Quotes about excellence
page 10

“The New Epoch... will bring the renaissance of woman. The Epoch of Maitreya is the Epoch of the Mother of the World. It is remarkable to observe the rapid rise of the women of India. There one can see women occupying the posts of ministers and other responsible positions. Many women of India are excellent speakers. The Indians readily elect women, because they have faith in the common sense of their wives. But, of course, there are also opponents of the liberation of woman.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

23 April 1938

Women, World, Faith, Sense

“Hence, when these men praised Philip as being more eloquent, more handsome, and to crown all, able to drink more than any one else, Demosthenes sneeringly replied that the first of these qualities was excellent in a sophist, the second in a woman, and the third in a sponge, but that they were none of them such as became a king.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Demosthenes, sec. 16
Parallel Lives

Men, Drink

“Impressed as we are with a deep sense of the excellence of our Constitution, as it exists in theory, we rejoice that we are not, like our brothers in France, reduced to the hard necessity of tearing up inveterate abuse by the roots, even where utility was so intermixed as to admit of separation. Ours is an easier and a less unpleasing task; to remove with a steady and a temperate resolution the abuses which the lapse of many years, inattention and supineness in the great body of the people, and unremitting vigilance in their rulers to invade and plunder them of their rights, have suffered to overgrow and to deform that beautiful system of government so admirably suited to our situation, our habits and our wishes. We have not to innovate but to restore. The just prerogatives of our monarch we respect and will maintain. The constitutional powers of the peers of the realms we wish not to invade. We know that in the exercise of both, abuses have grown up; but we also know that those abuses will be at once corrected, so as never again to recur, by restoring to us the people what we for ourselves demand as our right, our due weight and influence in that estate which is our property, the representation of the people in parliament.”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763–1798) Irish politician

Address of the Volunteers assembled at Belfast to the people of Ireland (14 July 1792), quoted in T. W. Moody, R. B. McDowell and C. J. Woods (eds.), The Writings of Theobold Wolfe Tone, 1763–98, Volume I: Tone's career in Ireland to June 1795 (1998), p. 218

People, Beauty, Exercises, Sense

“Liberalism, as a set of ideals, is still viable, and even compelling to Western men. That is one reason why it has become a common denominator of American political rhetoric; but there is another reason. The ideals of liberalism have been divorced from any realities of modern social structure that might serve as the means of their realization. Everybody can easily agree on general ends; it is more difficult to agree on means and the relevance of various means to the ends articulated. The detachment of liberalism from the facts of a going society make it an excellent mask for those who do not, cannot, or will not do what would have to be done to realize its ideals.”

C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) American sociologist

"Liberal Values in the Modern World"
Power, Politics, and People (1963)

Men, Making love, Reality

“It is a government agency. And government agencies are run as bureaucracies. There is a role for bureaucracy; it’s very useful for certain tasks. In particular, it facilitates standardization and interchangeability. Bureaucracies excel at performing tasks that must be done consistently whether the people assigned to them are brilliant performers or bumbling fools. You can’t always count on having Albert Einstein in the patent office, so you design its procedures to work even if you hire Mr. Bean by mistake.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Apocalypse Codex (2012), Chapter 13, “Fimbulwinter” (pp. 258-259)

People, Fools

“I also believe in the value of excellence and bringing your best self. My father used to tell me if you’re going to do something, be the best at it.”

Nina Vaca businessperson

My Roots: Nina Vaca https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-ceo/2017/september/my-roots-nina-vaca/, D Magazine (September 2017)

Self-confidence

“Art implies discipline; the more excellent the art, the more rigorous the discipline.”

Jack Vance Demon Princes

Source: Demon Princes (1964-1981), The Palace of Love (1967), Chapter 7 (p. 356)

Art

“Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular excellences; as we grow older, we value total powers and effects, as, the impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, — it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which arranges tribes and races in one polarity, is alone to be respected; the men are steel-filings.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nominalist and Realist

Love, Men, People, Making love

“Passionate servant leaders, determined to create a legacy of earthshaking transformation in their domain create/must necessarily create organizations which are … no less than Cathedrals in which the full and awesome power of the Imagination and Spirit and native Entrepreneurial flair of diverse individuals is unleashed … In passionate pursuit of jointly perceived soaring purpose and personal and community and client service Excellence.”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

