Mediocre Quotes by Darren Fletcher, Claude Monet, Michael Arndt, Albert Einstein, Paresh Rawal, Lee Clow and many others.
I don’t think there is any such thing as a song that is completely great or good. A lot of songs becomes massive hits that are just mediocre, and other times there are incredible songs that never get anywhere and you always wonder why.
Perhaps it’s true that I’m very hard on myself, but that’s better than exhibiting mediocre work… too few were satisfactory enough to trouble the public with.
My God, there are so many mediocre screenplays out there.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
In theatre, after the curtain rises, it’s all about me. I can either elevate myself with my performance or be mediocre.
Most people who are deemed ‘mean’ are usually perfectionist who make mediocre people unhappy, cause they put more pressure on them then they can handle.
The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer’s terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects.
If we [Microsoft Corporation] weren’t still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company. Fear should guide you, but it should be latent. I have some latent fear. I consider failure on a regular basis.
It’s become uncool to play other people’s songs, and that’s absurd. It has got to change. It’s the reason why everything’s so mediocre.
The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimeters – small, small differences – but it’s essential. I didn’t think there is such a big difference between photographers. Very little difference. But it is that little difference that counts, maybe
If you love everything you do, you will probably end up with mediocre work. I think dissatisfaction with the state of things does propel creative people forward.
I just don’t think it honors God to create mediocre art.
I want to be involved in things I can be really proud of. There’s a lot of bad films being made and I don’t understand how they got the money for it. That said, there’s a lot of bad telly, but there’s also a lot of very high quality that is something I’d be much more proud of than a mediocre film.
Only mediocre people are at the best all the time.
We must reject the idea… Well-intentioned, but dead wrong… That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become “more like a business.” Most businesses… Like most of anything else in life… Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
I think that Tupac was the trendsetter, the high mark. What we hope his music will continue to do is to at least encourage people away from mediocrity, because he was not a mediocre artist. When he was alive, people competed. There was a lot of competition, and a lot of the artists were better for it.
Mediocrity is excellence in the eyes of the mediocre.
If active or concerned citizens forfeit politics, they thereby abandon their society to its most mediocre and venal public servants
Calamitous collapse is better than mediocre defeat!
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.
I like to be loved or hated – I don’t like mediocre. So I’d rather have the entire crowd hate me than to have 90% hate me.
No serious-minded man should have time for the mediocre in any phase of his living.
Eventually, the time of action must come. When this happens, be a winner! Don’t settle for mediocre results. Don’t try to stay even. Go for it all!
A high church for the true mediocre.
Thank God that He has permitted us to live among the present problems. It is no longer permitted to anyone to be mediocre.
A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably.
He’s only mediocre, jealousy can’t get with me.
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.
No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain.
Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results.
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.
Florida surfers learn how to be great on mediocre waves. It trains you, gives you endurance.
There is good and mediocre writing within every genre.
Grass probably helped me as much as it hurt me. Especially as a performer. When you’re high, it’s easy to kid yourself about how clever certain mediocre pieces of material are. But, on the other hand, pot opens windows and doors that you may not be able to get through any other way.
To stay vigorous, a company needs to provide a stimulating and challenging environment for all these types: the dreamer, the entrepreneur, the professional manager, and the leader. If it doesn’t, it risks becoming yet another mediocre corporation.
We train to be the best. We don’t train to be mediocre.
A good song to one person could just be something mediocre to somebody else. It’s always strange thinking about how songs connect with people.
This isn’t a game. We don’t want mediocre employees who can keep the status quo. We want souls. We want to win. And you’ve spent most of your time here being mediocre.
Organizations grow when they persuade a tiny cadre to be passionate, not when they touch millions with a mediocre message
Digital photography and Photoshop have made it very easy for people to take pictures. It’s a medium that allows a lot of mediocre stuff to get through.
Young people need plenty of difficulties to achieve something…. If you receive a little money for this, a little money for that, everything becomes mediocre, and collapses ignominiously.
Don’t tolerate any form of average. Don’t accept Dis-excellence. Don’t stand for mediocre. If you’re going to settle, then please settle for the absolute best.
Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.
You can’t be the head, if you are a mediocre.
Equal rights for the sexes will be achieved only when mediocre women occupy high positions.
I’ve known people who have not mastered their tools who are good programmers, but not a tool master who remained a mediocre programmer.
