60 Excellence Quotes | Striving & Pursuing Personal Achievement

Staying true to honoring your best self, these excellence quotes will motivate you to achieve your highest potential.

Pursuing excellence is so important if we are going to live life to the fullest and make maximum impact on those around us.

We should all strive to do our best in all areas of life. If you’re going to do anything, do it with a spirit of excellence. Whether you’re building a business, writing a book, hosting an event or making a presentation, do it to the best of your abilities and make it memorable.

Excellence is going beyond average and out-performing the expectations of others. It’s ascending higher than the set standard. While many people settle for mediocrity, go beyond the bar. Reject the idea of only doing enough to get by.

Although it’s easy to go along with what everyone else is going, make an effort to be extraordinary and function in excellence. Strive to make a difference and rise above the masses of people.

To help you reach your highest potential, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and powerful excellence quotes, excellence sayings, and excellence proverbs, collected from a variety of sources over the years. Enjoy!

Excellence Quotes To Look Deeper Inside Yourself

1. “The pursuit of excellence with unrestrained passion can lead to the accomplishment of wonders with unsurpassed joy.” ― Aberjhani

2. “Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.” ― Habeeb Akande

3. “Seeking excellence means choosing to forge your own sword to cut through the limitations of your life…” ― James A. Murphy

4. “Either find a way, or make one….You can bend but you can never break if you want to achieve excellence.” ― Ziad K. Abdelnour

5. “Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details in everything you do and excellence will come.” ― Perry Sexton

6. “If you want to achieve excellence, you must refuse to let anything stand in the way of your potential.” ― Sai Pradeep

7. “You have the ability to shine and make a mark in some field. Your job is to find your niche, excel and build a lasting legacy.” ― Roopleen

If you’re enjoying these quotes, you’ll love our collection of legacy quotes that will inspire you to start making your mark on the world today.

8. “Do you know great minds enjoy excellence, average minds love mediocrity and small minds adore comfort zones?” ― Onyi Anyado

9. “Be driven with purpose. Be relentless in your alignment with excellence. Pay no mind to the disimpassioned impotent haters.” ― Steve Maraboli

10. “When you do the common things in an uncommon way, you’ll command the attention of the world.” ― George Washington Carver

Excellence quotes to help you honor your best self

11. “Step out of the crowd of average people. Enter that game and change the values on the scoreboard.” ― Israelmore Ayivor

12. “Our attitude to focus on excellence not only made us successful but also timelessly inspirational.” ― Kishore Bansal

13. “If you don’t value excellence, you won’t achieve excellence.” ― Glenn C. Stewart

14. “The future belongs to only those who would attain excellence in the field of their own choice.” ― Abhijit Naskar

15. “The excellent person manages himself. He will not allow the environment to manage him.” ― Rex Resurreccion

16. “Do ordinary things extraordinarily well.” ― Gregg Harris

17. “A passive mindset “manages” to live with mediocre, but an active mindset “leads” to change until excellence results.” ― Orrin Woodward

18. “The person who will end up enjoying success, is the one who planned for it and who knew why they are seeking to succeed.” ― Archibald Marwizi

19. “Moderation leads to Mediocrity, Intensity leads to Excellence.” ― Suleman Abdullah

20. “Virtue is excellence, something uncommonly great and beautiful, which rises far above what is vulgar and ordinary.” ― Adam Smith

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Excellence quotes to help you achieve your highest potential

21. “I don’t settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?” ― Adriana Trigiani

22. “Happiness is the full use of one’s talents along lines of excellence.” ― John F. Kennedy

23. “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” ― Charles R. Swindoll

24. “Excellence prospers in the absence of excuses.” ― Lorii Myers

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of excuses quotes about the power of sticking to your word.

25. “The quality of people’s lives is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour.” ― Vincent Lombardi

26. “Blossoming out through one’s comfort zone should be well meaning so as to achieve newer levels of excellence.” ― Priyavrat Thareja

27. “The race for excellence has no finish line.” ― Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

28. “I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley

29. “There are no shortcuts to excellence” ― Angela Duckworth

30. “A visionary is a leader of excellence who sees what others do not see, who achieves for now and plans for the future, who positively impacts different generations and raises up other visionaries.” ― Onyi Anyado

Don’t forget to also check out these graduation quotes from famous films about success.