24 December 2018
Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote

Imagination, Communication, Passion, Personality

“They have been spoken by Plato, spoken by Zeno, spoken by Chrysippus or by Posidonius, and by a whole host of Stoics as numerous as excellent. I shall show you how men can prove their words to be their own: it is by doing what they have been talking about.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter CVIII: On the Approaches to Philosophy

Men

“Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one’s way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXVI: On Various Aspects of Virtue

Way, Joy

“I mention this because, for a long time, the Government for excellent reasons has preferred the world to think that we still held some scruples and attacked only what the humanitarians are pleased to call Military Targets.... I can assure you, Gentlemen, that we tolerate no scruples.”

Richard Peirse (1892–1970) Royal Air Force air marshal

November 1941 https://books.google.ca/books?id=eEcXfXoSdgwC&pg=PR223, according to page 223 of "The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945", a 2013 book by Richard Overy 2014 Washington Post article https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-bombers-and-the-bombed-allied-air-war-over-europe-1940-1945-by-richard-overy/2014/03/07/7c2ba5de-9d60-11e3-a050-dc3322a94fa7_story.html refers to him as "a ranking British officer" History Channel, between 5 November 2018 and 21 February 2019 https://web.archive.org/web/20190221193159/https://www.history.co.uk/shows/al-murray-why-does-everyone-hate-the-english/articles/the-bombing-of-german-cities-during-ww2, referred to him as "one bigwig at Bomber Command" when quoting this. since at least 19 October 2017 https://steamcommunity.com/app/537800/discussions/0/3182216552766807678/ this quote has been misattributed to Charles Portal the "Chief of Air Staff", due to subsequent mention of Peirse's title "Chief of Bomber Command" mentioned in a 2015 Telegraph article https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11410633/Dresden-was-a-civilian-town-with-no-military-significance.-Why-did-we-burn-its-people.html following a paragraph naming Portal without mentioning the subsequent person was Peirse, allowing the assumption that it was continued discussion of Portal.

World, Thinking, Time

“The system of administration was thoroughly remodelled. The Sullan proconsuls and propraetors had been in their provinces essentially sovereign and practically subject to no control; those of Caesar were the well-disciplined servants of a stern master, who from the very unity and life-tenure of his power sustained a more natural and more tolerable relation to the subjects than those numerous, annually changing, petty tyrants. The governorships were no doubt still distributed among the annually-retiring two consuls and sixteen praetors, but, as the Imperator directly nominated eight of the latter and the distribution of the provinces among the competitors depended solely on him, they were in reality bestowed by the Imperator. The functions also of the governors were practically restricted. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia… to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity… As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans… but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him. The superintendence of the administration of justice and the administrative control of the communities remained in their hands; but their command was paralyzed by the new supreme command in Rome and its adjutants associated with the governor, and the raising of the taxes was probably even now committed in the provinces substantially to imperial officials, so that the governor was thenceforward surrounded with an auxiliary staff which was absolutely dependent on the Imperator in virtue either of the laws of the military hierarchy or of the still stricter laws of domestic discipline. While hitherto the proconsul and his quaestor had appeared as if they were members of a gang of robbers despatched to levy contributions, the magistrates of Caesar were present to protect the weak against the strong; and, instead of the previous worse than useless control of the equestrian or senatorian tribunals, they had to answer for themselves at the bar of a just and unyielding monarch. The law as to exactions, the enactments of which Caesar had already in his first consulate made more stringent, was applied by him against the chief commandants in the provinces with an inexorable severity going even beyond its letter; and the tax-officers, if indeed they ventured to indulge in an injustice, atoned for it to their master, as slaves and freedmen according to the cruel domestic law of that time were wont to atone.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 4, pt. 2, translated by W.P.Dickson
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Life, Death, Men, Bad luck