Flat fields produce mediocre grapes, but rolling hills produce the greatest grapes. Why? Because the vines must struggle for survival.
It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.
A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent.
I don’t want to be mediocre, this is the fear of my soul and my body.
I made a conscious decision when I was about 17 years old to strive towards mediocrity. I completely abandoned the idea of grandeur and importance, and I wanted to be mediocre.
For me, a really radical position for journalism to take is to stop being cynical. Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.
…the most dangerous shortsightedness consists in underestimating the mediocre.
Here is the reality – as I’ve been saying for longer than I can remember, Scott Walker is a mediocre county executive who has risen far beyond his talents.
Fear, safety, and conformity make you mediocre and average
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.
The only thing that I was equipped for with my very mediocre college Arts degree was to get a job in teaching.
Great spirits often meet violent oppisition with mediocre minds.
I mean, people have created great shows, produced wonderful television, and nobody tunes in. For whatever reason, it just doesn’t resonate with the masses. And vice versa, people have produced some really crappy television and mediocre stuff, and for some reason it hits. And there’s no rhyme or reason.
To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.
…mediocre people find their way into positions of authority…because when it comes to even the most important positions, our selection decisions are a good deal less rational than we think.
I’m more of a warrior than you’ll ever be. I believe in the class war. I believe in the battle of the sexes. I believe in my tribe. I believe in the righteous, intelligent clued-up section of the working classes against the brain-dead moronic masses as well as the mediocre, soulless bourgeoisie.
Mediocre people are the most dangerous people in the world.
I performed adequately at school, but in comparison to my older brother, who set the record for the highest cumulative average for our high school, my performance was decidedly mediocre.
Mediocre theoretical physicists make no progress. They spend all their time understanding other people’s progress.
Establishing and maintaining clarity for yourself and what you want is the starting point for success. Thus, maintaining extraordinary clarity is necessary to achieve extraordinary success. The problem is that most people maintain a mediocre level of clarity, which inevitably leads to a mediocre level of success.
Old age is better for women than for men. First of all, they have less far to fall, since their lives are more mediocre than those of most men.
Naked and pure is the spirit that transcends the existence mediocre.
It’s ironic that retailers and restaurants live or die on customer service, yet their employees have some of the lowest pay and worst benefits of any industry. That’s one reason so many retail experiences are mediocre for the public.
I was a mediocre B-average student throughout my school years.
I’d rather write one good book than ten mediocre ones.
The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. The `polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.
A mediocre music teacher tells. A good music teacher explains. A superior music teacher demonstrates. A great music teacher inspires.
I watch mediocre shows that have been on for three or four seasons, and feel angry at them.
We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
It was a mixed bag pretty much all week. A lot of really, really good stuff out there, some mediocre and some bad.
You can be mediocre, the way most actors are, and you can still be a top movie star, even if your movies are boring and predictable. All you have to do is know how to sell yourself, let yourself be manufactured.
Mediocre men wait for opportunity to come to them. Strong, able, alert men go after opportunity.
While the President leads his potential adversaries in almost every state, his support is soft. He is seen as honest, sincere, just, and friendly but gets mediocre or relatively poor ratings being competent strong, intelligent, and a forceful leader.
For every bourgeois, in the heat of youth, if only for a day, for a minute, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of heroic enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of oriental princesses; every rotary carries about inside him the debris of a poet.
Mediocre athletes that tried like hell to get good are the best coaches.
You must always remember, because the mediocre mind you encounter may be your own.
If you give a good idea to a mediocre group, they’ll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they’ll fix it. Or they’ll throw it away and come up with something else.
One has to set high standards… I can never be happy with mediocre performance.
There is nothing worse than being mediocre at a whole bunch of different things.
Craft’ gets a bad rap. Mediocre art is not caused by craft; it is caused by artists. Good art employs whatever craft works best.
What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.
You can’t be mediocre on OTT. The content on OTT is outstanding.
We sometimes received – and I would read – 200 manuscripts a week. Some of them were wonderful, some were terrible; most were mediocre. It was like the gifts of the good and bad fairies.
You’re only great if you win. I mean, Alexander wasn’t Alexander the Mediocre or Alexander the Average. He was Alexander the Great, and there’s a reason for it.
Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it’s not mediocre.
Every country has the writers she requires and deserves, which is why Nicaragua, in two hundred years of literacy, has produced one writer-a mediocre poet.
