75 Top-Notch Quotes about Quality

"Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort."

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was an English art critic and social thinker, also remembered as a poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.


"Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request."

Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (22 September 1694 - 24 March 1773) was a British statesman and man of letters.


"The quality of your work, in the long run, is the deciding factor on how much your services are valued by the world."

Orison Swett Marden (1850 - 1924) was an American writer associated with the New Thought Movement. He also held a degree in medicine, and was a successful hotel owner.


"The quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions."

Seth Godin (born July 10, 1960) is an American entrepreneur,author and public speaker. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing.


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

Thomas J. "Tom" Peters (born November 7, 1942) is an American writer on business management practices.


"People of quality know everything without ever having learned anything."

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (baptised January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673) known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature.


"Quality, quality, quality: never waver from it, even when you don't see how you can afford to keep it up. When you compromise, you become a commodity and then you die."

Gary Hirshberg (born 1954) is chairman and former president and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire.


"Improving quality requires a culture change, not just a new diet."

Philip Bayard "Phil" Crosby (Wheeling, June 18, 1926 - Winter Park, August 18, 2001) was a businessman and author who contributed to management theory and quality management practices.


"Everybody doing his best is not the answer. It is first necessary that people know what to do."

William Edwards Deming (October 14, 1900 – December 20, 1993) was an American statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and consultant. He is perhaps best known for his work in Japan. There, from 1950 onward he taught top management how to improve design (and thus service), product quality, testing and sales (the last through global markets)through various methods, including the application of statistical methods.


"We have learned that productivity is a social if not a moral principle, and not just a business principle; that increased productivity must contribute to a greater income for the masses, to greater job security of the workers, to greater satisfaction for the customer...and that it is not enough for it to contribute to profits."

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005) was a writer, management consultant, and self-described social ecologist. His books and scholarly and popular articles explored how humans are organized across the business, government and the nonprofit sectors of society.