quotations about mediocrity
If one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm -- but that's a lie.... That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
letter to Theo van Gogh, October 1884
There is no greater consolation for mediocrity than that the genius is not immortal.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
The mass do not now take their opinions from dignitaries in Church or State, from ostensible leaders, or from books. Their thinking is done for them by men much like themselves, addressing them or speaking in their name, on the spur of the moment, through the newspapers. I am not complaining of all this. I do not assert that anything better is compatible, as a general rule with the present low state of the human mind. But that does not hinder the government of mediocrity from being mediocre government.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty
Mediocrity not unfrequently wins the honors and emoluments that talent often aspires to in vain. It is the great golden rule of cautious prudence, and sure, undeviating wisdom. Its days abound with peace, and its nights with sweet repose. While the great and lofty are hazarding their safety in the clouds, and inhaling attenuated vapors, the humble but prudent advocates of mediocrity securely rest upon the earth, not where grow the reeds and flowers, but amidst harvest fields and well-stored granaries.
LORD ACTON
Acton; Or, The Circle of Life
I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
A Wild Sheep Chase
Mediocrity is not the average but the conformity to the average in the absence of desires, aspirations, and inner strivings for one's highest value and meaning in life.
AVIKAL COSTANTINO
Without a Mask: Discovering Your Authentic Self
Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.
JOSEPH JOUBERT
Pensées of Joubert
Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
JOSEPH HELLER
Catch-22
You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance.
ALFRED DE VIGNY
Stello
We are the mediocre,
we are the half givers,
we are the half lovers,
we are the savourless salt.
Break the hard crust
of complacency.
Quicken in us
the sharp grace of desire.
CARYLL HOUSELANDER
attributed, Soul Weavings
In sober truth, whatever homage may be professed, or even paid, to real or supposed mental superiority, the general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.
JOHN STUART MILL
On Liberty
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.
MAX BEERBOHM
Conversations with Max
It's a disease. Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little Goddamn mediocrity.
RICHARD YATES
Revolutionary Road
He was marked out by his relentless ability to find fault with others' mediocrity--suggesting that a certain type of intelligence may be at heart nothing more or less than a superior capacity for dissatisfaction.
ALAIN DE BOTTON
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.
ALBERT CAMUS
Happy Death
A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.
TOM ROBBINS
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
Mediocre men often mistake aspiration for inspiration; they have first-class ambition along with third-rate powers; and these coming together make a most ill-matched pair of legs, which bear a person along awkwardly in his path of life, and expose him to endless mortifications.
WILLIAM MATHEWS
Hints on Success in Life
The art of putting well into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than true merit achieves.
ROCHEFOUCAULD
attributed, Day's Collacon
Do you know the hallmark of a second rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone's work prove greater than their own--they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you reach the top.
AYN RAND
Atlas Shrugged
It is the quality and intensity of the dream only which raises men above the biological norm; and it is fidelity to the dream which differentiates the exceptional figure, the man of heroic stature, from the muddling, aimless mediocrities about him.
BURTON RASCOE
introduction, Chivalry