„Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.“

Diary entry (2 August 1914), quoted in John Keiger, 'France' in Keith Wilson (ed.), Decisions for War 1914 (London: University College London Press, 1995), p. 136.

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 58.
On Doing Things Right

Let Dons Delight (1939), Note on Chapter 8
Describing a discussion following the presentation of a paper at a student society.

Prussianism and Socialism (1919)

Fuente: In Search of Excellence (1982), p. 75.

Fuente: (1776), Book II, Chapter V, p. 402.

Fuente: Eclipse of Reason (1947), p. 52.

Quoted in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly (2002-07-01)

Fuente: The Meaning of a Liberal Education (1926), p. 181

1950s, Rediscovering Lost Values (1954)
Contexto: Now that isn't the only thing that convinces me that we've strayed away from this attitude, this principle. The other thing is that we have adopted a sort of a pragmatic test for right and wrong—whatever works is right. If it works, it's all right. Nothing is wrong but that which does not work. If you don't get caught, it's right. [laughter] That's the attitude, isn't it? It's all right to disobey the Ten Commandments, but just don't disobey the eleventh, "Thou shall not get caught." [laughter] That's the attitude. That's the prevailing attitude in our culture. No matter what you do, just do it with a bit of finesse. You know, a sort of attitude of the survival of the slickest. Not the Darwinian survival of the fittest, but the survival of the slickest—whoever can be the slickest is the one who right. It's all right to lie, but lie with dignity. [laughter] It's all right to steal and to rob and extort, but do it with a bit of finesse. It's even all right to hate, but just dress your hate up in the garments of love and make it appear that you are loving when you are actually hating. Just get by! That's the thing that's right according to this new ethic. My friends, that attitude is destroying the soul of our culture. It's destroying our nation.

Variante: To accomplish excellence or anything outstanding, you must listen to that whisper which is heard by you alone.

Bloomberg: Apple's Cook to Meet With Trump Amid China Trade Tensions https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-25/apple-s-cook-to-meet-with-trump-amid-u-s-china-trade-tensions (25 April 2018)

319 U.S. 641-42
Judicial opinions, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943)
Contexto: The case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own. Nevertheless, we apply the limitations of the Constitution with no fear that freedom to be intellectually and spiritually diverse or even contrary will disintegrate the social organization. To believe that patriotism will not flourish if patriotic ceremonies are voluntary and spontaneous instead of a compulsory routine is to make an unflattering estimate of the appeal of our institutions to free minds. We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.

American Cinematographer (October 1971)

Part III, ch. 18 (Bea Schacter)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Fuente: The Little Big Things: 163 Ways To Pursue Excellence (2010), p. 9.

Milgrom and Roberts, 1987, p. 185
Fuente: "Theory, experiment and economics," 1989, p. 151.

Fuente: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 517.