When the word mediocre is mentioned, we tend to think that we already know what it means, but that might not be true. If you were asked to define a mediocre person, you would probably say a person who is average to low or rather not good enough. There is a difference between having an idea or picture of what something is and actually, knowing what something is.
The real meaning of mediocre is where you cannot certify whether something or someone is great, average, or poor. If you can not say whether someone is poor, average, or great, then that is a mediocre person. Now you are wondering how someone can exist in these three states, but the key is consistency.
Mediocre people are content with muddling or rather beating around the bush without really breaking into a sweat. They get the job done, but they cannot even explain it. The definition of success for mediocre people is “It works.” A mediocre mindset has low standards and expectations and does not put more effort to achieve a breakthrough. These people do not think outside the box or challenge the status quo.
We believe that everyone can improve themselves and push a little bit harder in pursuing greatness. With the right encouragement and positive feedback, we can be inspired to be the greatest and curb the mediocrity mindset. These quotes enlighten you on the importance of curbing the mediocrity mindset.
Mediocrity Quotes
1. “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.”– Andrew Carnegie
2. “So many people live lives of silent mediocrity, convinced that what really matters to them is out of their reach. So they settle.”– Jen Sincero
3. “Nothing is as approved as mediocrity, the majority has established it and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.”– Blaise Pascal
4. “A plate of food hits the table, lands right in front of you. One of two things happens. Either you sit up and look at it and react to it, or nothing happens. If nothing happens then that restaurant is stuck in mediocrity forever.”– Jon Taffer
5. “I sometimes make pictures which are not up to my standard, but then it can only be said of a mediocrity that all his work is up to his standard.”– Ernst Lubitsch
6. “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.”– Jim Rohn
7. “Excellence implies striving for the highest standards in every phase of life.”– John W. Gardner
8. “Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.”– Robert Louis Stevenson
9. “Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.”– Samuel Johnson
10. “There are certain things in which mediocrity is intolerable: poetry, music, painting, public eloquence. What torture it is to hear a frigid speech being pompously declaimed, or second-rate verse spoken with all a bad poet’s bombast!”– Jean de la Bruyere
11. “Don’t settle for mediocrity. Take a chance. Take a risk. Find that passion. Rekindle it. Fall in love all over again. It’s really worth it.”– Brian Cranston
12. “Push yourself to do more and to experience more. Harness your energy to start expanding your dreams. Yes, expand your dreams. Don’t accept a life of mediocrity when you hold such infinite potential within the fortress of your mind. Dare to tap into your greatness.”– Robin Sharma
13. “Beware the mediocrity that threatens middle age, its limitations of thought and interest, it’s dullness of fancy, it’s too external life, and mental thinness”– Margaret Fuller
14. “One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.”– Napoleon, French Emperor
15. “The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”– Albert Einstein
16. “We create a standard for how we want to do things and everybody’s got to buy into that standard or you really can’t have any team chemistry. Mediocre people don’t like high-achievers and high-achievers don’t like mediocre people.”– Nick Saban
17. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”– Albert Einstein
18. “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”– William Arthur Ward
19. “Mediocrity is my biggest fear. I’m not afraid of total failure because I don’t think that will happen. I’m not afraid of success because that beats the hell out of failure. It’s being in the middle that scares me.”– Robert Downey, Jr
20. “… you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won’t confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won’t confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity … believe in fact that living is connected to giving.”– Cornel West
21 “Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.”– Robert Louis Stevenson
22. “We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”– Pope Francis
23. “Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.”– Amelia Barr
24. “Private-equity and hedge-fund guys typically come into a situation of mediocrity, where rapid change may result in a profit.”– Austin Ligon
25. “Rules are foolish, arbitrary, mindless things that raise you quickly to a level of acceptable mediocrity, then prevent you from progressing further.”– Bruce Barnbaum
26. “Mediocrity doesn’t mean average intelligence, it means an average intelligence that resents and envies its betters.”– Ayn Rand
27. “Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.”– Warren G. Bennis
28. “Everyone, either from modesty or egotism, hides away the best and most delicate of his soul’s possessions; to gain the esteem of others, we must only ever show our ugliest sides; this is how we keep ourselves on the common level.”– Gustave Flaubert
29. “To a hungry person, every bitter food is sweet. When the preferable is not available, the available becomes preferable!”– Israelmore Ayivor
30. “Society is invincible—to a certain degree. But your real life is your own, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can prevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity—nothing that can stop you retreating into splendour and beauty—into the thoughts and beliefs that make the real life—the real you.”– E M Forster
31. “Get off the treadmill of consumption, replication, and mediocrity. Begin lifting the weights of creativity, originality, and success.”– Ryan Lilly
32. “If you are working in a team, do not expect an outcome of your excellence. It will be an average of all of the team members. Moreover, if you do not want to discuss with mediocre people, there is a greater possibility of the outcome to go further below average.”– Suman Pokhrel
33. “That was one manifestation of fear, the voice which whispered that he could not be both great and good, that genius was the exact combination of those inexplicable grooves and twists in his mind, that any discipline would curb it to mediocrity.”– F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. “Excellence is its own master, owes no allegiance, bows its head to no regimen. It exists pure and whole like the silver face of the moon. Untouchable, unreachable, exquisite. But frustrating because it reminds us of how much mediocrity we put up with, just to get through the week.”– Harlan Ellison
35. “Gary Sinise and I go the furthest back of the Steppenwolf people; we were both saved from academic mediocrity as sophomores by being cast in ‘West Side Story’ by this transformationally beautiful teacher named Barbara Patterson.”– Jeff Perry
36. “Mediocrity scares me. It’s the fear of not being as good as you want to be. If you give over to that fear, it will sabotage you. As much as I can, I try to use that fear to guide me.”– Chris Pine
37. “Things can change only through strong personalities. I am not very good at supporting ignorance and mediocrity, so maybe this leads to arrogant gestures and arrogant responses. So, nobody’s perfect.”– Edi Rama
38. “Let America first praise mediocrity even, in her children, before she praises… the best excellence in the children of any other land.”
39. “The real Antichrist is he who turns the wine of an original idea into the water of mediocrity.”– Eric Hoffer
40. “Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.”– Warren G. Bennis
41. “To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society.”– Audre Lorde
42. “Averageness is a quality we must put up with. Men march toward civilization in column formation, and by the time the van has learned to admire the masters the rear is drawing reluctantly away from the totem pole.”– Frank Moore Colby
43. “Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.”– Ellen Glasgow
44. “You are born into genius. But have you resigned yourself to mediocrity?”– Robin Sharma
45. “You will never see an eagle of distinction flying low with pigeons of mediocrity.”– Onyi Anyado
46. “There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.”– Paul Gauguin
47. “The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake.”– Nelson Boswell
48. “A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.”– Charles Horton Cooley
49. “By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.”– Charles Saatchi
50. “Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.”– Dale Carnegie
Summary
To curb a mediocre mindset, always surround yourself with individuals who do not accept anything less than the best, which is the true definition of success. If you surround yourself with people who spend their time researching new trends and technologies to improve the existing solutions with new ideas, you will also be rated among the greatest.
The above quotes enable you to discourage a mediocre mind and always strive for excellence.
And if you want to create a positive vision for your life and move away from being mediocre, check out our post about vision boards – may inspire you to make some changes.
I’m Alice Judy and AnQuotes is a fun hobby for me. We know that everyone loves a great quote and our mission here is simple – to be the best and most interesting quote site in the world! If you have quotes you would like us to cover, please contact us.