Excellence quotes that will inspire you to do your best

31. “Excellence is a direct result of an extra effort.” ― Gift Gugu Mona

32. “Your customers will always be people. Empathy and a smile is your revenue builder.” ― Janna Cachola

33. “If the ‘Journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step’ – that is prescribed to – ALIGN.” ― Priyavrat Thareja

34. “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.” ― Eric Hoffer

35. “Perfect may not always be pretty but excellence is always elegant.” ― Janna Cachola

36. “A timely benefit, -though thing of little worth, the gift itself, -in excellence transcends the earth.” ― Thiruvalluvar

37. “People simply feel better about themselves when they’re good at something.” ― Stephen R. Covey

38. “People of excellence go the extra mile to do what’s right.” ― Joel Osteen

39. “Don’t let the fact you haven’t done something before convince you that you can’t do it, or that it cannot be done perfectly the first time you try your hand at it.” ― A.J. Darkholme

40. “It’s better to do one thing well than ten things poorly.” ― Heather Hart

Excellence quotes to inspire you to go beyond what is expected

41. “We can never achieve and succeed without first making excellence second nature.” ― Jolene Church

42. “Stay upbeat and keep your head held high. There is no end to the power of positive thinking. I AM looking forward to all the wealth, success, and abundance speeding my way!” ― Ron Barrow

43. “Always give your best; today’s great work is tomorrow’s benchmark.” ― Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

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44. “Don’t wait for a huge platform before you give of your best performance.” ― Bernard Kelvin Clive

45. “What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare.” ― Robert Farrar Capon

46. “Time only gives one chance, if you lose it once, you can never get it back.” ― Sunday Adelaja

47. “Excellence is the Result of Caring more than others think is Wise, Risking more than others think is Safe, Dreaming more than others think is Practical, and Expecting more than others think is Possible.” ― Ronnie Oldham

48. “Be a character of excellence, not excuses” ― Janna Cachola

49. “Excellence must be achieved through the eyes of those who judge us; once achieved it can only be maintained with constant innovation.” ― Tom Collins

50. “Bring your dreams to reality. Believe in yourself. You know you have what it takes to make your dreams come true. Start now and dedicate yourself for success. Shoot for the stars and make it happen.” ― Mark F. LaMoure

More excellence quotes to launch you to greatness

51. “Roses do not bloom hurriedly; for beauty, like any masterpiece, takes time to blossom.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo

52. “Be not professional in what you do, rather be excellent. Excellence has life in it – it has colors in it – it has sweetness in it – whereas professionalism is a dead corpse exuding the disgusting smell of obedience. Excellence requires no obedience, yet in excellence you act your best, without all the life-sucking efforts.” ― Abhijit Naskar

53. “Every ‘No’ you hear births a hustle.” ― Johnnie Dent Jr.

54. “Hurting excellence is one way in which mediocrity gives itself the moments of pleasure.” ― Ramesh Sood

55. “Dreams give birth to passion and passion produces action. Your work ethic, consistency and determination deliver excellent results.” ― Victor Kwegyir

56. “Greatness unfolds through formless excellence.” ― Arif Naseem

57. “It doesn’t cost more to strive for excellence, but if you settle for mediocrity, it’ll cost you dearly.” ― Frank Sonnenberg

58. “Outcomes are not my responsibility. I am only tasked with doing the best I can when I can.” ― Todd Stocker

59. “Quietly working on what you care about and what you are great at, minding your business while striving for excellence will get you far in life.” ― Geoffrey Ocaya

60. “Passion is the differentiating factor between average and excellent.” ― Gayatri Gadre

How did you find these excellence quotes?

Excellence is so critical if you’re going to reach your fullest potential and make maximum impact on the world around you. To achieve real fulfillment and satisfaction in life, you must put excellence in whatever you’re pursuing.

If you’re working a job, perform beyond the set expectations. If you are in business, strive to go beyond the bottom line. Be the best in all things you set out to do. Hopefully, the quotes above have inspired you to pursue a life of excellence.

Did these excellence quotes inspire and motivate you? Which of the quotes resonated with you best? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below.