Mediocrity Quotes

Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.

The exquisitely bad is as satisfying to the soul as the exquisitely good. Only the mediocre is unendurable.

One way to avoid criticism is to do nothing and to be a nobody. The world will then not bother you.

Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.

It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.

Mediocrity makes the most of its native possessions.

With no goals, no priorities, no life strategy of our own, we drift with the herd through an endless meadow of mediocrity, unable to break loose, to achieve even a small part of the dreams we once cherished.

You know better than I that in a Republic talent is always suspect. A man attains an elevated position only when his mediocrity prevents him from being a threat to others. And for this reason a democracy is never governed by the most competent, but rather by those whose insignificance will not jeopardize anyone else's self-esteem.

Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.

Little men with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.

Adequacy is the enemy of excellence.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

The greatest secret in the world is that you only have to be a small measurable amount better than mediocrity ...and you've got it made.

No wonder we are all more or less pleased with mediocrity, since it leaves us at rest, and gives the same comfortable feeling as when one associates with his equals.

Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

It is the habit of mediocre minds to condemn all that is beyond their grasp.

Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. As one climbs higher, life becomes ever harder, the coldness increases, responsibility increases.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity." "Not with Women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as someone says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all." "It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmered Dorian.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

Commonplaceness, the surrender to the average, that good which is not bad but still the enemy of the best - That is our besetting danger.

To go nowhere, follow the crowd.

Still we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail.

To a commonplace man of limited intellect, for instance, nothing is simpler than to imagine himself an original character, and to revel in that belief without the slightest misgiving.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend

Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end... To leave the mean is to abandon humanity.

As a rule, the man who can do all things equally well is a very mediocre individual.

Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity.

Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.

Something deep in the human heart breaks at the thought of a life of mediocrity.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

Imitation is the homage mediocrity pays to greatness.

To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre.

The English public always feels perfectly at ease when a mediocrity is talking to it.

Mediocrity is the worst enemy of prosperity.

Our literature, despite several false starts that promised much, is chiefly remarkable, now as always, for its respectable mediocrity.

Mediocrity is the most effective mask a superior spirit can wear, because to the great majority, which is to say, to the mediocre,it will not suggest a disguise:--and yet it is precisely for their sake that he puts it on--so as not to arouse them, and, indeed, not infrequently to avoid this out of pity and benevolence.

That, however, is - mediocrity, though it be called moderation.

I'm intimidated by the fear of being average.

The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity.

It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one's neighbor.