The thing about writing is not to talk, but to do it; no matter how bad or even mediocre it is, the process and production is the thing, not the sitting and theorizing about how one should write ideally, or how well one could write if one really wanted to or had the time.
I’ve always known from the beginning of my acting career that you only get an acting job if you’ve got something to learn about it. If you don’t do it well, you’ll be condemned to doing the same role over and over and over again. If you do it mediocre, you’ll have to do it again.
I think a lot of bands would rather put mediocre rock tracks on their album to try to maintain some sort of testosterone badge of courage.
Life is too short to do mediocre work and it is definitely too short to build shitty things.
A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. As one climbs higher, life becomes ever harder, the coldness increases, responsibility increases.
When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four bad songs. I didn’t know it at the time; I was just doing my best.
Hung-up women can’t produce anything but mediocre art, and there ain’t no room for mediocre art.
Punk rock and skateboarding took the ‘school’ out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I’m mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifetime student of music, skating, painting, writing, etc.
When you’re high, it’s easy to kid yourself about how clever certain mediocre pieces of material are.
I didn’t want to come back and be mediocre; I wanted to hang in with the girls, and I wanted to prove myself every week.
Even if I tried to be my dad, it would be a mediocre, slightly embarrassing version.
I’ve accepted the fact that because I’m human, I’m terrific in one thing, good at some, mediocre at a bit more, and terrible at others. And if you’re human, you are too. You’ll have to discover the one thing that you are good at and major in it.
We truly believe with hard work, dedication and perseverance, we can become the best at what we do. No one wants to become mediocre.
The big win is when you refuse to settle for average or mediocre.
A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent.
A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
When something is just bad, it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn’t attempted to do anything really outlandish.
No one is mediocre who has good sense and good sentiments.
With no matter what human being, taken individually, I always find reasons for concluding that sorrow and misfortune do not suit him; either because he seems too mediocre for anything so great, or, on the contrary, too precious to be destroyed.
La mort n’est que pour les meВ diocres. Death is only for the mediocre.
America’s young people deserve more than a mediocre future – and we now have demonstrated proof that President Trump is building a path for our success.
Most child welfare agencies tend to embrace secrecy because the people who lead them tend to be mediocre and don’t want you to see how poor a job they are doing.
I always resent anybody interfering with anybody else trying to do his job. Everybody has his own job to do. If he’s good, he’ll do well, but if he’s mediocre, he’s not going to do as well as he should.
A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves.
I can’t think of a more mediocre human talent than George Bush. He obviously is a product of family advantage, and he’s the worst American President of all time.
For the serious mediocre writer convention makes him sound like a lot of other people; for the popular writer it gives him a formula he can exploit; for the serious good writer it releases his experiences or emotions from himself and incorporates them into literature, where they belong.
We must overcome the notion that we must be regular… it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.
Scores only matter if they’re very good, no one pays much attention to the bad or mediocre ones.
Superiority and success doesn’t favor good effort or self-esteem… The mentally precise and physically fit win, while the mediocre and obtuse take solace in hopeful cliches.
I think the worst reaction that I could get from someone to my photos is some sort of mediocre, middle-range reaction where they really get nothing from it, and they want to move on to the next thing. [I’d rather they be] horrified, pissed off at me, extremely disgusted at how bad of an artist I am.
As for the reasons behind my retirement, they mostly center around simple fatigue and a fear that if I continue for many more years my work will begin to suffer, or at the very least ease into the graveyard of mediocre cartoons.
An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.
WeWork is my fifth venture. I failed in my first, second and third, had mediocre success in the fourth.
Women want mediocre men, and men are working to be as mediocre as possible.
If you set out to write an adjective novel, you’re setting out to write a mediocre novel; your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story, and then that just sucks all the joy right out of it.
Gorbachevism, carried out by mediocre but ambitious party bureaucrats, is an attempt not only to outdo the people but also the objective laws of human society.
Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all of the rest of us. Striving after originality takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.
What is normal? Normal is only ordinary; mediocre. Life belongs to the rare, exceptional individual who dares to be different.
It takes character to sit there with all that cash and do nothing. I didn’t get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
Politics is ultimately not that complicated a profession; it’s where the mediocre distinguish themselves.
Only mediocre ideas can be tested.
For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it.
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
I’m not here to be mediocre.
Tragic paradox of freedom: the mediocre men who alone make its exercise possible cannot guarantee its duration.
In our desire to please everyone, it’s very easy to end up being invisible or mediocre.
