Quotes & Sayings About Mediocre

Leaders don't fall in love with mediocrity. The status quo isn't their desire to maintain but to improve. — Israelmore Ayivor

Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls - before the public even knows to call them 'issues' at all. — Rick Perlstein

Most of you will probably never really discover anything. You may not contribute anything to the great equations that describe the universe to the world. But you will have the good fortune of encountering people of exceptional intelligence. People who are much smarter than you. Never get in their way, never group together in disgruntled circles and play games. Respect talent, real talent. Worship it. Clever people will always be disliked. Don't exploit that to crawl your way to the top. By the laws of probability most of you are mediocre. Accept it. The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how "standards are falling". So don't mull. Just know when you've to get out of the way. Most of you will be sideshows, extras in the grand unfolding of truth. That's all right. Once you accept that and let the best brains do their jobs, you will have done your service to science and mankind. — Manu Joseph

Every successful man or great genius has three particular qualities in common. The most conspicuous of these is that they all produce a prodigious amount of work. The second is that they never know fatigue. And the third is that their minds grow more brilliant as they grow older, instead of less brilliant. Great men's lives begin at forty, where the mediocre man's life ends. The genius remains an ever-flowing fountain of creative achievement until the very last breath he draws. — Walter Russell

Harvard and Yale concentrated with venture capitalists that got the best calls and brainpower. Very few firms made most of the money, and they made it in just a few periods. Everyone else returned between mediocre and lousy. When returns happened, envy rippled through institutional money management. The amount invested in venture capital went up 10 times post-1999. That later money was lost very quickly. It will happen again. I don't know anyone who successfully resists this stuff. It becomes a new orthodoxy. — Charlie Munger

The mediocre spouse tells. The good spouse explains. The superior spouse demonstrates. The great spouse encourages. — GE Paulus

In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ. Also, the idea that intelligence can be gauged by an IQ test is erroneous. — Camille Paglia

The producer beating a new path for himself through the wilderness is going to do the thing 'differently,' of course. But after a while, he looks about him. The territory is unfamiliar, the forest ahead forbidding. Just how 'different' dare he be? He looks at his resources, and then at the established successes of the past. He suddenly realizes he must play safe, be sure. The unknown is a gamble; the known isn't-at least comparatively. The safest plan, obviously, is to follow the trailblazers. So he produces an imitation of one of the current successes. Usually it is a mediocre imitation. — Irving Thalberg

Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre. — Keith Johnstone

I don't think there is any such thing as a song that is completely great or good. A lot of songs becomes massive hits that are just mediocre, and other times there are incredible songs that never get anywhere and you always wonder why. — Darren Fletcher

You can have a phenomenal technology with bad people; you're not gonna have much success. You can have mediocre technology with great people; they'll figure out a way to make a buck. — Kenneth Langone

But what if absolute consistency on any issue from the left or the right, religious or secular, is an indication of mediocre intelligence and a lack of intellectual honesty? What if the world is a complex place? What if leadership requires flexibility? What if ideology is a bad substitute for common sense? What if ideological consistency, let alone "purity," is a sign of small-mindedness, maybe even stupidity? — Anonymous

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. — Albert Einstein

Do not go for conformity that breeds mediocrity! Choose instead to stand for transformation that does not only transforms lives, but true purpose and living as well. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The good writers touch life. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. — Ray Bradbury

Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people's progress. — Jeff Bezos

Superior people talk about ideas. Mediocre people talk about things. Little people talk about other people. — John Whitfield

Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach. — Woody Hayes

I would rather be a spectacular failure than a mediocre success. — Kuo Pao Kun

I was always told that I was good in mathematics, and I guess my grades and standardized test scores supported that. My worst subjects were those that generally involved a lot of reading - English and history. So, having good test scores in math and mediocre ones in reading, I was naturally advised to major in engineering in college. — Henry Petroski

We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. — Peter F. Drucker

found myself working hard for mediocre pay and mediocre rewards, doing mediocre work that bored me but that I felt I shouldn't complain about. — Johnny B. Truant

