#mediocrity

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#born #mediocre #mediocrity #men #some

Anyone in the humor business isn't thinking clearly if he doesn't surround himself with idea people. Otherwise, you settle for mediocrity - or you burn yourself out. ↗

— Hank Ketcham

#burn #business #clearly #himself #humor

What does it mean to be an 'open source' society? What does one mean when one says one has an 'open mind'? Open source means that its a society everybody can work on improving. It has a synergy that allows the best minds to float on top, since there is no entropical hierarchy of mediocrity - once everything stays fluid there is the odd chance for genius elements to actually lead. Such is the case now in Turkey. The protesters are a fluid synergy that have no entropical leadership, and thus the most brilliant PR moves are made by the resistance, who are opposed by the worst sort of mediocrity that is totally at odds with reality. An 'open mind' follows a similar process, but in this case the entropy hides in the hierarchy of ideas that is implanted in the brain: once a person follows mediocre ideas - such as the 'idea' that 'marriage is the meaning of life' or 'having a job is the purpose of existence' etc - then the phenomenon of the 'open mind' becomes already impossible, for there is an internal hierarchy of entropy present that will prevent any sort of original impulse to have the meaning it truly has. Hence, the only way to escape the mediocrity of ones own mind is to allow anything to build and revise it. ↗

— Martinus Hendrikus Benders

#open-mind #open-source #society #leadership

What right have such men to represent Christianity—as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly? ↗

— George Eliot

#mediocrity #ministry #life

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. ↗

— Charles Lamb

#am #another #being #encourage #excellent

Only the mediocre artist is always at his best. ↗

— Victor J. Banis

#artist #excellence #mediocrity #writer #writing

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions. ↗

— William E. Gladstone

#among #commonly #dangerous #even #exceptions

It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity. ↗

— Richard Yates

#mediocrity #comfort

But why diminish your soul being run-of-the-mill at something? Mediocrity: now there is ugliness for you. Mediocrity's a hairball coughed up on the Persian carpet of Creation. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#average #mediocrity #creation

Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities. ↗

— Criss Jami

#creative #creativity #disagreeable #envy #intimidating