A Quote by Gerald Finzi

But no work from a first rate mind is ever really second rate.

Gerald Finzi

Quote Topics

Ever First Mind No Work Rate Really Second Second Rate Work

Quote Author

Gerald Finzi
British - Composer
July 14, 1901 - September 27, 1956

If you go to a second-rate place, and you are first-rate, it is very difficult to do first-rate work because you do not get that critical feedback you need for first-rate work on a daily basis.

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.

John Updike

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

Sarah Waters

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

Willa Cather

What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

Doris Lessing

I knew Id always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, Well, Id rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one.

Sarah Waters

A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.

Abraham Maslow

Why become a second-rate Ravel when you're already a first-rate Gershwin?

Maurice Ravel

The great trouble with you Americans is that you are still under the influence of that second-rate - shall I say third-rate? - mind, Karl Marx.

H. G. Wells

First-rate science fiction was, and remains, more interesting than second-rate art.

Clive James

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

A. A. Milne

The English mind is always in a rage. The intellect of the race is wasted in the sordid and stupid quarrels of second-rate politicians or third-rate theologians.

Oscar Wilde

You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.

Maurice Ravel

But I think that sometimes, when one's behaved like a rather second-rate person, the way I did at breakfast, then in a kind of self-destructive shock one goes and does something really second-rate. Almost as if to prove it.