Quotations about:
    competition


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If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
“Vivisection,” New England Anti-Vivisection Society pamphlet (1947)
    (Source)

Collected in God in the Dock, Part 2, ch. 9 (1970) [ed. Hooper].
 
Added on 5-Feb-24 | Last updated 5-Feb-24
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No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense.

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Sir Walter Scott,” London and Westminster Review No. 12 and 55, Art. 2 (1838-01)
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A review of Scott's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, Vols. 1-6 (1837). Reprinted in Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827-1855).
 
Added on 18-Jan-24 | Last updated 18-Jan-24
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I do not think military readiness, in itself, will defeat Communism. I do not think we can consider the job finished with that. I think it buys us time to do the bigger job. We must demonstrate that it is possible to overcome poverty, misery and decay by democratic means, and that we must ourselves believe, and must show others, that our American tradition of the dignity and liberty of the individual is not a luxury for easy times but is the basic source of strength and security of a successful society.

Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
“No Virtue in Meek Conformity” (1952)
    (Source)

Foreword to her response to a State Department Loyalty Security Board interrogatory (1952-03-25). Reprinted in Vital Little Plans (2016).
 
Added on 15-Jan-24 | Last updated 15-Jan-24
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[T]here is a vast difference between games and play. Play is played for fun, but games are deadly serious, and you do not play them to enjoy yourself.

Maurice Baring
Maurice Baring (1874-1945) English man of letters, writer, essayist, translator
The Puppet Show of Memory, ch. 5 “School” (1922)
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Added on 23-Aug-23 | Last updated 23-Aug-23
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But the best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
Principles of Political Economy, Book 4, ch. 6 (1871)
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Added on 27-Jun-23 | Last updated 27-Jun-23
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Competition, as an ideal, had its part to play in the pioneer days of both industrialism and Western agriculture. But its day is past, and a new type of man is needed. The problem of producing goods in sufficient quantities to make general material well-being technically possible was solved by the men of the competitive era. The problem that remains is one of distribution, not of production; it can be solved only by economic justice, not by economic war. For this problem, the mentality of the competitive era is unfitted, since it is only to be solved by co-operation.

Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Competitive Ethics,” New York American (1934-03-19)
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Added on 4-May-23 | Last updated 4-May-23
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In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) American educator, writer
Speech, Republican Club, New York City (12 Feb 1909)
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Added on 18-Nov-22 | Last updated 14-Nov-22
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Impatience and cutting corners: it’s the primate way. It got us down out of the trees and up to the top of the evolutionary heap as a species, which is a lot more like a slippery, mud-slick game of King of the Hill with stabbing encouraged than any kind of tidy Victorian great chain of being or ladder of creation.

Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Ancestral Night (2019)
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Added on 19-Oct-22 | Last updated 19-Oct-22
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The existence of inequality exposes everyone to the risk of being inferior, which in turn stimulates aggressive competition to inflict the inferior status on others (such as by enslaving, impoverishing, or degrading them). In other words, inequality stimulates shame and shame stimulates inequality; shame stimulates violence and violence stimulates shame; inequality leads to violence and violence leads to inequality.

James Gilligan (b. c. 1936) American psychiatrist and author
Preventing Violence, ch. 2 (2001)
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Added on 6-Sep-22 | Last updated 6-Sep-22
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The crucial disadvantage of aggression, competitiveness, and skepticism as national characteristics is that these qualities cannot be turned off at five o’clock.

Margaret Halsey
Margaret Halsey (1910-1997) American writer
The Folks at Home, “The Five O’Clock Shadow over the United States” (1952)
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Added on 31-Mar-22 | Last updated 31-Mar-22
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Competition provides spice in life as well as in sports; it’s only when the spice becomes the entire diet that the player gets sick.

George Leonard
George Leonard (1923-2010) American writer, editor, and educator
Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment (1991)
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Added on 29-Mar-22 | Last updated 29-Mar-22
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The great disadvantage of being in a rat race is that it is humiliating. The competitors in a rat race are, by definition, rodents.

Margaret Halsey
Margaret Halsey (1910-1997) American writer
The Folks at Home (1952)
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Added on 23-Mar-22 | Last updated 23-Mar-22
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Nice guys finish last.

Leo Durocher
Leo Durocher (1905-1991) American professional baseball player, manager, coach ["Leo the Lip"]
(Paraphrase)

The full quote was reported by in the column by Frank Graham, "Leo Doesn't Like Nice Guys," New York Journal-American (6 Jul 1946). When, as Brooklyn Dodgers manager, asked by a reporter if he were a nice guy:

Nice guys! Look over there. Do you know a nicer guy than Mel Ott? Or any of the other Giants? Why they’re the nicest guys in the world! And where are they? In seventh place! The nice guys over there are in seventh place. Well let them come and get me. The nice guys are all over there. In seventh place.

As the anecdote was retold (even when Graham's column was reprinted in Baseball Digest in the fall of that year), the references to "seventh place" began morphing into "last place" and "in the second division," eventually settling on the shorter version cited above. While Durocher originally denied he'd said the shorter version, he eventually lay claim to it, and used it as the title of his 1975 autobiography.