If you really love films, and you really want to get the full impact, there’s a huge difference between watching something on a small screen with a mediocre sound system and watching it on a giant screen in a giant theater with a huge beautiful sound system. I mean, the difference is electric.
Possibilities are completely different. When you ask ‘what is possible?’ you must stretch your imagination out of the confines of the familiar. To live a life beyond the mediocre, ask not ‘what are my options?’ but ‘What is possible?’
I don’t play to be mediocre.
There is only good art and mediocre art.
Mediocre prose might be read as an escape, might be spoken on television by actors, or mouthed in movies. But mediocre poetry did not exist at all. If poetry wasn’t good, it wasn’t poetry. It was that simple.
Well, I think the secret is if you have a lot of stocks, some will do mediocre, some will do okay, and if one of two of ’em go up big time, you produce a fabulous result. And I think that’s the promise to some people.
Living is not this tawdry, mediocre, disciplined thing which we call our existence. Living is something entirely different; it is abundantly rich, timelessly changing, and as long as we don’t understand that eternal movement, our lives are bound to have very little meaning.
Great directors turn in mediocre work and first-time directors turn in exceptional work. No matter how good a person can talk about what he wants, you never know.
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.
At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that’s good.
I don’t think anybody wants to be mediocre.
There’s so much truly putrid advertising out there it’s embarrassing. But not all advertising is bad. Some of it is really quite mediocre.
Let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life.
I want to talk about my very first play, when I was in eighth grade. One day, my English teacher, Mrs. Baker, announced that we were going to read ‘On Borrowed Time’ out loud in class. I was a mediocre student; I was terrified that she was going to call on me, so I hid my head.
There is no academic virtue in playing mediocre football and no academic vice in winning a game that by all odds one should lose…There has indeed been a surrender at Notre Dame, but it is a surrender to excellence on all fronts, and in this we hope to rise above ourselves with the help of God.
My limited theater experience was when I was a kid starting out: two or three plays. I was good in one and mediocre in the other. My problem is that I have other interests.
Truth is a risky proposition. It’s the nature of mediocre human beings to believe that lies are necessary, that they serve a purpose, that truth is subversive, that candor is dangerous, that the very scaffold of communal life is supported by lies.
How can we help a child change from undependable to dependable, from a mediocre student to a capable student, from someone who won’t amount to very much to someone who will count for something. The answer is at once both simple and complicated: We treat a child as if he already is what we would like him to become.
A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.
The quickest way to kill the human spirit is to ask someone to do mediocre work.
Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
It is so much worse to be a mediocre artist than to be a mediocre post-office clerk.
Only the mediocre die always at their best. Real leaders are always improving – and raising their bar on how superbly they can perform and how quickly they can move.
I’ve always been a mediocre student, so I never won an award in school. I’m not very athletic, so I’ve never won a sports award. So, I’m a mediocre person.
Fantasy fiction is essentially about the concept of power; great fantasy fiction is about people who find it at great cost or lose it tragically; mediocre fantasy fiction is about people who have it and never lose it but simply wield it.
I’m not a big fan of mediocre.
Mediocre writers borrow; great writers steal.
Carmelo Anthony should do what makes him happy – either stay with the Knicks and be mediocre, or get with a contender and help them get over the hump.
A wife, a lover, can perhaps never see what the artist sees. They rarely ever do. Perhaps a really mediocre artist has more chance of success.
The traitor of other races is generally confined to the mediocre or irresponsible individual, but, unfortunately, the traitors among the Negro race are generally to be found among the men with the highest place in education and society, the fellows who call themselves leaders.
China lacks good science fiction, but not mediocre science fiction. Even so, the gap between Chinese and American sci-fi is still very large and it is most apparent in quality of the works.
A man of but mediocre talent who is furiously driven by deep desire will get somewhere. He who doesn’t desire deeply isn’t hurt much by failure.
I think the more mediocre you are the better you do because people need to think you’re their friend, they don’t want to be threatened by you, you’ve got to be warm, you’ve got to be not too smart, not too pretty, not too anything.
. . . a jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce – like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa.
You don’t have enough time to be both unhappy & mediocre. It’s not just pointless; it’s painful.
Bad books on writing tell you to “WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW”, a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.
We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success.
Cynicism is what passes for insight among the mediocre.
Mediocre men sometimes fear great office, and when they do not aim at it, or when they refuse it, all that is to be concluded is that they are aware of their mediocrity.
