#mediocrity

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

#i #make #mediocrity #only #pictures

A common danger tends to concord. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In Communism, inequality comes from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. ↗

— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

#common #communism #concord #danger #excellence

...simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.... A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tap-dances on the coffee table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. We have a name for him or her. We call him or her an "exhibitionist." How do we reward such an exhibitionist? We say to him or her the next morning, "Wow! Were you ever drunk last night! ↗

— Kurt Vonnegut

#giftedness #mediocrity #communication

We live in an age of mediocrity. ↗

— Lauren Bacall

#live #mediocrity

Only mediocrity of enjoyment is allowed to man. ↗

— Hugh Blair

#enjoyment #man #mediocrity #only

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. ↗

— Joseph Heller

#born #mediocre #mediocrity #men #some

Mechanization best serves mediocrity. ↗

— Frank Lloyd Wright

#mediocrity #serves

What does it mean to be an 'open source' society? What does one mean when one says one has an 'open mind'? Open source means that its a society everybody can work on improving. It has a synergy that allows the best minds to float on top, since there is no entropical hierarchy of mediocrity - once everything stays fluid there is the odd chance for genius elements to actually lead. Such is the case now in Turkey. The protesters are a fluid synergy that have no entropical leadership, and thus the most brilliant PR moves are made by the resistance, who are opposed by the worst sort of mediocrity that is totally at odds with reality. An 'open mind' follows a similar process, but in this case the entropy hides in the hierarchy of ideas that is implanted in the brain: once a person follows mediocre ideas - such as the 'idea' that 'marriage is the meaning of life' or 'having a job is the purpose of existence' etc - then the phenomenon of the 'open mind' becomes already impossible, for there is an internal hierarchy of entropy present that will prevent any sort of original impulse to have the meaning it truly has. Hence, the only way to escape the mediocrity of ones own mind is to allow anything to build and revise it. ↗

— Martinus Hendrikus Benders

#open-mind #open-source #society #leadership

What right have such men to represent Christianity—as if it were an institution for getting up idiots genteelly? ↗

— George Eliot

#mediocrity #ministry #life

We gain nothing by being with such as ourselves. We encourage one another in mediocrity. I am always longing to be with men more excellent than myself. ↗

— Charles Lamb

#am #another #being #encourage #excellent