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.
Abraham Maslow
A first-rate soup is more creative than a second-rate painting.
Andre Weil
First rate mathematicians choose first rate people, but second rate mathematicians choose third rate people.
Bob Brown
Every time I get a bit worried about having made some second rate choices in life I go back and read about the Suffragettes or William Wilberforce, people who were 'wrong' in their own time, and think, 'Ah well.'
Charles M. Schwab
Here I am, a not over-good business man, a second-rate engineer. I can make poor mechanical drawings. I play the piano after a fashion. In fact, I am one of those proverbial Jack-of-all-trades who are usually failures. Why I am not, I can't tell you.