“Few men have had their elasticity so thoroughly put to the proof as Caesar-- the sole creative genius produced by Rome, and the last produced by the ancient world, which accordingly moved on in the path that he marked out for it until its sun went down. Sprung from one of the oldest noble families of Latium--which traced back its lineage to the heroes of the Iliad and the kings of Rome, and in fact to the Venus-Aphrodite common to both nations--he spent the years of his boyhood and early manhood as the genteel youth of that epoch were wont to spend them. He had tasted the sweetness as well as the bitterness of the cup of fashionable life, had recited and declaimed, had practised literature and made verses in his idle hours, had prosecuted love-intrigues of every sort, and got himself initiated into all the mysteries of shaving, curls, and ruffles pertaining to the toilette-wisdom of the day, as well as into the still more mysterious art of always borrowing and never paying. But the flexible steel of that nature was proof against even these dissipated and flighty courses; Caesar retained both his bodily vigour and his elasticity of mind and of heart unimpaired. In fencing and in riding he was a match for any of his soldiers, and his swimming saved his life at Alexandria; the incredible rapidity of his journeys, which usually for the sake of gaining time were performed by night--a thorough contrast to the procession-like slowness with which Pompeius moved from one place to another-- was the astonishment of his contemporaries and not the least among the causes of his success. The mind was like the body. His remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in the precision and practicability of all his arrangements, even where he gave orders without having seen with his own eyes. His memory was matchless, and it was easy for him to carry on several occupations simultaneously with equal self-possession. Although a gentleman, a man of genius, and a monarch, he had still a heart. So long as he lived, he cherished the purest veneration for his worthy mother Aurelia (his father having died early); to his wives and above all to his daughter Julia he devoted an honourable affection, which was not without reflex influence even on political affairs. With the ablest and most excellent men of his time, of high and of humbler rank, he maintained noble relations of mutual fidelity, with each after his kind. As he himself never abandoned any of his partisans after the pusillanimous and unfeeling manner of Pompeius, but adhered to his friends--and that not merely from calculation--through good and bad times without wavering, several of these, such as Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Matius, gave, even after his death, noble testimonies of their attachment to him.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol.4. Part 2.
The History of Rome - Volume 4: Part 2

Love, Life, Death, Wisdom

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome. Every beginning is cheerful: the threshold is the place of expectation. The boy stands astonished, his impressions guide him: he learns sportfully, seriousness comes on him by surprise. Imitation is born with us: what should be imitated is not easy to discover. The excellent is rarely found, more rarely valued. The height charms us, the steps to it do not: with the summit in our eye, we love to walk along the plain. It is but a part of art that can be taught: the artist needs it all. Who knows it half, speaks much, and is always wrong: who knows it wholly, inclines to act, and speaks seldom or late. The former have no secrets and no force : the instruction they can give is like baked bread, savory and satisfying for a single day; but flour cannot be sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground. Words are good, but they are not the best. The best is not to be explained by words. The spirit in which we act is the highest matter. Action can be understood and again represented by the spirit alone. No one knows what he is doing while he acts aright, but of what is wrong we are always conscious. Whoever works with symbols only is a pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler. There are many such, and they like to be together. Their babbling detains the scholar: their obstinate mediocrity vexes even the best. The instruction which the true artist gives us opens the mind; for, where words fail him, deeds speak. The true scholar learns from the known to unfold the unknown, and approaches more and more to being a master.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Book VII Chapter IX
Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre (Journeyman Years) (1821–1829)

Love, Life, Secret, Making love

“Even after his conversion to Islam, the Hindu remained an object of abhorrence… Barani is so maliciously vituperative against Hindus that even many modem Muslim scholars feel embarrassed at his language and find it difficult to defend him. It must, however, be remembered that Barani belonged to the common run of Muslim theologians and chroniclers. He was a personal friend of men like Amir Khusrau and Ala Hasan Sijzi and was a disciple of no less a Sufi than Shaikh Nizamuddin Auliya. He possessed charming manners and was known for his wit and humour. But in the case of Hindus, his wit turned into rage. He is copiously quoted by future chroniclers like Nizamuddin Ahmad, Badaoni and Farishtah, who all praise him highly. Most of medieval Muslim chroniclers wrote in the idiom of Barani; only he excelled them all. All medieval chroniclers were scholars of Islamic scriptures and law. They often quote from these to defend or justify the actions of their kings in relation to their non-Muslim subjects.”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

Men, Law, Feeling, Quotes

“He excels in description of forests and the hermitages of sages. Nature, in all its aspects and varieties — trees, mountains, rivers, clouds, dawn, sunset, had a great fascination for him. His sketches of some of the sages have a deft touch and they dwell on the greatness of penance and the sublimity of a spiritual life of self-realisation.”

