Next to excellence is the appreciation of it.
William Makepeace Thackeray

No publisher in America improved a paper so quickly on so grand a scale, took a paper that was marginal in qualities and brought it to excellence as Otis Chandler did.
David Halberstam

No student ever attains very eminent success by simply doing what is required of him: it is the amount and excellence of what is over and above the required, that determines the greatness of ultimate distinction.
Charles Kendall Adams

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.
Aristotle

Perfection has to do with the end product, but excellence has to do with the process.
Jerry Moran

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.
Edmund C. Stedman

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.
J. G. Stedman

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.
Paul J. Meyer

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.
John W. Gardner

Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have.
Walter Pater

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu

The Athenians are right to accept advice from anyone, since it is incumbent on everyone to share in that sort of excellence, or else there can be no city at all.
Protagoras

The Civil Service is a vital economic asset to the UK - firstly, in the way it creates a framework for excellence in service delivery and secondly, in how it helps organise the best way to deliver modern public services on which both businesses and individuals depend.
John Hutton

The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.
Charles Handy

The Dark Side of the Moon has flash - the true flash that comes from the excellence of a superb performance.
Alan Parsons

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
Charles Dudley Warner

The idea for which this nation stands will not survive if the highest goal free man can set themselves is an amiable mediocrity. Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.
John W. Gardner

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.
Michael D. Higgins