Ninety percent of films are pretty mediocre, but they have a built-in audience and open on 3,000 screens. — George Clooney

A mediocre music teacher tells. A good music teacher explains. A superior music teacher demonstrates. A great music teacher inspires. — William Arthur Ward

I have always been aware that human life is dream-like because most human beings exist passively. Their consciousness is little more than a reflection of their environment. In the sexual orgasm, the voltage power of their minds surges, and they become momentarily aware that they are not forty-watt bulbs, but two hundred and fifty, five hundred, a thousand ... Then the voltage drops, and they sink back to forty watts without a protest. They are like empty-headed fools who cannot remember anything for more than a few seconds. Human beings are so mediocre that they can scarcely be said to possess minds in any real sense. In a flash, I understood the absurd and obvious truth: nothing is worth possessing except intensity of consciousness. This is the truth we glimpse in the orgasm. — Colin Wilson

The mediocre always feel as if they're fighting for their lives when confronted by the excellent. — Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions. — Clarence Darrow

I do know that the best way to make a mediocre movie is to just transcribe the book. — Andy Weir

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you've got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read. — Frank Zappa

In the dark room a cloud of yellow dust flew from beneath the tool like a scatter of sparks from under the hooves of a galloping horse. The twin wheels turned and hummed. Binet was smiling, his chin down, his nostrils distended. He seemed lost in the kind of happiness which, as a rule, accompanies only those mediocre occupations that tickle the intelligence with easy difficulties, and satisfy it with a sense of achievement beyond which there is nothing left for dreams to feed on. — Gustave Flaubert

The great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre — Elizabeth Hardwick

Drop the idea of being Extraordinary! It's keeping you mediocre. To be Ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The Ordinary person has light in his eyes; he has become extraordinary but he has no idea of it. — Rajneesh

I was making sure everyone knew Crabtree was a mediocre receiver. And when you try the best corner in the game with a mediocre receiver, that's what happens. I appreciate that he knows that now. — Richard Sherman

If you truly have compassion in your heart, show it by keeping your doubts to yourself and sharing your hope with those who love change! — Israelmore Ayivor

Confidence is the prize given to the mediocre — Robert Hughes

For instance, 'The Sixth Sense' had mediocre to bad reviews. Slowly, the audience pushed it and it received critical attention. — M. Night Shyamalan

Thankfully, the nature of pain reminds us of what the ease of pleasure foolishly allows us to forget. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

If you compromise and hire someone mediocre, you will always regret it. — Sam Altman

Too often, we put up with mediocrity, telling ourselves that later in life we'll do what we want. — Daniel Willey

That first company I started made a lot of money for the venture capitalists - nearly $30 million - but next to nothing for the founders. The companies I started after that varied between failures and mediocre successes. But at no point did I ever consider getting a 'real job.' That felt like a black and white world, and I wanted Technicolor. — Michael Arrington

I don't believe in doing everything and being mediocre at all of them. I believe in being good at one thing. — Sofia Boutella

People can generally be classified into two groups: the mediocre realists and the mediocre dreamers. You clearly belong to the latter. Your fate is and will always be the fate of a dreamer. — Haruki Murakami

The post-war "publish or perish" tyranny must end. The profession has become obsessed with quantity rather than quality. [ ... ] One brilliant article should outweigh one mediocre book. — Camille Paglia

Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good. — Shigeru Miyamoto

When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own. — Henry Rollins

For this is how things are: the diminution and leveling of European man constitutes our greatest danger, for the sight of him makes us weary. - We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater, we suspect that things will continue to go down, down, to become thinner, more good-natured, more prudent, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian - there is no doubt that man is getting 'better' all the time. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Mediocre men work at their best; men seeking excellence strive to do better. — Edwin Louis Cole

'Mediocre' tends to mean 'undistinguished', while snobs enjoy their distinguishing hallmarks of style - how they wear clothes, use words, where they go and gather and gossip ... Whatever the circumstances the genius has put you into, the fact of individuality defends the soul against all class-action claims. No soul is mediocre, whatever your personal taste for conventionality, whatever your personal record of middling achievements. — James Hillman

