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- Nov 07, 2020
First-Rate Quotes
On excellence, standards, and getting it right.
This First-Rate quotes page celebrates real excellence, from an honours chemistry program to the Able voices behind classic records that still hold up.
- Last Updated on Aug 01, 2026
- Mind
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- Nov 07, 2020
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
- Grow
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- Nov 07, 2020
More than anything else, a budget request is a statement of national priorities; a clear enumeration of what our country needs to grow its economy and remain in the future the first-rate power it is today.
- I Am
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- Nov 07, 2020
I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.
- Man
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- Nov 07, 2020
Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has, the worse for his patient.
- Chemistry
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- Nov 07, 2020
I was not proficient in Latin and so was not able to go to Oxford or Cambridge. However, I did enter the first-rate chemistry honours program at the University of Manchester in 1950, where the professors were E.R.H. Jones and M.G. Evans, and graduated in 1953, with the financial support of a Blackpool Education Committee Scholarship.
- Lose
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- Nov 07, 2020
You might lose your spontaneity and, instead of composing first-rate Gershwin, end up with second rate Ravel.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's often better to read first-rate science fiction than second-rate science - it's far more stimulating, and perhaps no more likely to be wrong.
- Baker
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- Nov 07, 2020
Atlantic's Jerry Wexler believes first-rate records are made by first-rate voices. He certainly has worked with enough of them: Clyde McPhatter, Joe Turner, La Vern Baker, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.
- Comparison
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think that, by comparison with $2,000 bottles of grand cru Burgundies, first-rate barolos, which sell for under $100, are undervalued ten-fold.
- Name
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- Nov 07, 2020
I can't name three first-rate literary critics in the United States. I'm told there are a few hidden away at universities, but they don't print them in 'The New York Times.'
- Nov 07, 2020
Even after all these years, finding a really first-rate story is still a thrill, one I want to share with others.
- Nov 07, 2020
A theatre receives recognition through its initiative, which is indispensable for first-rate performances.
- Ideas
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- Nov 07, 2020
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.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
We class schools into four grades: leading school, first-rate school, good school and school.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020