#mediocrity

All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity. ↗

— James F. Cooper

#around #character #common #dependent #existence

There is an admirable fact about the psychology of France: she knows no half measures, loathsome or sublime, she forges the thought and the beauty of a world or of a dung heap; her destiny is never to be mediocre. ↗

— Joséphin Péladan

#mediocrity #beauty

Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity. ↗

— Charles G. Dawes

#dignity #mediocrity #preserve #requires

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed. ↗

— Hans Magnus Enzensberger

#greatness #mediocrity #needed #politics

Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity. ↗

— Allan Sloan

#column #constant #go #gold #great

One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me. ↗

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

#could #everlasting #fashionable #grand #great

The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb. ↗

— Rene Magritte

#atom bomb #bomb #mediocrity #present

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. ↗

— Arthur Conan Doyle

#gifts #mediocrity #recognition #sherlock-holmes #talent

The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people. ↗

— Criss Jami

#bore #boredom #boring #contagious #cynic

Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own - they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top. The loneliness for an equal - for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#mediocrity #equality