Vālmīki Legendary Indian poet, author of the Ramayana

Source: The Epic Civilization, p. 51.

Life, Mountain, Nature, Tree

“This year, Thiago had an excellent season playing at Baresi’s level, but Franco had several fantastic seasons, not only one or two, but 15 or 16 and I think that at the moment this is the only difference between the two.”

Thiago Silva (1984) Brazilian footballer

Mauro Tassotti, 2011 https://www.acmilan.com/en/news/show/134347 From former and current footballers

Thinking, Season

“If we could save one word from Greek civilization, it would have to be aretē, excellence. The aristocrats gave themselves their name, the aristoi (the best). It is an open question whether anyone considered himself a member of the kakoi (the worst, the craven, the dumb shits). though this put-down prances everywhere in the surviving literature. …that shame—the paralyzing fear of being numbered among the kakoi—is the hidden engine that ran Greek life.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch.IV The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule

Life, Fear, Literature, Question

“His exposition of a Khayal is a perfectly balanced presentation showing his excellence in all its varied components.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Analysis of his success of the Platinum Award by the H.M.V. Company for the outstanding sale of of his classical records [Deśapāṇḍe, Vāmana Harī, Between Two Tanpuras, http://books.google.com/books?id=-EkDt0Gboe8C&pg=PA177, 1 January 1989, Popular Prakashan, 978-0-86132-226-8, 177–]

“He was a good sportsman too. He was an excellent fast bowler and a good fielder. He was also a very good kabaddi player.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Ramachandra Rao, whom Shivaji affectionately used to call Kaddi (stick) Ramu because he was as thin as a rod.
You can see God in him at times (22 December 1999)

“He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer, director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are extremely honoured to present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kamal Haasan.”

Kamal Haasan (1954) Indian actor

Shyam Benegal, after Kamala hasan was selected for the honour of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Mumbai Film Festival for 50 years in the Indian film industry, in Kamal Haasan to be Bestowed with Lifetime Achievement Award (15 September 2013) http://www.ibtimes.co.in/articles/506113/20130915/kamal-haasan-lifetime-achievement-award-film-festival.htm

Sense

“Craft is something you learn by studying models. When a student asks, what is a good book about traditional iambic verse, The Collected Poems of Ben Jonson. What is an excellent book about free verse? The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

What is a good book about short line in ballad metre? The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson.
The Art of Poetry - interview 1995 with Downing & Kunitz

Books, Study, Learning

“Lancashire have brought in a player with a great reputation in the format who will add firepower to our top order. He is an exciting player and excellent fielder, just what we need for Twenty20 cricket.”

Lou Vincent (1978) New Zealand cricketer

Mike Watkinson (2008), quoted in [Lancashire sign Lou Vincent, Cricinfo staff, http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/story/353666.html, Cricinfo, 2008-06-05, 2008-06-05]

“I learn with deep pain that his Excellency Mr. McKinley has succumbed to the deplorable attempt on his life. I sympathize with you with all my heart in this calamity which thus strikes at your dearest affections and which bereaves the great American nation of a President so justly respected and loved.”

William McKinley (1843–1901) American politician, 25th president of the United States (in office from 1897 to 1901)

President of France Émile Loubet telegraph to Mrs. McKinley. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 398.

Love, Life, Pain, Making love

“But now if the gifted soul be not of taciturn nature, be of vivid, impatient, rapidly productive nature, and aspire much to give itself sensible utterance,—I find that, in this case, the field it has in England is narrow to an extreme; is perhaps narrower than ever offered itself, for the like object, in this world before. Parliament, Church, Law: let the young vivid soul turn whither he will for a career, he finds among variable conditions one condition invariable, and extremely surprising, That the proof of excellence is to be done by the tongue. For heroism that will not speak, but only act, there is no account kept.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), Stump Orator (May 1, 1850)

World, Law, Soul, Nature

“In vain I sought relief from my favourite books; those memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn strength and animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling minus all its charm; and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn itself out.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)

