Mediocrity is climbing molehills without sweating.

Icelandic Proverb

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.

William E. Gladstone

Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.

Fulton J. Sheen

Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or man.

Horace Mann

Actors are loved because they are unoriginal. Actors stick to their script. The unoriginal man is loved by the mediocrity because this kind of "artistic" expression is something to which the merest five-eighth can climb.

Alfred North Whitehead

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.

Robert Louis Stevenson

It's a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.

Roberto Benigni

Stability is useless if it means mediocrity.

Pierre Blayau

Never were abilities so much below mediocrity so well rewarded; no, not when Caligula's horse was made Consul.

John Randolph

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr.

The present reeks of mediocrity and the atom bomb.

Rene Magritte

Mediocrity is self-inflicted and genius is self-bestowed.

Walter Russell

Beware the lollipop of mediocrity; lick it once and you'll suck forever.

Brian Wilson

Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

Margot Fonteyn

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy.

Scott Alexander

A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.

Pierre joseph Proudhon

It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.

W. Somerset Maugham

Mediocrity does not see higher than itself. But talent instantly recognizes the genius.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Malice is only another name for mediocrity.

Patrick Kavanagh

To the mediocre, mediocrity appears great.

Indian Proverb

The tendency of democracies is, in all things, to mediocrity.

James Fenimore Cooper

Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Joseph Heller

External signs of wealth and success are often cheap storefronts that hide internal mediocrity or even incompetence.

Real Live Preacher

Mediocrity in politics is not to be despised. Greatness is not needed.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger

They don't settle for mediocrity. They are very demanding of each other.

Josh Blaisdell

Good behavior is the last refuge of mediocrity.

Henry S. Haskins

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

Isaac Disraeli

That's a good thing. That's how you should look at football. If you don't have anything to compare, you start to cheer for watered-down things. If you don't have standard bearers then you're going to allow mediocrity to be looked at as great.

Carl Banks

Only mediocrity of enjoyment is allowed to man.

Hugh Blair

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

Rutherford B. Hayes

I have a horror of not rising above mediocrity.

Robert Baldwin

It's a season with few highs and few lows, but the general level of mediocrity is higher than it has been.

Robert Bianco

Radio is a bag of mediocrity where little men with carbon minds wallow in sluice of their own making.

Fred Allen

There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.

Norman Vincent Peale

I said I hope they're ready for me; I won't step back and accept mediocrity. I won't accept being the sport between field hockey and softball.

Steve Schibi

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

Max Beerbohm

We didn't get involved with the Reds to wallow in mediocrity. If that's all we have to offer, we shouldn't be hanging around. We're going to give it 110 percent to put a contender on the field.

Robert Castellini

Do not accept mediocrity from yourselves, do not accept it from your teachers and do not accept it from your elected officials.

Bob Tigro

If you know anything about Loyola or the Jesuits, you would expect us to do this. People don't come to a Jesuit university expecting mediocrity.

Lisa Martin

Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.

George Lois

He prefers a glorious disaster to mediocrity.

Christophe Barbier

All of us are pushing the envelope. All of us are going to go for gold or get nothing. Mediocrity is not going to cut it.

Emily Cook

I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.

Ernst Lubitsch