#2,900

Monarchs, in almost every dynasty, have been so mediocre that they look like presidents.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 464

#2,871

They call crowning mediocre men “promoting culture.”

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 460

#2,868

The glory of the truly great writers is a glory artificially imposed on the public, an academic and subsidized glory.
Authentic, popular, spontaneous glory crowns none but mediocre men.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 459

#2,789

All that is most excellent in history is a result of singularly unstable equilibriums.
Nothing endures for sure, but the mediocre lasts longer.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 447

#2,620

A good book from yesterday does not seem bad except to the ignoramus; on the other hand, a mediocre book from today can seem good even to a cultivated man.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 423

#2,299

When the dust raised by the great events of modern history settles, the mediocrity of the protagonists leaves the historian dumbfounded.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 373

#2,013

The larger a democratic country is, the more mediocre its rulers must be: they are elected by more people.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 327

#1,954

A limited population produces fewer ordinary intelligences than a numerous population, but it can produce an equal or greater number of talents.
Great demographic densities are the breeding grounds of mediocrity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 319

#1,667

Reading is an unsurpassable drug, because more than just the mediocrity of our lives, it allows us to escape the mediocrity of our souls.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 278

#1,586

The abuse of the printing press is due to the scientific method and the expressionist aesthetic.
To the former because it allows any mediocre person to write a correct and useless monograph, and to the latter because it legitimizes the effusions of any fool.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 264

#1,500

The number of votes by which a ruler is elected is not a measure of his legitimacy but his mediocrity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 252

#1,355

When we accept our mediocrity with good humor, the disinterestedness with which we take joy in another’s intelligence almost makes us intelligent.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 232

#1,274

The mediocrity of any triumph does not deserve that we besmirch ourselves with the qualities it demands of us.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 220

#1,150

We mediocre men are saved when we are so mediocre that we succeed in seeing it.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 202

#1,087

Modern man’s misfortune lies not in having to live a mediocre life, but in believing that he could live a life that is not mediocre.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 192

#951

To be authentically modern is, in any century, a sign of mediocrity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 172

#823

It does not help the mediocre man at all to emigrate to where great men reside.
We all carry our mediocrity with us wherever we go.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 151

#722

Intentional, systematic originality is mediocrity’s contemporary uniform.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 131

#327

Neither imitation of the past, nor of the present, is an infallible remedy.
Nothing saves the mediocre from their mediocrity.

Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 70