunger is not for success, it is for excellence. Because when you attain excellence, success just naturally follows.

Mike Krzyzewski

If you have a reputation as a big, stiff bureaucracy, you're stuck.

Jack Welch

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

Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.

Joseph Joubert

Mediocrity always attacks excellence.

Michael Beckwith

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity.

Warren G. Bennis

Let us learn to accept ourselves-accept the truth that we are capable in some directions and limited in others, that genius is rare, that mediocrity is a portion of almost all of us, but that we can contribute from the storehouse of our skills to the enrichment of our common life.

Joshua L. Liebman

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.

Benjamin Haydon

The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment.

William Arthur Ward

A Quote by Baltasar Gracian

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