Top 200 Excellence Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Leave your ego at the door every morning, and just do some truly great work. Few things will make you feel better than a job brilliantly done.”

— Robin S. Sharma

152. “Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.”

— Seth Godin

153. “When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.”

— Walter Payton

154. “You must not let your life run in the ordinary way; do something that nobody else has done, something that will dazzle the world. Show that God’s creative principle works in you.”

— Paramahansa Yogananda

155. “Whatever your life’s work is, do it well.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

156. “Do not lower your goals to the level of your abilities. Instead, raise your abilities to the height of your goals.”

— Swami Vivekananda

157. “Greatness is a lot of small things done well. Day after day, workout after workout, obedience after obedience, day after day.”

— Ray Lewis

158. “Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.”

— Abraham Lincoln

159. “Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.”

— James Harrington

160. “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.”

— Uta Hagen

161. “The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.”

— Tom Peters

162. “Trying to get everyone to like you is a sign of mediocrity.”

— Colin Powell

163. “A man is great by deeds, not by birth.”

— Chanakya

164. “The difference between average and good. Good and Great! Great and Phenomenal! It’s their mindset!”

— Eric Thomas

165. “If you want extraordinary results you must put in extraordinary effort.”

— Cory Booker

166. “The only person who can stop you from reaching your goals is you.”

— Jackie Joyner-Kersee

167. “When we deal in generalities, we shall never succeed. When we deal in specifics, we shall rarely have a failure. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.”

— Thomas S. Monson

168. “Strive for perfection, but settle for excellence.”

— Don Shula

169. “Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.”

— Dale Carnegie

170. “Success comes in cans, failure comes in can’ts.”

— Zig Ziglar

171. “You master Monday! You start winning the day! You start winning the week! Then the month! Then the year!”

— Eric Thomas

172. “We all can be masters at our craft, but you have to make sacrifices that come along with making that decision.”

— Kobe Bryant

173. “If you plan to excel in big things, you have to develop the habit in the small ones.”

— Lecrae

174. “If you have a dream, don’t just sit there. Gather courage to believe that you can succeed and leave no stone unturned to make it a reality.”

— Dr. Roopleen

175. “If you have a dream, chase it no matter what it takes.”

— James Harden

176. “The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.”

— Sam Walton

177. “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.”

— Walt Disney

178. “I challenge you to be the best you can be! I challenge you to behave in ways you’ve never behaved.”

— Eric Thomas

179. “Rest at the end, not in the middle.”

— Kobe Bryant

180. “High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”

— Charles F. Kettering

181. “Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run.”

— James Clear

182. “Exceeding expectations is where satisfaction ends and loyalty begins.”

— Ron Kaufman

183. “Good is the enemy of great. That’s why so few things become great.”

— James C. Collins

184. “Commit to becoming breathtakingly great in all you do. And that’s what you’ll become.”

— Robin S. Sharma

185. “Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret of success.”

— Sivananda

186. “The only thing in your control is effort. That’s all, and that’s everything.”

— Mark Cuban

187. “Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.”

— Atul Gawande

188. “A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”

— Duke Ellington

189. “Your ultimate goal in life is to become your best self. Your immediate goal is to get on the path that will lead you there.”

— David Viscott

190. “He who would accomplish little need sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much. He who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.”

— James Allen

191. “To be successful you don’t need to do extraordinary things, you just need to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

— Jim Rohn

192. “Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

— John Wooden

193. “Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed – there’s so little competition.”

— Elbert Hubbard

194. “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”

— Mario Andretti

195. “If you don’t play to win don’t play at all.”

— Tom Brady

196. “Each moment of my life I was dreaming of how great I could be, and continued working hard. Each time I closed my eyes I could see me shining bright like a sun.”

— Kobe Bryant

197. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.”

— Aristotle

198. “If you focus on success, you’ll have stress. But if you pursue excellence, success will be guaranteed.”

— Deepak Chopra

199. “If you can't do great things, do small things in a great way.”

— Napoleon Hill

200. “Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.”

— Heraclitus