“One that desires to excel should endeavour in those things that are in themselves most excellent.”

“A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Id quod est praestantissimum, maximeque optabile omnibus sanis et bonis et beatis, cum dignitate otium.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“Its desire is that what is weak in the higher education of the country should be strengthened, and that what is already excellent should be made accessible to all.”

R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) English philosopher

“The only thing that separates any one of us from excellence is fear and the opposite of fear is faith. I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for, perfection is God’s business.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

“And yet these things for which we should strive eagerly, things so closely akin to ourselves, so truly our own, we treat with great slackness and constant indifference and thus destroy the germs of excellence, while those things in which deficiency were a merit we desire with an insatiable yearning.”

Philo (-15–45 BC) Roman philosopher

“It is a grand thing to see a man thoroughly possessed with one master-passion. Such a man is sure to be strong, and if the master-principle be excellent, he is sure to be excellent, too.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

“The spirit, the will to win and the will to excel - these are the things what will endure and these are the qualities that are so much more important than any of the events themselves. ”

Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) American football player, coach, and executive

“When once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely.”

Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897) English poet and critic

“Those activities at which you excel with no effort at all—those are the ones you ought to pursue to the detriment of others.”

Carson Cistulli (1979) American poet and writer