More discussion of this quotation:
 
Added on 22-Mar-22 | Last updated 22-Mar-22
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A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex but neither should she “adjust” to prejudice and discrimination. She must learn to compete then, not as a woman, but as a human being.

Betty Friedan (1921-2006) American writer, feminist, activist
The Feminine Mystique, ch. 14 (1963)
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Added on 22-Mar-22 | Last updated 22-Mar-22
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A nation that silences or intimidates original minds is left only with unoriginal minds and cannot hope to hold its own in the competition of peace or of war.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
“Free Enterprise in Ideas,” Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954)
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Originally published in the Saturday Review (1952), based on a speech to the Advertising Council's American Round Table, New York City (1951).
 
Added on 2-Feb-22 | Last updated 22-Jun-22
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Life, after we’d had a few millennia to observe it, turned out to be dreadfully unfair, so we invented sports.

Barbara Holland (1933-2010) American author
(Attributed)
 
Added on 29-Dec-21 | Last updated 29-Dec-21
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I’m afraid to win, and afraid to lose; I hate a draw and can’t stop competing; otherwise I’m fine.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1963)
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Added on 24-Jun-21 | Last updated 10-Mar-22
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The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition.

C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) American sociologist, academic, author [Charles Wright Mills]
The Power Elite (1956)
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Added on 12-Apr-21 | Last updated 19-Apr-21
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If all men were rich, all men would be poor.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Noteook (1935 ed) [ed. Paine]
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Added on 9-Mar-21 | Last updated 9-Mar-21
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A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)
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Added on 16-Feb-21 | Last updated 16-Feb-21
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Strive to be the greatest Man in your Country, and you may be disappointed; Strive to be the best, and you may succeed: He may well win the race that runs by himself.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jan 1747)
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Added on 29-Oct-20 | Last updated 29-Oct-20
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A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves in the Western world, components become selfish, competitive, independent profit centres, and thus destroy the system. The secret is cooperation between components toward the aim of the organization. We can not afford the destructive effect of competition.

W Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming (1900-1993) American management consultant, educator
The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education, ch. 3 “Introduction to a System” (1993)
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Added on 13-Aug-20 | Last updated 13-Aug-20
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Every sect is a moral check on its neighbour. Competition is as wholesome in religion as in commerce.

Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English writer and poet
Imaginary Conversations, “Dialogues of Literary Men,” ch. 29 “Martin and Jack” (1824-29)
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Added on 15-Jun-20 | Last updated 15-Jun-20
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I prefer to interact with people one-on-one. Any more than that, and the dynamic becomes competitive and then I get bored easily when I’m not directly participating in the exchange.

Laurie Helgoe (b. 1960) American psychologist and author
Introvert Power (2008)
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Quoting "Suzanne".
 
Added on 15-May-20 | Last updated 15-May-20
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Man is a gaming animal. He must be always trying to get the better in something or other.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834) Welsh-English essayist
“Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist,” The Essays of Elia (1823)
 
Added on 14-Oct-19 | Last updated 14-Oct-19
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In the Feejee islands, it appears, cannibalism is now familiar. They eat their own wives and children. We only devour widows’ houses, & great merchants outwit & absorb the substance of small ones and every man feeds on his neighbor’s labor if he can. It is a milder form of cannibalism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1841-02-12)
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Added on 27-Feb-17 | Last updated 27-Mar-23
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During the greater part of the nineteenth century the significance of the opposition between the two principles of individual rights and social functions was masked by the doctrine of the inevitable harmony between private interests and public good. Competition, it was argued, was an effective substitute for honesty. Today … few now would profess adherence to the compound of economic optimism and moral bankruptcy which led a nineteenth century economist to say: “Greed is held in check by greed, and the desire for gain sets limits to itself.”

R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
The Acquisitive Century, ch. 3 “The Acquisitive Society” (1920)
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Added on 5-Jan-17 | Last updated 5-Jan-17
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“Which of them shall be accounted greatest?” Let the churches stop trying to outstrip each other in the number of their adherents, the size of its sanctuary, the abundance of wealth. If we must compete let us compete to see which can move toward the greatest attainment of truth, the greatest service of the poor, and the greatest salvation of the soul and bodies of men. If the Church entered this kind of competition we can imagine what a better world this would be.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Cooperative Competition / Noble Competition,” sermon outline
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Added on 30-Dec-16 | Last updated 30-Dec-16
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We must take note that the games of children are not games in their eyes; and we must regard these as their most serious actions.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 22 (1580-88)
 
