#mediocrity

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#ascendant #general #mankind #mediocrity #power

Any corporate policy and plan which is typical of the industry is doomed to mediocrity. Where this is not so, it should be possible to demonstrate that all other competitors are at a distinct disadvantage. ↗

— Bruce Henderson

#competitors #corporate #demonstrate #disadvantage #distinct

I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity. ↗

— Robert Baldwin

#horror #i #mediocrity #rising

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

Mediocrity is Death. ↗

— Suleman Abdullah

#brands #creative-profession #ideas #inspirational #life-lessons

Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign, and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#genius #meanness #mediocrity #poetry #funny

Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. 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 bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes,thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them - while you'd give a year of my life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. 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. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors - hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom - the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom. Of what account are praise and adulation from men whom you don't respect? Have you ever felt the longing for someone you could admire? For something, not to look down at, but up to?" "I've felt it all my life," she said. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#atlas-shrugged #inspirational #mediocrity #objectivism #second-handers

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

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. ↗

— Dale Carnegie

#age #business #consult #content #drive