Love, Books, Making love, Feeling

“We humans are naturally compelled to compare ourselves with one another. We are continually measuring people’s status, the levels of respect and attention they receive, and noticing any differences between what we have and what they have. For some of us, this need to compare serves as a spur to excel through our work. For others, it can turn into deep envy—feelings of inferiority and frustration that lead to covert attacks and sabotage. Nobody admits to acting out of envy. You must recognize the early warning signs—praise and bids for friendship that seem effusive and out of proportion; subtle digs at you under the guise of good-natured humor; apparent uneasiness with your success. It is most likely to crop up among friends or your peers in the same profession. Learn to deflect envy by drawing attention away from yourself. Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 10 : Beware the Fragile Ego
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Friendship, People, Feeling, Nature

“As part of this experiment we must not only accept human nature but work with what we have to make it productive. We inevitably feel the need for status and recognition, so let’s not deny it. Instead, let’s cultivate such status and recognition through our excellent work. We must accept our need to belong to the group and prove our loyalty, but let’s do it in more positive ways—by questioning group decisions that will harm it in the long run, by supplying divergent opinions, by steering the group in a more rational direction, gently and strategically.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 14 : Resist the Downward Pull of the Group
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Making love, Way, Feeling, Question

“he regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious excellencies, -- belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind, -- and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/40/mode/1up p. 40

Hate, Truth, Making love, Feeling

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.'”

Will Durant book The Story of Philosophy

Source: The Story of Philosophy (1926), p. 87. The quoted phrases within the quotation are from the Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 4; Book I, 7

Life, Happiness, Making love, Art

“I'd say we have a couple of people who've recovered, they've gotten excellent medical care and the specific therapy, ZMapp … may have had a role in it but we don't know.”

Anthony Fauci (1940) American immunologist and head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Quoted by Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/21/us-health-ebola-american-idUSKBN0GL0W020140821 (August 21, 2014), regarding the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa.

People

“Whose American dream? The dream is a chameleon; it has changed again and again. For the first immigrants, America was a continent to explore and exploit, a haven for the unwanted and the dissenters—a new beginning. Gradually the dream became an ascetic and idealized image of democracy, bespeaking the age-old hope for justice and selfgovernance. All too quickly, that dream metamorphosed into an expansionist, materialist, nationalist, and even imperialist vision of wealth and domination—paternalism, Manifest Destiny. Yet even then, there was a competing Transcendentalist vision: excellence, spiritual riches, the unfolding of the latent gifts of the individual.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Five, The American Matrix for Transformation

Age, Justice, Dreams, Hope

“It was an unusually hot afternoon. One of those days all slowly ambling bumblebees and honeysuckle and so forth, at which the English countryside, when it puts its mind to it, excels, and quite unlike any summer day anywhere else. Calm and still and lovely, but never without a sense of something impending. The sort of day one misses even as one experiences it.”

China Miéville book The Design

The Design (p. 377)
Short Fiction, Three Moments of an Explosion (2015)

Love, Making love, Sense, Summer

“Our God is power; strength, our standard of excellence, inherited from barbarian ancestors through a long line of male progenitors, the Law Salic permitting no feminine modifications.”

Anna J. Cooper (1858–1964) African-American author, educator, speaker and scholar

Source: A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South (1892), p. 53

God, Law

“It was astonishing how quickly friendship could turn to enmity, she thought, like a compass needle swinging from one pole to the other.
They’d been excellent friends. They’d make excellent enemies as well.”

Alastair Reynolds book Pushing Ice

Source: Pushing Ice (2005), Chapter 8 (p. 132)

Friendship, Making love

“If democracy is not to excel centralised absolutism in the breeding of bureaucracies, it must be built up on an elaborately organised self-government with a corresponding economic, personal responsibility of all the units of administration as well as of the adult citizens of the state. Nothing is more injurious to its healthy development than enforced uniformity and a too abundant amount of protectionism or subventionism.”

Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) German politician

Source: "Evolutionary Socialism" (1899) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1899/evsoc/index.htm, Chapter III, The Tasks and Possibilities of Social Democracy

Democracy, Personality, Self-confidence

“It is not possible to speak with too much applause of so excellent a work.”

Adi Shankara (788–820) Hindu philosopher monk of 8th century

Sir William Jones, quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

“Twas in Religion that he gloried by whom till the Day of Judgement
The Arabs excel the Persians in glory.
He who lacks religion is ignoble and mean,
Though Feridun be his maternal, and Jamshid his paternal uncle.”

