Who really said it
The opening sentence of Chapter 1 of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t (HarperBusiness, 2001). Confirmed in the book’s text and by a contemporary review ↗.
Last verified 1 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?
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Verified quote & credit
“Good is the enemy of great” Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don't (HarperBusiness, 2001), opening sentence of chapter 1.
Can you use it?
Still under copyright (rights held by Jim Collins / HarperCollins Publishers). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.
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In context
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Provenance
Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. Opening of Chapter 1
The book’s first chapter shares the line’s title. A short quotation for commentary; the book is still in copyright.
Good to Great (HarperBusiness, 2001) — Internet Archive lending libraryHow the line travels
The line comes from Good to Great, first published by HarperBusiness (HarperCollins) in 2001 and copyright © 2001 Jim Collins. A work published in 2001 is still in copyright in the United States. Quoting the single line for commentary is ordinary fair use, but the book’s text is not public domain.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Collins’s line is genuine. People often mix it up with a much older saying that runs the other way: the old proverb warns that chasing the best spoils the good, while Collins warns that settling for good blocks the great.
In 1770 Voltaire quoted an Italian proverb, “Il meglio è l’inimico del bene” (“the best is the enemy of the good”), and later used “le mieux est l’ennemi du bien” in his poem La Bégueule. That is the opposite warning, not Collins’s line. Wikipedia ↗
Around 1726 Montesquieu wrote in his Pensées, “Le mieux est le mortel ennemi du bien” (“the best is the mortal enemy of the good”). This is another form of the older idea, now often given as “Perfect is the enemy of good.” Wikipedia ↗
Context
Collins used the line to open Good to Great and to set its thesis: organizations and people stay merely good because good is comfortable enough to remove the pressure to change. In the sentences right after it, he applies the idea to schools, government and individual lives, not only to companies.
The line became the book’s shorthand. A 2001 review in The Nation ↗ summarized his argument with it. Collins returned to it in his 2005 monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors, as Wikiquote records ↗, where he called it “not just a business problem” but “a human problem.”
Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.
Explore
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Go further
Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.
Sourced quotations from Collins, including this line from his 2005 social-sectors monograph
Collins's official site: an audio piece in which he explains the idea himself
Lending-library copy of the HarperBusiness 2001 first edition
Catalog record: HarperBusiness, 2001, 300 pages
History of the older, inverted proverb (Voltaire, Montesquieu)
Review confirming the line is the book's opening sentence
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The real author
For writers & researchers
Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t (New York: HarperBusiness, 2001), chap. 1, “Good Is the Enemy of Great,” opening sentence.
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Good is the enemy of great’?” Last verified 1 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/good-is-the-enemy-of-great/