Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.

Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.

The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.

Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.

Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.

Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple, and it is also that difficult.

The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.

There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish.

There is a profound difference between information and meaning.

Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.

Leaders keep their eyes on the horizon, not just on the bottom line.

Failing organizations are usually over-managed and under-led.

The manager has his eye on the bottom line; the leader has his eye on the horizon.

Listening to the inner voice - trusting the inner voice - is one of the most important lessons of leadership.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.

As a preacher of the Gospel, our late venerable Bishop must have been heard, to form an adequate conception of his superior excellence and commanding eloquence.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

It is my sincere hope that hospitals across Indiana, and America, continue to strive for excellence when it comes to providing medical care. This proposed rule will be harmful to communities who wish to upgrade their medical facilities.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.

Excellence is a process that should occupy all our days.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Therefore let men withdraw themselves from errors; and laying aside corrupt superstitions, let them acknowledge their Father and Lord, whose excellence cannot be estimated, nor His greatness perceived, nor His beginning comprehended.

What we do is look for high standards of excellence in the arts.

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.

I've spent my life pursing excellence as an artist, which is what I always wanted to do anyhow.

We're thrilled to expand our relationship, knowing that with the great team at the Music Group, Word, and Warner Bros., and with their proven record of excellence, we're looking ahead to an even brighter future for Curb.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

My philosophy all my life has been the pursuit of excellence.

Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.

Badness you can get easily, in quantity; the road is smooth, and it lies close by, But in front of excellence the immortal gods have put sweat, and long and steep is the way to it.

Perfection has to do with the end product, but excellence has to do with the process.

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.