I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way. — Reed Hastings

We must overcome the notion that we must be regular ... it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre. — Uta Hagen

In general, however, grand opera, by more and more deadening our musical receptivity through its three-hours duration and at the same time putting our patience to the test through the snail's pace of what is usually a very trite action, is in itself intrinsically and essentially boring; which failing can be overcome only by the excessive excellence of an individual achievement: that is why in this genre only the masterpieces are enjoyable and everything mediocre is unendurable. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I see many founders waste too much time trying to work their networks and/or ultimately settle for mediocre but available candidates. You will definitely have to interview hard for cultural fit, but the best talent isn't cheap. — Scott Weiss

the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he's honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he's great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison. The — Ayn Rand

How can you admire a human who consciously embraces the bland, the mediocre, and the safe rather than risk the suffering that disappointment can bring? — Tom Robbins

I read as if time were running out, because technically it is. As I grow older I find I'm increasingly impatient with mediocre entertainments; I want books that will take my breath away and realign my vision - Barbara Kingsolver — Pat Williams

Well, I think the secret is if you have a lot of stocks, some will do mediocre, some will do okay, and if one of two of 'em go up big time, you produce a fabulous result. And I think that's the promise to some people. — Peter Lynch

A mathematician of the first rank, Laplace quickly revealed himself as only a mediocre administrator; from his first work we saw that we had been deceived. Laplace saw no question from its true point of view; he sought subtleties everywhere; had only doubtful ideas, and finally carried the spirit of the infinitely small into administration. — Napoleon Bonaparte

I would rather read a mediocre book than waste time sitting around with people making small talk. — James D. Sass

It's hard to build community around mediocre and mundane writing. — Guy Kawasaki

There is good and mediocre writing within every genre. — Margaret Atwood

Birds that cannot fly high into the sky rejoice exceedingly and sing sweet melodies when they get to the top of the tallest tree on the highest mountain! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Mediocre art is far worse than bad art. Bad art does not waste our time. — Don Paterson

It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her. — Ivan Turgenev

There are challenges and opposition, everywhere! But we will fight the fight of faith! — Lailah Gifty Akita

Now people can generally be classified into two groups: the mediocre realists and the mediocre dreamers. — Haruki Murakami

For the serious mediocre writer convention makes him sound like a lot of other people; for the popular writer it gives him a formula he can exploit; for the serious good writer it releases his experiences or emotions from himself and incorporates them into literature, where they belong. — Northrop Frye

I took the LSAT. My score was decent. I had a plan that if my score was really well, then I might of just went to Yale or Harvard ... But it was just mediocre. I can get into law school. — Vinny Guadagnino

There are many mediocre entertainers who don't aspire to much more than fame and glory. It's very easy to have them as your role models because there aren't as many greats. Go back, discover the greats, and take it from there. — Carmen Ejogo

Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something ... If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously. — Salvador Dali

When something is just bad, it's often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't attempted to do anything really outlandish. — Susan Sontag

There is never a bad time to start a business - unless you want to start a mediocre one. — Gary Vaynerchuk

This is a place that was "discovered" by a dude who didn't know how to read a map, so he just showed up on some shore, thought he was in India, and then proceeded to plant a flag there, like, "TA-DA." No, sir, no. What Christopher Columbus's goofass needed was a compass and a clue for being so aggressively mediocre, but that dude has a federal holiday in his honor. He showed up on someone else's property and claimed it as his because he didn't know what it was. This country started off all the way wrong and continued in the same fashion. Chris — Luvvie Ajayi

You know, that is one of the consequences of the weak sense of responsibility of the press. The press does not feel responsibility for its judgments. It makes judgments and attaches labels with the greatest of ease. Mediocre journalists simply make headlines of their conclusions, which suddenly become generally accepted. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Some people are known, they have the platform and presence, but still remain irrelevant. They know you and what you do, but they don't need you or your offering. I see too many people with a platform but without substance, again this is not sustainable. Lack of substance can only relegate your talent or skill towards the league of the mediocre, if at all you become much by superficial branding then you will become the best of the worst. You don't have what it takes but you depend on your ability to sell substandard offerings to the market. It will not last for long, but quickly become irrelevant. — Archibald Marwizi

