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Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.
John W. Gardner
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Excellence involves achieving outstanding results in everyday tasks.

This quote emphasizes that achieving excellence is not about performing extraordinary tasks, but rather about taking ordinary tasks and executing them with exceptional skill and dedication. It underscores the importance of diligence and attention to detail in everyday actions as the path towards true excellence.

Themes

ExcellenceOrdinaryExtraordinarySuccessDedication

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about achieving success in everyday life.

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Paralysis of leadership is due in part to the unseen grip of the special interests.
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More and more Americans feel threatened by runaway technology, by large-scale organization, by overcrowding. More and more Americans are appalled by the ravages of industrial progress, by the defacement of nature, by man-made ugliness. If our society continues at its present rate to become less livable as it becomes more affluent, we promise all to end up in sumptuous misery.
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Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence, some in judgment, some in courage.
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We pay a heavy price for our fear of failure. It is a powerful obstacle to growth. It assures the progressive narrowing of the personality and prevents exploration and experimentation. There is no learning without some difficulty and fumbling. If you want to keep on learning, you must keep on risking failure-all your life.
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I think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They rigidify. They get stuff in the joints. They forget what they cared about. The forces against it are nostalgia and the enormous appeal of having things the way they always have been, appeals to a supposedly happy past. But we've got to move on.
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