The bottom line:
Earth is not mediocre.
Earth is not mediocre.
When screening engineers from other companies, its smart to value engineers from great companies more than those from mediocre companies.
I’ve done millions of mediocre movies. I’ve done way more than my fair share. You do what you gotta do. This is not heart surgery. I’m not curing cancer. I’m just trying to put my kids through school.
I’d like to get to the point where I can be just as mediocre as a man
I’m not in the UFC to be mediocre.
I actually live a very mediocre lifestyle. So I decided to step back and do things not just for the sake of doing them, but because I believe in them and I want to do them.
If college cut-offs are above 90 per cent in a particular class, then where would mediocre students with 60 per cent or 70 per cent go? Students who secure 60-70 per cent marks are also intelligent, but they could not get admission in courses of their choice for scoring lower marks than the toppers.
Class I to XII wasn’t much help; I was always a mediocre student. But when I pursued higher education and studied economics with theatre or psychology with science fiction, I got a whole new world view.
I think being mediocre and in the middle would be the worst. It’s more interesting to get strong reactions, and to have the mixture of people who get it and the people who don’t get it. And to invite a dialogue.
Some days you really don’t feel like racing and you have a great performance, some days you feel great and you have a mediocre performance.
Finding patterns is easy in any kind of data-rich environment; that’s what mediocre gamblers do. The key is in determining whether the patterns represent signal or noise
Beto O’Rourke speaks in annoyingly pert platitudes like some mediocre yoga instructor who promises to ‘build a movement.’
Good, bad mediocre or whatever it is, if a director wants me in his movie, I take it as a compliment.
Drop the idea of being Extraordinary!В It’s keeping you mediocre. To be Ordinary is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The Ordinary person has light in his eyes; he has become extraordinary but he has no idea of it.
I enjoy making feature films, but I’d rather be in a good TV series than mediocre movies.
Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question.
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.
Pornography works to a degree, high quality works, bad is obvious. Nobody goes for bad. The terrible middle ground is the mediocre. That was kind of the essence, in a way, of broadcast television when there were only three channels.
A great coder can easily be 50 times more productive than a mediocre one, while bad ones ultimately have negative productivity.
If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds…. I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.
There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with. Love shouldn’t be one of them. Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of my time.
I prefer you to take as your model a mediocre sculpture rather than an excellent painting, for from painted objects we train our hand only to make a likeness, whereas from sculptures we learn to represent both likeness and correct incidence of light.
Those who think he had lucky breaks are not only unaware of the real story but also fall prey to that sin of the mediocre: bitchiness about others’ success
I’ve never met anyone who has said, “My goal is to make America mediocre.” That’s a kind of hard-right conservative fallacy.
The really intelligent are as abnormal as the defective. The great masses of men are rather mediocre, and those above and below are exceptions.
A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn’t be one of them.
My record at the University of California as an undergraduate was mediocre to say the best.
To be popular I must be mediocre.
Ronald Reagan knew audiences. It was a key element of his political genius. One of the things at which brilliant politicians are better than mediocre ones is smelling new public concerns over the horizon before they are picked up by polls – before the public even knows to call them ‘issues’ at all.
No extraordinary result ever came from mediocre effort.
I was a pretty mediocre player.
Grass [marijuana] probably helped me as much as it hurt me. Especially as a performer. When you’re high, it’s easy to kid yourself about how clever certain mediocre pieces of material are. But, on the other hand, pot opens windows and doors that you may not be able to get through any other way.
Herein lies a riddle: How can a people so gifted by God become so seduced by naked power, so greedy for money, so addicted to violence, so slavish before mediocre and treacherous leadership, so paranoid, deluded, lunatic?
I thought that I would have a huge literary novel coming out when I was, like, 29. I quit my banking job, and I was halfway through my second novel – and I will never publish it, because it’s very mediocre.
I was successful with mediocre material because of a good recording voice that people really liked at that time.
In the contest between talent and hard work as to which is the more important element of success, there’s no comparison. A mediocre talent with lots of hard work will go further than a stellar talent who coasts.
Rather than admire the mediocre great men over whom passersby nudge each other in awe, I venerate the young, unknown geniuses who die in their teens, their souls shattered – delicate, phosphorescent glowworms that one must see to know they really did exist.
Dear young people, let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life. Be amazed by what is true and beautiful, what is of God!
Do not be content to live a mediocre Christian life: walk with determination along the path of holiness.
