A Quote by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Strive for excellence, not perfection.

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Quote Topics

Excellence Perfection Strive

Quote Author

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
American - Author
Born: 1940

The pursuit of perfection is frustrating and a waste of time, because nothing is ever perfect. The pursuit of excellence is commendable and worthwhile. Therefore strive for excellence not perfection.

Alan Kulwicki

I have always looked at it this way: If you strive like crazy for perfection - an all-out assault on total perfection - at the very least you will hit a high level of excellence, and then you might be able to sleep at night. To accomplish something truly significant, excellence has to become a life plan.

Charlie Trotter

Strive for perfection, but settle for excellence.

Don Shula

Strive for excellence, not perfection, because we don't live in a perfect world.

Joyce Meyer

And with a few moments like that, with doubt from here and there, and within ourselves we were just striving for excellence. We had somehow understood and felt that all the musicians who would come to the House later on, that all the singers, the big artists, were striving for excellence in their life and we thought a house for them, there’s no limit to the excellence it should have because it should match their strive for perfection

Jørn Utzon

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God's business.

Michael J. Fox

Strive for perfection. Nobody's going to be perfect on this earth. But strive for perfection.

Judith Jamison

Don't waste your time striving for perfection; instead, strive for excellence - doing your best.

Laurence Olivier

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

Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is. You'll be afraid you can't achieve it. It's your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing your best.

Laurence Olivier

If you strive toward the perfect run, accepting that you will always come up short of that is very intriguing. It makes me think about how in life in general, we always want to strive toward perfection, but sometimes perfection would be the worst thing.

Mikaela Shiffrin

Perfection. Excellence. What a passionate lover. But once having tasted the lips of excellence, once having given oneself to its perfection, how dreary and burdensome and filled with anomie are the remainder of one's waking hours trapped in the shackled lock-step of the merely ordinary, the barely acceptable, the just okay and not a stroke better.

Harlan Ellison

The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it. But we cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for; that task is left to others. With the desire for excellence comes, therefore, the desire for approbation. And this distinguishes intellectual excellence from moral excellence; for the latter has no necessity of human tribunal; it is more inclined to shrink from the public than to invite the public to be its judge.