Excellence is a talent or quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards. It is also an aimed for standard of performance.

History

The Ancient Greeks had a concept of arete

Arete (excellence)

Arete , in its basic sense, means excellence of any kind. In its earliest appearance in Greek, this notion of excellence was ultimately bound up with the notion of the fulfillment of purpose or function: the act of living up to one's full potential...

which meant an outstanding fitness for purpose. This occurs in the works of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 and Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

. Another related concept was eudaimonia

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia or eudaemonia , sometimes Anglicized as eudemonia , is a Greek word commonly translated as happiness or welfare; however, "human flourishing" has been proposed as a more accurate translation...

which was the happiness which resulted from a life well-lived, being prosperous and fulfilled. The equivalent concept in Muslim philosophy is ihsan

Ihsan

Ihsan , also spelled as Ehsan, is an Arabic term meaning "perfection" or "excellence . It is a matter of taking one's inner faith and showing it in both deed and action, a sense of social responsibility borne from religious convictions...

.

Practice makes perfect

Studies have shown that the most important way to achieve excellent performance in fields such as sport, music, professions and scholarship is to practice

Practice (learning method)

Practice is the act of rehearsing a behavior over and over, or engaging in an activity again and again, for the purpose of improving or mastering it, as in the phrase "practice makes perfect". Sports teams practice to prepare for actual games. Playing a musical instrument well takes a lot of...

. Achievement of excellence in such fields commonly requires approximately 10 years of dedication, comprising about 10,000 hours of effort.

External links

• Ethicas > Excellence Holocaust survivor Corrie Ten Boom
  Corrie ten Boom
  Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom was a Dutch Christian, who with her father and other family members helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. Her family was arrested due to an informant in 1944, and her father died 10 days later at Scheveningen prison where they were first held...
  
  led an excellent life. Read articles about her and others.