— Gerard Manley Hopkins English poet 1844 - 1889
Letter to A.W.M. Baillie (10 September 1864)
Letters, etc
„Most businesses -— like most of anything else in life -— fall somewhere between mediocre and good. Few are great. When you compare great companies with good ones, many widely practiced business norms turn out to correlate with mediocrity, not greatness. So, then, why would we want to import the practices of mediocrity into the social sectors?“
Quelle: Good To Great And The Social Sectors, 2005, p. 1
Übernommen aus Wikiquote. Letzte Aktualisierung 3. Juni 2021. Geschichte
Jim Collins1
US-amerikanischer Manager 1958Ähnliche Zitate
— Harriet Beecher Stowe Abolitionist, author 1811 - 1896
"Dress, or Who Makes the Fashions" in The Atlantic Monthly (1864).
„Two great poets are stronger than two thousand mediocrities“
— Dana Gioia American writer 1950
31
Essays, Can Poetry Matter? (1991), The Catholic Writer Today (2013)
„Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.“
— Oscar Wilde Irish writer and poet 1854 - 1900
„I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry.“
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, buch This Side of Paradise
Quelle: This Side of Paradise
— André Maurois French writer 1885 - 1967
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life
„Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.“
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
Variante: Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds.
„Good behavior is the last refuge of mediocrity.“
— Henry S. Haskins 1875 - 1957
Variante: Sedate ignorance is the last stage of deterioration.
Quelle: Meditations in Wall Street (1940), p. 135
— Frank Zappa American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer 1940 - 1993
"My Pet Theory" on the second disc of the twin CD version
The MOFO Project/Object (2006)
Kontext: The '60s was really stupid … It was a type of merchandising, Americans had this hideous weakness, they had this desire to be OK, fun guys and gals, and they haven't come to terms with the reality of the situation: we were not created equal. Some people can do carpentry, some people can do mathematics, some people are brain surgeons and some people are winos and that's the way it is, and we're not all the same. This concept of one world-ism, everything blended and smoothed out to this mediocre norm that everybody downgrades themselves to be is stupid. The '60s was merchandised to the public at large... My pet theory about the '60s is that there is a sinister plot behind it... The lessons learnt in the '60s about merchandising stupidity to the American public on a large scale have been used over and over again since that time.
— Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues French writer, a moralist 1715 - 1747
La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.
Quelle: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 168.
„Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to be as mediocre as possible.“
— Margaret Mead American anthropologist 1901 - 1978
Quote magazine (15 June 1958)
1950s
Kontext: When human beings have been fascinated by the contemplation of their own hearts, the more intricate biological pattern of the female has become a model for the artist, the mystic, and the saint. When mankind turns instead to what can be done, altered, built, invented, in the outer world, all natural properties of men, animals, or metals become handicaps to be altered rather than clues to be followed. Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to be as mediocre as possible.
— Susan Cain self-help writer 1968
"An introverted call to action: Susan Cain at TED2012," TED, February 28, 2012.
— Henry M. Leland American businessman 1843 - 1932
Quelle: Master of Precision: Henry M. Leland, 1966, p. 59
— Robert Louis Stevenson Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer 1850 - 1894
Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Kontext: There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful Merchant. The one is dead, to be sure, while the other is still in his counting-house counting out his money; and doubtless this is a consideration. But we have, on the other hand, some bold and magnanimous sayings common to high races and natures, which set forth the advantage of the losing side, and proclaim it better to be a dead lion than a living dog. It is difficult to fancy how the mediocrities reconcile such sayings with their proverbs. According to the latter, every lad who goes to sea is an egregious ass; never to forget your umbrella through a long life would seem a higher and wiser flight of achievement than to go smiling to the stake; and so long as you are a bit of a coward and inflexible in money matters, you fulfil the whole duty of man.
— I. F. Stone American investigative journalist and author 1907 - 1989
I.F. Stone's Bi-Weekly (1971-12-14)
