#mediocrity

Beauty he loved for its own sake; ugliness, which more often than not was a form of inverted beauty, fascinated him. Life offered far too little of either, and far too much appalling mediocrity, which he thought hideous. ↗

— Lloyd Biggle Jr.

#life #mediocrity #ugliness #ugly #beauty

We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#because #bottom #generalized #intellectuals #international

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

The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets. ↗

— Anne Rice

#bets #mediocrity #more #need #world

We don't want to think about our weaknesses. We don't want to talk about them, and we certainly don't want anyone else to point them out. This is a classic sign of mediocrity, and this mediocrity has a firm grip on the Church and humanity at this moment in history. ↗

— Matthew Kelly

#mediocrity #p #life

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

Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level ↗

— Gustave Flaubert

#individuality #mediocrity #soul #individuality

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 world would hate His followers, not because of evil in their lives, but precisely because of the absence of evil or rather their goodness. Goodness does not cause hatred, but it gives occasion for hatred to manifest itself. The holier and purer a life, the more it would attract malignity and hate. Mediocrity alone survives. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#faith #life #mediocrity #p #faith