quotations about competition
Stiff competition
If I go up you take me higher
CHEAP TRICK
"Stiff Competition"
You have a real life if and only if you do not compete with anyone in any of your pursuits.
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
The Bed of Procrustes
Focus on competition has always been a formula for mediocrity.
DANIEL BURRUS
attributed, Checklist for Life for Graduates
Life is not a competition. No one has to lose for someone else to win. A true blessing blesses everyone.
DONNA GODDARD
Waldmeer
Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
The Roosevelt Reader: Selected Speeches
To maintain that competition is the sole method by which superiority can be tested and established leads to the inference that competition is a thing so beneficial that, so far as possible, it should be allowed to rage unchecked. But competition is in itself largely due to artificial causes; and it is not true that the competitive spirit is the source of all progressive development, even in the natural sphere. Competition is very far indeed from always leading to upward movement.... The effect of competition is to prevent any form from attaining its maximum development, and to maintain a certain comparatively low level for all forms that succeed in surviving.
SIDNEY LOW
The Living Age, vol. 263
While competition isn't without its upheaval--what with companies that go out of business and jobs that disappear--it is essential in producing the progress and innovations that have benefited our lives.
KIRK TYSON
Competition in the 21st Century
The only way to beat the competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.
W. CHAN KIM & RENEE MAUBORGNE
Blue Ocean Strategy
Competition is a complex thing. It brings out the best and the worst in all participants. It refines the technique and sharpens the mind, body and spirit.
HERB PEREZ
"The Nature of Sport,", Black Belt Magazine, May 1999
Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
"The Latest Decalogue"
Competition, which is said to be "the life of trade," when pushed too far, is no less the death of it--and of the soul.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.
GIL ATKINSON
This dream that men shall cease to waste strength in competition and shall come to pool their powers of production is coming to pass all over the earth.
JANE ADDAMS
Twenty Years at Hull-House
Competition ... has never injured any man, trade or profession. It never kills business; on the contrary, it creates and enlarges it. Never does it clog the wheels, but drives faster by the increased volume of water. Trace back the killing, and not to competition but the lack of it will be found the true state of affairs, and the more pronounced and brisker it is the greater will good results be found.
A.C. CAMERON
The Inland Printer, September 1889
Although competition is beneficial from a social point of view, individually each of us would prefer to be loosened from its grip.
RICHARD L. STROUP
Macroeconomics: Private and Public Choice
Competition, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. If a person or group seeks a desired objective to the exclusion of such higher ethics as truth and fairness, the seeking indeed is unhealthy. However, if a person or group seeks a desired objective while remaining true to high ethical standards, the pursuit will be a healthy growth experience.
PHILIP SOLOMONS
The Rotarian, May 1988
Competition is a rude yet effective motivation.
TOBA BETA
Master of Stupidity
Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named ' fair competition ' and so forth, it is a mutual hostility.
THOMAS CARLYLE
"Gospel of Mammonism,", Past and Present
Competition is a ubiquitous feature of society, and economic competition is the pre-eminent dynamic force within capitalist market economies. Neither competition nor the market is inevitable or natural. Markets have to be created through processes of social change and public regulation, a genesis both historical and contemporary.... It is universally accepted that competition is essential in order to deliver the benefits available from the market. The general presumption is that competition is necessary, that it should be encouraged, and that the virtues of competition should be embodied in legal safeguards. The presumption in favor of competition is, however, relatively recent, and derives from political as well as economic rationales.
G. BRUCE DOERN & STEPHEN WILKS
introduction, Comparative Competition Policy
Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.
HERBERT HOOVER
State of the Union Address, December 2, 1930