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. — Joseph Heller

I don't want to be mediocre, this is the fear of my soul and my body. — Mircea Eliade

Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name. — Agnes Repplier

I've played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I'm mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute ... Just not well. — Kat Dennings

Television is such a mediocre medium. — Elizabeth Montgomery

Losing something mediocre can feel frustrating or annoying, but losing something beautiful comes with a desperate form of sadness. — Ty Tashiro

From a philosophical perspective, Linde's little story underscores the danger of assuming that the creative force behind our universe, if there is one, must correspond to the traditional image of God: omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely benevolent, and so on. Even if the cause of our universe is an intelligent being, it could well be a painfully incompetent and fallible one, the kind that might flub the cosmogenic task by producing a thoroughly mediocre creation. — Jim Holt

He hated to think of his own life stretching ahead of him that way, a long succession of days and nights that were fine - not good, not bad, not great, not lousy, not exciting, not anything. — Robert Cormier

This was a really big opportunity. This script was even mediocre. The idea was great, but Jay came on with his guys made it great and very specific. It all came together well. — Sean William Scott

Superiority and success doesn't favor good effort or self-esteem ... The mentally precise and physically fit win, while the mediocre and obtuse take solace in hopeful cliches. — Bobby Knight

I wish that one would be persuaded that psychological experiments, especially those on the complex functions, are not improved [by large studies]; the statistical method gives only mediocre results; some recent examples demonstrate that. The American authors, who love to do things big, often publish experiments that have been conducted on hundreds and thousands of people; they instinctively obey the prejudice that the persuasiveness of a work is proportional to the number of observations. This is only an illusion. — Alfred Binet

Why don't you want a boyfriend?"
"I don't know. Maybe I do. I'd just have to meet the right guy. Someone who isn't ordinary. Someone who get someone I fit perfectly with. I want heat, chemistry, an undeniable connection. You know what I mean? I want it all. I'm done with ordinary and mediocre. — Jessica Park

To be mediocre, when only application and diligence would have netted superiority, is an error akin to sin. — Spencer W. Kimball

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. — Thomas S. Monson

Only the mediocre are always at their best. — Anonymous

Making mistakes is the privilege of the active. It is always the mediocre people who are negative, who spend their time proving that they were not wrong. — Ingvar Kamprad

In 30 years Christians will have baptized their picture of Christ. He won't be a nice, banal, meek, and bearded man with softly permed hair. Instead, he will fill our imaginations more solidly, more invasively , more unexpectedly. Christ will become That Man who changes people, someone who jumps off a bumper sticker and mediocre praise songs and into lives. — Jonalyn Fincher

I have played 50 different kinds of fathers and villains. Only mediocre actors play the part the same way. — Anupam Kher

In the contest between talent and hard work as to which is the more important element of success, there's no comparison. A mediocre talent with lots of hard work will go further than a stellar talent who coasts. — David Joyner

Most people who are deemed 'mean' are usually perfectionist who make mediocre people unhappy, cause they put more pressure on them then they can handle. — Lee Clow

To vest a few fallible men - prosecutors, judges, jurors - with vast powers of literary or artistic censorship, to convert them into what J.S. Mill called the "moral police" is to make them despotic arbiters of literary products ... If one day they ban mediocre books as obscene, another day they may do otherwise to a work of a genius. Originality, not too plentiful, should be cherished, not stifled. An author's imagination may be cramped if he must write with an eye on prosecutors or juries ... — Jerome Frank

I would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular. — Patti Smith

Superior poets say what they really feel. Mediocre poets say what they decide to feel. Inferior poets say what they think they should feel. — Alvaro De Campos

Dear young people, let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life. Be amazed by what is true and beautiful, what is of God! — Pope Francis

My record at the University of California as an undergraduate was mediocre to say the best. — Douglass North

If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band! — Duke Ellington