What helps change bad writing into mediocre writing is editing. Editing is in bad shape in print journalism, and is in virtually nonexistent shape in online journalism.
Donkey Kong Country proves that players will put up with mediocre gameplay as long as the art is good.
the great is seldom a deterrent to the mediocre
Preserve your energy – do not waste it on mediocre activity.
One colleague who’s been in the industry longer than I had been gave me a valuable piece of advice. “Stay close to the facts and observe things fully and report. Then you can be a mediocre journalist.” I held onto his words when I worked and I’ve been following that advice for 16 years.
The post-war “publish or perish” tyranny must end. The profession has become obsessed with quantity rather than quality. […] One brilliant article should outweigh one mediocre book.
As a rule, the man who can do all things equally well is a very mediocre individual.
No, I’m not interested in developing a powerful brain. All I’m after is just a mediocre brain, something like the President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Divine souls suffer violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Certainly that sputterless little candleflame of the mediocre mind known as ‘common sense’ has never produced anything worth celebrating.
One of the great things with comedy is that there’s no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it’s either uproarious or crap. That’s the problem.
I see many founders waste too much time trying to work their networks and/or ultimately settle for mediocre but available candidates. You will definitely have to interview hard for cultural fit, but the best talent isn’t cheap.
I don’t want to be a mediocre player or average.
The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.
[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.
We had a bunch of models for user adoption of Robinhood Gold. The data team had some silly names for a range of adoption levels: ‘Mediocre expectations,’ ‘middle-of-the-road expectations’ and ‘great expectations.’ The numbers we ended up with were significantly higher than ‘great expectations.’
All too often, the security of a mediocre present is more comfortable than the adventure of trying to be more in the future.
Of course there is no denying the possible pleasure of holing up with a fat, slow-moving, mediocre novel; still, we all know that we can indulge ourselves in that fashion only so much. In the end, we read not for reading’s sake, but to learn.
Star Wars’ was a sell-out from the start, and that is just about the only remarkable thing about this depressingly mediocre franchise.
Eat, drink, and be merry is perfectly good in itself; nothing is wrong in it. But it is not enough. Soon you will get tired of it. One cannot just go on eating, drinking, and merrying. Soon the merry-go-round turns into a sorry-go-round – because it is repetitive. Only a very mediocre mind can go on being happy with it.
To sustain and become a musician of a certain calibre, you need to know and understand music completely. You need to have a good taste in music and should know your good music from mediocre ones.
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
If you’re an extraordinarily gifted woman, the door is open. What women are fighting for is the right to be as mediocre as men.
There are many mediocre entertainers who don’t aspire to much more than fame and glory. It’s very easy to have them as your role models because there aren’t as many greats.
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Comedy can be harder because if you aren’t making the audience laugh, they’re going to turn on you quicker. They’ll go along with mediocre drama more than they’ll go along with mediocre comedy.
Mediocre people don’t like high achievers and high achievers don’t like mediocre people.
I don’t apologize for anything. When I make a mistake, I take the blame and go on from there. I just despise to lose, and that has taken a man of mediocre ability and made a pretty good coach out of him.
I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.
I would rather spend my entire life doing nothing than have my name attached to something mediocre.
There’s mediocre jazz, mediocre salesmen, mediocre golfers. If you want to be good, you have to really hone your skills.
You don’t achieve greatness in life being surrounded by mediocre people with mediocre values. Choose your company wisely.
I expect to always do well. It’s the kind of competitiveness in me. I’m not here to try to just be mediocre.
Our goal is to find an outstanding business at a sensible price, not a mediocre business at a bargain price.
‘Media’ is the plural for ‘mediocre’.
A bad or mediocre meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life’s pleasures – a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience.
In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ. Also, the idea that intelligence can be gauged by an IQ test is erroneous.
Elvis Presley was rock ‘n’ roll, I thought that was pretty mediocre. But since that time, the succeeding steps in music has been down, just more degradation. Then we got into punk rock, and now we are into rap music, which is a total oxymoron.
A baseball field must be the most beautiful thing in the world. It’s so honest and precise. And we play on it. Every star gets humbled. Every mediocre player has a great moment.
Denmark can be very small, provincial, and mediocre.
Dear Young People, do not be mediocre; the Christian life challenges us with great ideals!
Mediocre people don’t like high achievers, and high achievers don’t like mediocre people.