Nasir Khusraw (1004–1088) Persian poet and philosopher

translated by Edward. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 1909, p.268

Religion, Maternity

“The English constitution was excellent until removed by foreign writers into the domain of theory, when in direct contradiction with its nature and origin it came to be admired as a common representative government.”

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902) British politician and historian

Private journal (1858), quoted in Gertrude Himmelfarb, Lord Acton: A Study in Conscience and Politics (1952), p. 70

Nature

“I myself had rather excel others in excellency of learning than in greatness of power.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Alexander, sec. 7
Parallel Lives

Learning

“An ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceeding, and understanding in the business of the court, is an excellent finger of a court; and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Judicature

Way, Understanding, Business, Time

“The pretty game of calling on the children of the audience of "Peter Pan" to declare their faith in fairies seemed to me disastrous—a game of men and women at the expense of children, a cumbersome frolic at best and an artificial, a tyrannous use of the adult sense of sentimental humour against the helpless. I could with better conscience use my superior physical strength upon them than exploit them for love of my own condescension. (And yet Sir J. Barrie has written the most adorable "pretending" story ever written about a child.)No, children love a fairy story not because they think it true, but because they think it untrue, and because it makes no fraudulent appeal to their excellent good sense. That sense they are delighted to put aside while they "pretend." That is their own word.[…] "Let's pretend," not "Let's believe."”

Alice Meynell (1847–1922) English publisher, editor, writer, poet, activist

Their mother does not put "Let's pretend" into the child's mouth; she finds it there. Without it there is no play. But the pretending is always drama and never deception or self-deception.
"V. Fairies", pp. 32–33
Childhood (1913)

Love, Women, Men, Children

“In English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers to blaming the government.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Something Fresh

Something Fresh (1915)

Time, Housing, Country

“Pick-up sports are excellent preparation for entrepreneurship.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 94

Sport

“But here is the "ego" of the Russian revolutionary again! Pirouetting on its head, it once more proclaims itself to be the all-powerful director of history — this time with the title of His Excellency the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Russia.”

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) Polish Marxist theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary

Leninism or Marxism? (1904)

History, Time

“Finally, our greatest asset in this struggle is the American people--their willingness to pay the price for these programs--to understand and accept a long struggle--to share their resources with other less fortunate people-to meet the tax levels and close the tax loopholes I have requested--to exercise self-restraint instead of pushing up wages or prices, or over-producing certain crops, or spreading military secrets, or urging unessential expenditures or improper monopolies or harmful work stoppages--to serve in the Peace Corps or the Armed Services or the Federal Civil Service or the Congress--to strive for excellence in their schools, in their cities and in their physical fitness and that of their children--to take part in Civil Defense-to pay higher postal rates, and higher payroll taxes and higher teachers' salaries, in order to strengthen our society--to show friendship to students and visitors from other lands who visit us and go back in many cases to be the future leaders, with an image of America--and I want that image, and I know you do, to be affirmative and positive-and, finally, to practice democracy at home, in all States, with all races, to respect each other and to protect the Constitutional rights of all citizens.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress

Friendship, Children, People, Secret

“The prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches. It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor honour is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways. It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 19; translated by W. K. Marriot

Women, Men, Hate, People

“An excellent relationship is pure madness to live in two.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Un'ottima relazione è pura follia da vivere in due.
Source: prevale.net

Madness

“Personal development is a lifelong commitment to excellence.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Personality

“’Neath cold sand I dreamed of death / but woke at dawn to see / in glory, the bright, the morning star.
This was not judgement day — only morning. Morning: excellent and fair.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Last lines
Sophie's Choice (1979)

Death, Dreams, Star

“The greatest artist is he who is greatest in the highest reaches of his art, even although he may lack the qualities necessary for the adequate execution of some minor details. It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man. The strength of a beam is measured by its weakest part, of a man by his strongest..”

George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) British philosopher

On Actors and the Art of Acting (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1875) p. 13

Art, Parting

“There will always be room for high quality work. Excellence is perpetually scarce.”

James Clear (1986) American author and speaker

Source: https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1261267255364653058

“I believe in the supreme excellence of righteousness; I believe that the law of righteousness will triumph in the universe over all evil; I believe that in the attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness, however imperfect it must remain, are to be found the inspiration, the consolation, and the sanctification of human existence.
We live in order to finish an, as yet, unfinished universe, unfinished so far as the human, that is, the highest part of it, is concerned. We live in order to develop the superior qualities of man which are, as yet, for the most part latent.”

