Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

If you hire mediocre people, they will hire mediocre people.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you.

One would like to be grand and heroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be very something, very great, very heroic; or if not that, then at least very stylish and very fashionable. It is this everlasting mediocrity that bores me.

The best pedigree in the world won't sell a lame race horse.

Not doing more than the average is what keeps the average down.