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
Philadelphians are every whit as mediocre as their neighbors, but they seldom encourage each other in mediocrity by giving it a more agreeable name.
If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
It was only the vulgarly mediocre that repelled her.
I studied voice for about two years with an amazing coach, and I never rose above the level of mediocre.
We [Desaparecidos] have to make the message and the music and the packaging as appealing as possible – as Taco Bell as possible: mediocre and no one can be offended by it and everyone can sort of enjoy it and we can play it on the radio.
Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.
We are given in our newspapers and on TV and radio exactly what we, the public, insist on having, and this very frequently is mediocre information and mediocre entertainment.
There is nothing scarier than a mediocre man with a mission.
There’s too much bad. The worst is mediocre. Bad is easy. There’s high quality, there’s pornography, and then there’s bad.
Dreamers are not content with being mediocre.
That’s the problem with fiction — or the charm, if you want. Even mediocre plots have a way of sinking their hooks into you, until you find yourself concerned for the fates of characters who aren’t even fully convincing.
Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid.
The great universal family of men is a utopia worthy of the most mediocre logic.
Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge
I believe when you work hard, even if you are a mediocre actor, the audience connects to you.
I may turn out an intellectual, but I’ll never write anything but mediocre poetry.
Mediocre art is far worse than bad art. Bad art does not waste our time.
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius.
I would rather write or record something great and have it overlooked than do mediocre work and have it be popular.
Stock is everything in cooking, at least in French cooking. Without it, nothing can be done. If one’s stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result.
I was afraid I’d be typecast forever as a mediocre actress.
All her life she [Chantal] had been carefully, heroically watching over mediocre beings who were hardly real, over things of no value.
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.
I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.
I don’t believe in doing everything and being mediocre at all of them. I believe in being good at one thing.
Sometimes, when you work with mediocre talents, they feel entitled. They act like stars. Genuinely talented people don’t.
It’s more than magnificent; it’s mediocre.
John Major is what he is: a man from nowhere, going nowhere, heading for a well-merited obscurity as fast as his mediocre talents can carry him.
To be mediocre, when only application and diligence would have netted superiority, is an error akin to sin.
I was a great base umpire, but I was the most mediocre plate umpire to ever come into the major leagues.
God, do I hate my little fat tits. You ever pinch your little meat tits and wish you were dead? You ever just stand naked in the mirror. “You little fat-titted mediocre failure!” You ever do that for 3 hours on New Year’s Eve.
I’d rather have one good scene in a movie by a great director than a small role in a mediocre movie.
Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.
Bit parts in Mediocre TV shows won’t develop your acting chops.
This was a really big opportunity. This script was even mediocre. The idea was great, but Jay came on with his guys made it great and very specific. It all came together well.
I was a commercial girl. In drama school, I was a mediocre model occasionally to pick up some extra cash, and because clearly I’m not six feet tall, and I had baby weight, I would mainly just would do promotional stuff.
You are putting yourself in serious danger…’ I think that I preferred to put myself in serious danger rather than confront my shame. My shame at not having become someone, the shame of not having made my parents proud after all the sacrifices they had made for me. The shame of having become a mediocre nihilist.
I don’t like being mediocre. I won’t be.
Poland is quite a mediocre country in some regards. The only natural resource that we have, and with which we can compete, is freedom.
I have made mistakes in my career by associating with films which were mediocre because I needed money at that time.
Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts. Some of you like Pep rallies and plastic robots who tell you what to read.
Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education
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.
Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior.
There is plenty of room in the world for mediocre men but there is no room for mediocre women.
Great directors turn in mediocre work, and first-time directors turn in exceptional work. No matter how good a person can talk about what he wants, you never know. You just have to go with a good story and a script that you like and people that you like to work with.
I could have been a mediocre tap dancer.
You have a responsibility to act for others when you’re the only person in a position to do so. It’s how you handle it that separates the great from the mediocre.
We must see that we are afraid of the thing we most desire,
and so we live a mediocre life,
never bringing to consummation
the primary impulse of our heart.
and so we live a mediocre life,
never bringing to consummation
the primary impulse of our heart.
I think there are times when you’re jamming with the universe, and other times when it feels like no matter how hard I work, no matter how good a person I am, I will always be punished for being mediocre.
High achievers tend to have major weaknesses. People without major weaknesses tend to be mediocre.
America became a great civilization thanks to a culture based on the value of having to earn almost everything an American got in life. As it abandons this value, it will become a mediocre civilization. And eventually it will not be America. It will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one.
Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn’t as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process.
If we remove desire to be better, we become mediocre.
It is the habit of mediocre minds to condemn all that is beyond their grasp.
I’ve played every instrument you could possibly think of for 10 minutes. So I’m mediocre at everything. I can play drums, guitar, piano, violin, saxophone, clarinet, flute… Just not well.
Without a great man writing and directing for me, I realised I was a mediocre movie star at best.
Growth does not always lead a business to build on success. All too often it converts a highly successful business into a mediocre large business.
If you want your company to succeed, you have to have the confidence in your business to take a bet on its future – to risk destroying a mediocre business model for the chance to have a strong one.
This was a really big opportunity. This script was even mediocre. The idea was great, but Jay came on with his guys made it great and very specific. It all came together well.
Television is such a mediocre medium.
I don’t have any special passion for politics, it being a never-ending merry-go-round of bosses big and small, all generally mediocre. I actually find it boring.
Even a mediocre idea created and presented with passion can change the world.
Morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions … I abhore Christianity with a deadly hatred.
The better a man is, the more mistakes he will make, for the more new things he will try. I would never promote to a top-level job a man who was not making mistakes…otherwise he is sure to be mediocre.
I had to produce a complete page – or two or three – in one day. I took a lot of pride in my work, and I hated to do a mediocre job. Evidently, some of the writers enjoyed my work best of all for that very reason.
A mediocre season for Nelson Piquet as he is now known and always has been.
You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.
He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.
A passive mindset “manages” to live with mediocre, but an active mindset “leads” to change until excellence results.
I couldn’t give you something mediocre even if that’s all you asked for.
I would always rather do a mediocre script with a great filmmaker than a great script with a mediocre filmmaker.
Albert Einstein once reported, “Great spirits have always encountered voilent opposition from mediocre minds.” If you want to achieve your own greatness, to climb your own mountains, you’ll have to use yourself as your first and last consultant.
Ninety percent of films are pretty mediocre, but they have a built-in audience and open on 3,000 screens.
I had studied piano since I was 13, but I was surrounded by students who’d been playing since they were 5. I realized I was never going to be anything but mediocre.
Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
The idea of excessive diversification is madness. Wide diversification, which necessarily includes investment in mediocre businesses, only guarantees ordinary results.
The failure to find the right niche for people – or to let them find their own perfect niches – is a major reason that so many workplaces are mediocre, even toxic, in spite of the presence of talent. Leaders of great groups give them whatever they need and free them from everything else.
I do know that the best way to make a mediocre movie is to just transcribe the book.
Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person – hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre – into an outstanding performer.
I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning.
The Grand Old Party’s abiding affection for a ‘bigger and better’ presidency isn’t entirely logical. After all, the Obama presidency commenced with an effort to reenact the Hundred Days. Yet President Obama’s first-term economic performance itself was not ‘big’ but mediocre – tiny, even.
I’m not afraid to fail. I’m afraid to be mediocre.
There are pockets of great food in Spain, but there are also pockets of very mediocre food in Spain, and the same in Morocco and the same in Croatia and the same in Germany and the same in Austria.
The difference between the top performers and the average or mediocre performers is not a great, massive difference. It is just a tiny difference because the top performers do things just a tiny bit.
The difference between a remarkable life and a mediocre one is not nearly as large as you might imagine. Nope, we all pretty much start out with the same raw stuff.
I resent having witnessed the survival of some very mediocre male actors and the professional demise of the very brilliant female ones.
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
I’ve read a hundred fantastic scripts that didn’t pan out as films, and I completely put that on the directors. I’ve also read some mediocre scripts that have ended up being amazing, and I credit that to the directors. They’re the storytellers. If you don’t have a good storyteller, you really have nothing.
The mediocre always feel as if they’re fighting for their lives when confronted by the excellent.
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself.
Some people insist that “mediocre” is better than “best.” They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can’t fly. They despise brains because they have none.
Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.
Technology is a bit of a double-edged sword. Used right, it’s a wonderful tool, but unfortunately, it makes it easier for a lot of mediocre people to get really crappy ideas out.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
I would not encourage you to go through the sweat, blood, and tears of the recovery process only to reach some kind of mediocre state where you were just ‘managing’ the illness. It is possible to live without Ed.
We don’t become mediocre all at once, and we rarely do it on purpose.
Envy is the religion of the mediocre
