Quality Quotes

Everyone faces defeats, setbacks, reversals of fortune. But just like water wearing away rock, persistence triumphs. Resilience is one of the most important qualities I would look at in trying to predict who is going to be ultimately successful.

I'm a Sagittarius, and one of our major qualities is that we're blindly optimistic.

The women I like, no matter what nationality, all seem to have more or less the same qualities. Perhaps this is because one goes looking for them - that is, you like that type of woman and then look for her.

Words are humanity's greatest natural resource, but most of us have trouble figuring out how to put them together. Words aren't cheap. They are very precious. They are like water, which gives life and growth and refreshment, but because it has always been abundant, we treat it cheaply. We waste it; we pollute it, and doctor it. Later we blame the quality of the water because we have misused it.

Failure of management to plan for the future and to foresee problems has brought about waste of manpower, of materials, of the machine-time, of all which raise the manufacturer's cost and price that the purchaser must pay

A lot of my creative projects are inspired and driven by technology and style. My mission is to recycle as much plastic possible in my lifetime and beyond in the form of high quality products.

Being a slow reader would normally be a deficiency; I found a way to make it an asset. I began to sound words and see all those qualities - in a way it made words more precious to me. Since so much of what happens in the world between human beings has to do with the inconsideration of language, with the imprecision of language, with language leaving our mouths unmediated, one thing which was sensuous and visceral led to, in the use of language, a moral gesture. It was about trying to use language to both exemplify and articulate what good is.

The image itself is kind of the least important factor to me, though I'm still interested in putting forth an interesting image. I see the image as the screen laid over top of what really interests me, which is that depth of surface and that filmic quality that it has when you pass the piece. The idea that my pieces look like paintings, but are most definitely not, is really interesting to me.

It is not the style but the quality and emotional impact of work that makes it marketable. Unless we make art that connects with people, we won't sell much, no matter what the style or subject.

I think unfortunately in this gold rush mentality that we've been in for the last years there has been not enough focus on business model quality. So when push comes to shove, there actually aren't that many great businesses that can go public. Because I think if you're going to thrive as a public company, it presupposes that you make more money than you spend.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

When I look at Franklin Roosevelt's leadership, I think the most important quality he had during the Depression and the war was this absolute confidence in himself, in his country, really in the American people. He was able to exude that confidence and almost project it.

Neotony is a metaphor for the quality of life - the gift - that keeps the fortunate of whatever age focused on all the marvelous undiscovered things to come.

The more I give myself permission to live in the moment and enjoy it without feeling guilty or judgmental about any other time, the better I feel about the quality of my work.

I love living in Vermont and I love living in New York. Does my love for Vermont give us the right to rain bombs down on Tripoli? Of course not. There are exceptional qualities about the United States. But it doesn't give us the right to impose our will on other cultures when they often don't want it.

Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.

Speed and efficiency do not always increase the quality of life.

The current state of music journalism is not bad, but it's not great at all. Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool. But there are too many magazines, and the access has been diminished, so the quality of profiles has gone way down. Internet stuff can be really good, though. I like the dialogue between fans on the Internet. I think that's the best rock writing that's going on right now.

I just love the delusional, hallucinatory qualities of sleep deprivation. I can't get enough of it.

There are many qualities of a great leader. Passion is one, empathy is another, listening is another, decisiveness is another. I think a great leader makes people feel comfortable, so that they feel that they're allowed to be stupid, they're not afraid to give their opinions.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

Uncertainty is a quality to be cherished, therefore – if not for it, who would dare to undertake anything?

What characteristics are most important in creative workers? One quality you need is inventiveness. You need to be able to take whatever product or service you are providing and figure out ways of making it better, faster, cheaper. The other quality is empathy and insight into what people might want, even though they don't even know their wants, probably because there's no product or service to test their wants.

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.

[Jesus] matters because of what he brought and what he still brings to ordinary human beings, living their ordinary lives and coping daily with their surroundings. He promises wholeness for their lives. In sharing our weaknesses he gives us strength and and imparts through his companionship a life that has the quality of eternity." (Dallas Willard in Ruthless Trust - Brennan Manning)

The commitment. I think that's the key quality of all successful people. You just have to keep at it. People who enjoy sustained success understand the fact that you have to remain very committed to whatever it is you're doing, especially in this instant-gratification culture.

... freedom translates into having a supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to school and to have accessible healthcare. I mean what's the point of having made this transition if the quality of life ... is not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless.

I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realize how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart.

The quality of my life has changed dramatically - not the events - but the way I handle them and my priorities and my sense of drama.

It is attitude, infinitely more than circumstance, that determines the quality of life. Life is often quite tough, challenging us to choose between seemingly esoteric, intangible ideals and getting goodies or good vibes right now. You have character when you most often choose ideals.

Even when the east excited me most, even when I was keenly aware of its superiority to the broad, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which only spared children and the very old-even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.

I've always had a knack for branding, so even with the lemonade stands, it was "Gary's Lemonade Stand." I worked on the signs all day, more so than on the lemonade itself. Then I learned you had to make good lemonade to build an actual business, so that taught me about lifetime value and quality.

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence - only in constant improvement and constant change.

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.

There is only one boss. The customer.

I ain't no author, man . . . my writing skills are not of "New York Times" best-seller quality, trust and believe it ain't. My vocabulary ain't.

U.S. agricultural products, including safe, high-quality Montana beef, face unscientific trade restrictions in many important markets.

Just one quality of the Buddha has to be remembered. He consists only of one quality: witnessing. This small word witnessing contains the whole of spirituality. Witness that you are not the body. Witness that you are not the mind. Witness that you are only a witness. As the witnessing deepens, you start becoming drunk with the divine. That is what is called ecstasy.

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

[Margaret] Thatcher could fake her class background, but she couldn't fake the quality of her mind.

The best way to achieve surprise quality is by avoiding cliches.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

For a detective or street police, the only real satisfaction is the work itself; when a cop spends more and more time getting aggravated with the details, he's finished. The attitude of co-workers, the indifference of superiors, the poor quality of the equipment - all of it pales if you still love the job; all of it matters if you don't.

Strategies for research and policy development must simultaneously address people's needs, the capacity of programs to provide good quality of care, and the range of technological options available.

Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions.

Authenticity is not an innate quality - that is, you are not born with it. Being an authentic leader is not something you can say about yourself; it must be attributed to you.

History is the same thing over and over again.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.