Felix Adler (1851–1933) German American professor of political and social ethics, rationalist, and lecturer

Section 9 : Ethical Outlook
Life and Destiny (1913)

Law, Universe, Evil, Parting

“Many of the Dioceses of Papua have been gifted with an old evangelization: the Christian population has grown and has received an excellent education. Today, in the new social and cultural context, opportunities to transmit the faith have decreased and new roads and new ways to bring the Gospel to children, youth and families are needed.”

Stephen Joseph Reichert (1943) American priest

The Church in Papua committed to the new evangelization http://www.fides.org/en/news/31701-OCEANIA_PAPUA_NEW_GUINEA_The_Church_in_Papua_committed_to_the_new_evangelization (11 June 2012)

Children, Youth, Education, Family

“To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Benjamin Rush (12 April 1803) https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-40-02-0178-0001 1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801&ndash;1805)

Sense, Sincerity

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

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

“Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Wisdom, Way, Lying

“Men of perverse opinion do not know the excellence of what is in their hands, till some one dash it from them.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Men

“Those who are blessed with the most talent don't necessarily outperform everyone else. It's the people with follow-through who excel.”

Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001) Entrepreneur

People

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

Motivational, Attitude, Back To Work

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Personality

“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

People, Travel

“We have inherited our country from the previous generations, which had won and shaped it. Own country is an excellent value per se.”

Egils Levits (1955) Latvian judge, jurist and politician

Source: Address given Assuming the Office / at the Saeima, https://www.president.lv/en/article/address-he-president-latvia-mr-egils-levits-assuming-office-saeima

Country

“Greatness happens when we commit to excellence and make the impossible possible.”

Vladimer Botsvadze

“Sometimes important meetings happen by chance. Learn to appreciate time, excellent master of life.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) A volte incontri importanti avvengono casualmente. Impara ad apprezzare il tempo, eccellente maestro di vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Learning, Chance, Time

“Intelligence is sexy par excellence.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'intelligenza è sexy per eccellenza.
Source: prevale.net

Intelligence

“To know that a human being truly is, he must be examined in the arena where he most fully realizes his nature, thus where he is most truly himself. Excellence (arete) is the object of ethics. Anthropology is therefore inseparable from ethics.”

Rémi Brague (1947) French historian

The Wisdom of the World, p. 2

Nature

“I never excelled at one sport or had a very strong passion for anything other than wrestling and bodybuilding.”

Dave Bautista (1969) American actor and professional wrestler

unsourced

Sport, Strong, Passion

“If you do whatever you do diligently and excellently, you would surely make a difference.”

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde (1978) Nigerian actress and singer

https://naijagists.com/omotola-jalade-ekeinde-wisdom-quotes-top-20-motivational-quotes-sayings-omosexy/Omotola Jalade Ekehinde speaking on Success.

“What business is it of mine if they should want to kill each other? I’d say they both show excellent judgement.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Lost Plot (2017), Chapter 24 (p. 284)
Context: “Sounds about right to me,” Evariste said harshly. “Not my circus, not my monkeys. If they want to tear each other to bits, they can get on with it, and good luck to them.”

Business

“The most treasured resource is our people and, if their health deteriorates, productivity and excellence will become mere talking points and not achievable objectives.”

Linah Mohohlo (1952–2021) Botswana banker

Source: PRODUCTIVITY WEEK DINNER DANCE ADDRESS https://www.bankofbotswana.bw/sites/default/files/speech-documents/productivity-week-dance-october-25-2001.pdf (October 25, 2001)

People, Health

“He brought me his report card from the teacher and he said
He wasn't very proud of it and sadly bowed his head.
He was excellent in reading, but arithmetic, was fair,
And I noticed there were several "unsatisfactorys" there;
But one little bit of credit which was given brought me joy —
He was "excellent in effort," and I fairly hugged the boy.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: All That Matters (1922), p.86 - Effort, stanza 1.

