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Read through the most famous quotes by topic #excellence
I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind. ↗
To do justice to a lifelong dream of being a writer, I must give it the intense concentration and focus I gave to track. To do both with excellence is not possible. It is with a sense of sadness and joyous anticipation that I leave track and move on. ↗
If you don’t know your father,” Odysseus was answering in that low, calm, but fiercely firm voice of his that always seemed to carry as far as it had to, “how can you know yourself? I am Odysseus, son of Laertes. My father is a king, but also a man of the soil. When I saw him last, the old man was down on his knees in the dirt, planting a tree where an old giant of a tree had finally – cut down by his hand finally – after being struck by lightning. If I do not know my father, and his father before him, and what these men were worth, what they lived for and were willing to die for, how can I know myself?” “Tell us again about arête,” came a voice from the front row. Ada recognised the man speaking as Petyr, one of the earliest visitors. Petyr was no boy – Ada thought he was in his fourth Twenty – but his beard was already almost as full as Odysseus’. Ada didn’t think the man had left Ardis since he’d first heard Odysseus speak that second or third day, when the visitors could be counted on two hands. “Arête is simply excellence and the striving for excellence in all things,” said Odysseus. “Arête simply means the act of offering all actions as of sacrament to excellence, of devoting one’s life to finding excellence, identifying it when it offers itself, and achieving it in your own life.” A newcomer ten rows up the hill, a heavyset man who reminded Ada a bit of Daemon, laughed, and said, “How can you achieve excellence in all things, Teacher? Why would you want to? It sounds terribly tiring.” The heavy man looked around, sure of laughter, but the others on hill looked at him silently and then turned back to Odysseus. The Greek smiled easily – strong white teeth flashing against his tanned cheeks and short, gray beard – and said, “You can’t achieve excellence in all things, my friend, but you have to try. And how could you not want to?” “But there are so many things to do,” laughed the heavy man. “One can’t practice for them all. One has to make choices and concentrate on the important things.” The man squeezed the young woman next to him, obviously his companion, and she laughed loudly, but she was the only one to laugh. “Yes,” said Odysseus, “but you insult all these actions in which you do not honour arête. Eating? Eat as if it was your last meal. Prepare the food as if there were no more food! Sacrifices to the gods? You must make each sacrifice as if the lives of your family depended upon your energy and devotion and focus. Loving? Yes, love as if it was the most important thing in the world, but make it just one in the constellation that is arête. ↗
A high-speed connection is no more an essential civil right than 3G cell phone service or a Netflix account. Increasing competition and restoring academic excellence in abysmal public schools is far more of an imperative to minority children than handing them iPads. ↗
The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying. ↗
#excellence #less #more #profitable #pursuit
Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have. ↗
