#mediocrity

You have the army of mediocrities followed by the multitude of fools. As the mediocrities and the fools always form the immense majority, it is impossible for them to elect an intelligent government. ↗

— Guy de Maupassant

#elections #fools #government #intelligence #masses

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius. ↗

— Charles Horton Cooley

#genius #likely #mediocrity #more #rise

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike. ↗

— Margot Fonteyn

#any #art #artists #find #great

The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity. ↗

— Eric Hoffer

#idea #into #mediocrity #original #original idea

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity. ↗

— Ellen Glasgow

#force #mediocrity #more #numbers #only

Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity. ↗

— Armand Assante

#i #literature #mediocrity #suffocating

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity. ↗

— Natalie Clifford Barney

#mediocrity

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. ↗

— Max Beerbohm

#best #mediocrity #only #trusted

It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation. ↗

— Roberto Benigni

#gratitude #mediocrity #moderation #sign #you

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...They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don't know that that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#greatness #mediocrity #dreams