Excellence and Quotations About It

"The noblest search is the search for excellence." Lyndon B. Johnson

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle

"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

"Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise." Harvey Mackay

"Champions do not become champions when they win the event, but in the hours, weeks, months and years they spend preparing for it. The victorious performance itself is merely the demonstration of their championship character" T. Alan Armstrong

"Find something that you're really interested in doing in your life. Pursue it, set goals, and commit yourself to excellence. Do the best you can." Chris Evert

"If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived? Find your passion, whatever it may be. Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen FOR you, TO you and BECAUSE of you." T. Alan Armstrong

"If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work." Thomas J. Watson

"Excellent things are rare."Plato

"Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."Sun Tzu (Chinese General and Author, b.500 BC)

"By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property." Voltaire quotes

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

"It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves." Dietrich Bonhoeffer quotes (German Lutheran Pastor and Theologian. 1906-1945)

Personally I love to ponder upon these quotes about Excellency. Another great scholar and rabbi, Apostle Paul had everything of the authors above mentioned as needed for achieving excellence. He had attended the most famous school of his time learning from a famous rabbi - a doctorate degree today. With great perspectives ahead of him, great career opportunities, the moment he encountered The Master- Jesus Christ, these values vanished. The fame, the career and the money became a waste of time when compared to the privilege knowing the Excellency Jesus taught.

The Excellency of knowing Christ became the ultimate expression of Excellency for him and for millions that followed God’s teachings.
Apostle Paul’s change of view on Excellency: "…circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Looking back to all the quotes cited above, they all are encompassed in one person, the most influential example of Excellency our universe and our planet has ever seen: Jesus Christ, The Son of God. Yes, being the very Son of God Himself explains it all, doesn’t it?
But can this Excellency affect our lives, can we become excellent like Him? In His Excellency, God saw that we can’t come close to Him unless He comes to look for us and that’s what He did. Jesus came to show us how God is and to tell us that He wants to transfer this perfection upon us, upon everyone who wants to be saved from death and sin.

Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Excellency; imitate and listen to Him!