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If you go to a second-rate place, and you are first-rate, it is very difficult to do first-rate work because you do not get that critical feedback you need for first-rate work on a daily basis.

There is no room in the world, as you say, for second rate work.

You cannot stop the human mind from working.

What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

If doing something with second-rate effort satisfies you, find something else to do - where only your best effort will satisfy you personally.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.