excellence

Even to a wicked man a divinity gives wealth, Cyrnus, but to few men comes the gift of excellence.

To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; the one being an innate desire of pleasure; the other, an acquired judgment which aspires after excellence.

There have been many most excellent poets that have never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.

Each excellent thing, once learned, serves for a measure of all other knowledge.

"Excellent!" I [Watson] cried. "Elementary." said he [Holmes]. Watson talking to Sherlock Holmes in The Crooked Man

It is hard to be truly excellent, four-square in hand and foot and mind, formed without blemish.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

Not to be cheered by praise,  Not to be grieved by blame,  But to know thoroughly ones own virtues or powers  Are the characteristics of an excellent man.

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.