Boy, Effort, Teachers, Reading

“You are the excellence of charm: strong and fragile, cheerful and melancholy, innocent and perverse, selfish and altruistic, sociable and asocial, simple and complicated, sensitive and impassive, elegant and trendy, sweet and bitchy, true, concrete… authentic and sincere. You are a condemnation for the one who hosanna you. Your essence is a masterpiece of woman.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Tu sei l'eccellenza del fascino: forte e fragile, allegra e malinconica, innocente e perversa, egoista e altruista, socievole e asociale, semplice e complicata, sensibile e impassibile, elegante e trendy, dolce e stronza, vera, concreta... autentica e sincera. Sei una condanna per chi ti osanna. La tua essenza è un capolavoro di donna.
Source: prevale.net

Strong, Sincerity, Selfishness

“Woman is the crowning excellence of God's creation, the shadow of the gods. Man the god's creation only. Woman is light, man is shadow.”

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838–1894) Bengali writer

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: From Bankim's novel Krishnakanta's Will. Quoted in Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p. 114-115

God, Light

“No inventor could introduce an invention, however excellent, unless he could get capitalists to take it up, and this usually they would not do unless the inventor relinquished to them most of his hopes of profit from the discovery.”

Edward Bellamy book Equality

Equality (1897)

Hope

“Even if glory is God-given, yet it is excellent to divert it from oneself with the shield of humility.”

John Climacus book The Ladder of Divine Ascent

3:21
The Ladder of Divine Ascent

God

“The urge to excel and the urge to lead aren’t the same. Sometimes I think they may be opposites.”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Red Mars (1992), Chapter 2, “The Voyage Out” (p. 67)

Thinking

“The charm par excellence belongs to the rebellious and determined woman.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il fascino per eccellenza appartiene alla donna ribelle e determinata.
Source: prevale.net

“While fully recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)
Context: What we principally thought of, was to alter people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one another. While fully recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings.

Love, Education, Justice, Feeling

“Time is an excellent medicine to reflect, to understand each other and above all to understand whom to share every day of your life with.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il tempo è un'ottima medicina per riflettere, per capirsi e soprattutto per capire con chi condividere ogni giorno della propria vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Understanding, Time

“When a woman expresses the excellence of beauty, she can consider herself sublime.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Quando una donna esprime l'eccellenza della bellezza, può considerarsi sublime.
Source: prevale.net

Beauty

“The excellence of a woman's beauty belongs to her authenticity.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'eccellenza della bellezza di una donna appartiene alla sua autenticità.
Source: prevale.net

Beauty

“There is no love relationship par excellence, the essence of any type of relationship is union.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Non esiste una relazione d'amore per eccellenza, l'essenza di qualsiasi tipo di relazione è l'unione.
Source: prevale.net

Love

“Time is the master par excellence able to show the true identity of any individual.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il tempo è il maestro per eccellenza in grado di mostrare la vera identità di qualsiasi individuo.
Source: prevale.net

Time

“The smile, the greatest expression of an excellent bond between two people.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il sorriso, la massima espressione di un ottimo legame tra due persone.
Source: prevale.net

People, Smile

“Time is an excellent ally in learning to build self-confidence: having the ability to make decisions, manage emotions, and take responsibility for one's actions.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il tempo è un ottimo alleato per imparare a costruire fiducia in sé stessi: avere la capacità di prendere decisioni, gestire le emozioni ed assumersi la responsabilità delle proprie azioni.
Source: prevale.net

Confidence, Decision, Learning, Time

“False and bad people are an excellent example of how one should never be.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Le persone false e cattive sono un ottimo esempio di come non si dovrebbe mai essere.
Source: prevale.net

People, Falseness

“When love to own job, passion and enthusiasm will be the main components to overcome difficulties and achieve excellence.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Quando si ama il proprio lavoro, passione ed entusiasmo saranno le componenti principali per superare le difficoltà e raggiungere l'eccellenza.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Passion

“The excellence of creativity, when it gets to work, creates something extraordinary. Without limits. Without rules. Without any reference.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'eccellenza della creatività, quando si mette all'opera realizza qualcosa di straordinario. Senza limiti. Senza regole. Senza alcun riferimento.
Source: prevale.net

“Isolation is an excellent ally for concentration and realization during the creative process of one's ideas.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: L'isolamento è un ottimo alleato per la concentrazione e la realizzazione durante il processo creativo delle proprie idee.
Original: prevale.net

Idea

Quotes about excellence page 10

Quotes about excellence
page 10