The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
—Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944) French Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–96) American Abolitionist, Author
There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
It’s uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Successful people are the ones who are breaking the rules.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity.
—Charles G. Dawes (1865–1951) American Diplomat, Politician
In our desire to please everyone, it’s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
A man trying to sell a blind horse always praises its feet.
—German Proverb
If you make a difference, people will gravitate to you. They want to engage, to interact and to get you more involved.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The reason they want you to fit in… is that once you do, then they can ignore you.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Minds of moderate caliber ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
‘Good enough’ stopped being good enough a long time ago. so why not be great?
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
We meet with few utterly dull and stupid souls; the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes; the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth: these produce the agreeable and the profitable, and are conversant in commerce, finances, war, navigation, arts, trades, society, and conversation.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Persevering mediocrity is much more respectable, and unspeakably more useful, than talented inconstancy.
—James Hamilton (1814–67) Scottish Protestant Minister
The real antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or men.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.
—Peter Drucker (1909–2005) Austrian-born Management Consultant
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.
—Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) British Essayist, Caricaturist, Novelist
The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
—John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English Philosopher, Economist
It’s uncomfortable to challenge the status quo.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; ’tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
The highest order of mind is accused of folly, as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.
—Blaise Pascal (1623–62) French Mathematician, Physicist, Theologian
There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quality that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First, and Louis the Sixteenth, been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
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 Ewart Gladstone (1809–98) English Liberal Statesman, Prime Minister
Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
It is mediocrity which makes laws and sets mantraps and spring-guns in the realm of free song, saying thus far shalt thou go and no further.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.
—Joseph Heller (1923–99) American Novelist
When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it’s a lot easier to launch work that matters.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
The best pedigree in the world won’t sell a lame race horse.
—Unknown
Averageness is a quality we must put up with. Men march toward civilization in column formation, and by the time the van has learned to admire the masters the rear is drawing reluctantly away from the totem pole.
—Frank Moore Colby (1865–1925) American Encyclopedia Editor, Essayist
There is a mean in everything.—Even virtue itself hath its stated limits, which, not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
The status quo is leaving the building, and quickly.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
They are good furniture pictures, unworthy of praise, and undeserving of blame.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
You don’t have to settle. It’s a choice you get to make every day.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
Little things affect little minds.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
You can raise the bar or you can wait for others to raise it, but it’s getting raised regardless.
—Seth Godin (b.1960) American Entrepreneur
The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher