Excellence

The quality of being excellent; state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree; exalted merit; superiority in virtue.
An excellent or valuable quality; that by which any one excels or is eminent; a virtue.
A title of honor or respect; -- more common in the form excellency. (All the above from Dictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010)

“We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.” ~Barack Obama

“All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” ~Vince Lombardi

“The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” ~Vince Lombardi

“The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential... these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” ~Confucius

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

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

“Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.” ~Aristotle

“Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. ~Aristotle

“Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.” ~Aristotle