excellence on Superiority

Striving for excellence versus striving for superiority. Striving for excellence means striving to become better in some regard, to improve, or at least not to get worse, especially as we age;47 it is...

The wonderful word master used to describe the person who is at the top of his or her craft, whatever the profession. It was a title that one could work toward and with some degree of confidence ascri...

Success offers a hoped-for future goal. Excellence provides a striven-for present standard. Success bases our worth on a comparison with others. Excellence gauges our value by measuring us against ...

Like so many people, I once associated excellence with flawlessness. The excellent person never makes mistakes, is always consistent and confident, and is continuously applauded by scores of imperfect...

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

There is a peculiar gratification in receiving congratulations from one’s squadron for a victory in the air. It is worth more to a pilot than the applause of the whole outside world.

A Christian should constantly seek ... highest standards and employ the most demanding comparisons for [his self-] evaluations.

It is particularly significant that Christ's people, who have tasted immortal knowledge, serve him with excellence.

The early Christian church conquered because the Christians of those days out-thought, out-lived, and out-died the pagans.

Qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus (He who ceases to be better ceases to be good)

Excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.

Success is the key they hand you when they like you. It doesn’t matter why. They just give you the key that unlocks an upscale condo, triggers the powerful purr of your new Mercedes, and accesses ...

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.

In Jeremiah it is clear that the excellence comes from a life of faith, from being more interested in God than in self, and has almost nothing to do with comfort or esteem or achievement. Here is a pe...

While written almost 30 years ago, this poll of Christian leaders provides some interesting fodder for how to define excellence from a Biblical perspective: What, then, does excellence—as it is descr...

How would you define a master? Denise Levertov, the American poet, offers one definition by comparing a master to a Mountain: Not one who one imitates, emulates even, but rather, a powerful presen...

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

The renowned conductor Arturo Toscanini once led a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in London. His mastery and the orchestra’s precision resulted in thunderous applause from the audience. At ...

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”.

In life, whenever someone achieves success, criticism usually follows—regardless of their skill or the effort they’ve invested. An old story illustrates this truth. A woman crafted artificial fruit so...

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

What T. H. Huxley said about education is true concerning Christian excellence. To paraphrase: It motivates us to do what we should do, when it should be done, as it should be done, whether it is conv...

There is only one road to true human greatness: the road through suffering.

I recently heard a story about a race in which one runner had a significant lead over the rest of the field. As the man rounded the final turn, the crowd roared as he inched closer and closer to the f...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

God’s ideas are not always obvious, and are always more clever than we can imagine. Even though the circumstances may be the same as many times before, God may have a different and better idea. So we ...

While from the outside there might not be immediately noticeable differences between a well-run company reflecting a gospel worldview and one reflecting primarily the world-story of the marketplace, i...

One of the seductions that continues to bedevil Christian obedience is the construction of utopias, whether in fact or fantasy, ideal places where we can live the good and blessed and righteous life w...