“This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid.”

— Frank Zappa

"My Pet Theory" on the second disc of the twin CD version
The MOFO Project/Object (2006)
Context: The '60s was really stupid … It was a type of merchandising, Americans had this hideous weakness, they had this desire to be OK, fun guys and gals, and they haven't come to terms with the reality of the situation: we were not created equal. Some people can do carpentry, some people can do mathematics, some people are brain surgeons and some people are winos and that's the way it is, and we're not all the same. This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid. The '60s was merchandised to the public at large... My pet theory about the '60s is that there is a sinister plot behind it... The lessons learnt in the '60s about merchandising stupidity to the American public on a large scale have been used over and over again since that time.

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Frank Zappa 129

American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and fil… 1940–1993

James D. Thompson (1920–1973) American sociologist

Proposition 2.3
Organizations in Action, 1967

“Most businesses -— like most of anything else in life -— fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn out to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good To Great And The Social Sectors, 2005, p. 1

“In life one should never give in, surrender oneself to mediocrity, but rather move out of that grey area where everything is habit and passive resignation. One has to grow the courage to rebel.”

Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012) Italian neurologist

Source: https://www.frasicelebri.it/frasi-di/rita-levi-montalcini/.

“I don't like records that are the same from beginning to end, that are too styled and slick. Everything is so designed and airbrushed and Botoxed, it makes us think, 'Oh, everybody's perfect except me. Everything's smooth except me.”

Björk (1965) Icelandic singer-songwriter

But nothing is smooth."
From Newsweek, September 6 2004 issue, defending a song claimed to be "really hard to listen to" ("Ancestors") from her album Medúlla
Other quotes

“Bloated, one [=Kirchner himself] staggers off to work, where all work is in vain and the onslaught of mediocrity flattens everything. Like the cocottes that I painted, that is how one is now. Wiped out, next time gone.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

Quote of Kirchner in a letter to Gustav Schiefler, March 28, 1919, in Dube-Heynig, Kirchner: Graphik, p. 49; as cited in 'Portfolios', Alexander Dückers; in German Expressionist Prints and Drawings - Essays Vol 1.; published by Museum Associates, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California & Prestel-Verlag, Germany, 1986, p. 78
1916 - 1919

“In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.”

Hunter S. Thompson book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Source: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“I don’t believe in doing everything and being mediocre at all of them. I believe in being good at one thing.”

Sofia Boutella (1982) Algerian dancer and actress

Sofia Boutella: from hung up with Madonna to hanging with Samuel L. Jackson in Kingsman https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/sofia-boutella-from-hung-up-with-madonna-to-hanging-with-samuel-l-jackson-in-kingsman/news-story/9ac4c0ec9799fc4f08fc5b922d339379 (January 30, 2015)

“If the Bible is only human lore, and not divine truth, then we have no real answer to those who say, "Let's pick the best out of all religions and blend it all into Pan-Deism - one world religion with one god made out of many."”

J. Sidlow Baxter (1903–1999) Australian theologian

Our Bible: The Most Critical Issue http://www.pwmi.org/christianfaith/ourbible.asp (1991).

“Everything is soothed by oil, and this is the reason why divers send out small quantities of it from their mouths, because it smooths every part which is rough.”

Pliny the Elder book Natural History

Book II, sec. 234.
Naturalis Historia

“After all, everybody, that is, everybody who writes is interested in living inside themselves in order to tell what is inside themselves. That is why writers have to have two countries, the one where they belong and the one in which they live really. The second one is romantic, it is separate from themselves, it is not real but it is really there.”

Gertrude Stein book Paris France

Source: Paris France (1940), p. 2

“This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid.”

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