Added on 29-Nov-16 | Last updated 29-Nov-16
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Now Jesus himself saw the power that competition holds over men. He did not ignore it. Yet he does something with the conception of competition that hadn’t been done before. He takes the conception which has been used for lower purposes and rescues it from many of its dangers, by suggesting a higher method of its use. This is how he applied the term to his disciples. He saw them in danger of using it for low purposes. They wanted to compete for reputation and position — “which of them should be accounted greatest?” Jesus says so, if you must use the power of competition, if you must compete with on another, make it as noble as you can by using it on noble things. Use it for a fine, unselfish thing. “He that is greatest among you shall serve.” Use it for human good. Who shall be the most useful. Compete with one another in humility. See which can be the truest servant. It seems that Christ says, “Use it, but use it for higher and holier purposes. Use it not to surpass one another in esteem, but use it to increase the amount of usefulness and brother-help.” Such conceptions of competition lead to the surprising and ennobling position that there can be competition without hate and jealousy. Behold! You can struggle to beat and yet rejoice to be beaten.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Cooperative Competition / Noble Competition,” sermon outline
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Added on 23-Nov-16 | Last updated 23-Nov-16
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There are no friends at cards or world politics

Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
(Attributed)
 
Added on 12-Feb-16 | Last updated 12-Feb-16
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Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.

Sarnoff - competition - wist_info quote

David Sarnoff (1881-1971) Belarusian-American businessman and broadcasting executive
(Attributed)
 
Added on 10-Feb-16 | Last updated 10-Feb-16
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When I was introduced to art school, everybody was 20, 22, and 25 years old. Many of them had graduated from college. So there I was, and I was about half their height. And I looked at these guys and I thought, “I can’t compete with these birds!” So at the end of the first week I went home. I was so disillusioned. I was a failure at 15. So my uncle, who lived with us occasionally, came up and he said, “You look awful. You look like something the dog had under the front porch. What’s the matter?” “I can’t compete with these guys at school. They draw like Leonardo da Vinci. I’ll never catch up with them.” I felt like it was the end of the world for me. I could draw a little bit. But I couldn’t keep up with the big guys. So I suddenly blurted out and I said, “You can’t make a racehorse out of a pig!” And my uncle looked at me very gently, and he patted me on the knee, and he said, “No. But you can make a very fast pig.” And I realized that’s what it was really all about. I could only be as good as I could be, whatever my limits were. And I learned a second thing: creative work is never competitive.

Chuck Jones (1912-2002) American animator, screenwriter, producer, and director
Interview with Tom Sito, Archive of American Television (17 Jun 1998)
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Added on 7-Oct-15 | Last updated 7-Oct-15
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Recently I asked three corporate executives what decisions they had made in the last year that they would not have made were it not for their it not for their corporate plans. All had difficulty in identifying one such decision. Since each of their plans were marked “secret” or “confidential,” I asked them how their competitors might benefit from the possession of their plans. Each answered with embarrassment that their competitors would not benefit. Yet these executives were strong advocates of corporate planning.

Russell L. Ackoff (1919-2009) American organizational theorist, consultant, management scientist
“A Concept of Corporate Planning” (1969)
 
Added on 19-Feb-15 | Last updated 19-Feb-15
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[Wash is at his station on the bridge, playing with plastic dinosaurs.]

WASH [as Stegosaur]: Yes … yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it … This Land.
WASH [as Allosaur]: I think we should call it … your grave!
WASH [as Stegosaur]: Ah! Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!
WASH [as Allosaur]: Ha ha ha! Mine is an evil laugh! Now DIE!
WASH [as Stegosaur]: Oh no, God, oh dear God in Heaven …

Joss Whedon (b. 1964) American screenwriter, author, producer [Joseph Hill Whedon]
Firefly, 1×01 “Serenity” (pilot) (20 Dec 2002)
 
Added on 5-Feb-15 | Last updated 5-Feb-15
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The practical work of today is to abolish the cannibals of competition, warriors of supply and demand, tyrants of monopoly, monsters of the market, devourers of men, women and children, buyers and sellers of life.

Henry Demarest Lloyd
Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) American political activist and journalist
Man, the Social Creator, ch. 5 (1906)
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Added on 27-Dec-13 | Last updated 27-Dec-13
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One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Remark to Larry O’Brien III (1964)
    (Source)

On the occasion of O'Brien beating Johnson by one stroke on a nine-hole golf outing. Noted by his father in his book, No Final Victories: A Life in Politics, ch. 8 "LBJ" (1974).

See Gracian.
 
Added on 9-Jan-13 | Last updated 7-Jul-23
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Now that I have grown old, I realize that for most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One’s best friend must also have failed.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
Comment (1959)

A comment recorded by a journalist on his 85th birthday, quoted in Richard Cordell, Somerset Maugham: A Biographical and Critical Study (1961). Cordell mentions the influence of La Rochefoucauld on the phrase, and it is therefore often attributed to La Rochefoucauld, though it is not in his Maxims.

Also attributed to Gore Vidal, Iris Murdoch, Genghis Khan.

Pithier (and more common) paraphrases:
  • "It is not enough to succeed; one’s best friend must fail."
  • "It is not enough to succeed; one’s friends must fail."
  • "It is not enough to succeed; others must fail."
  • "It’s not enough that I should succeed, others should fail."
  • "It is not sufficient that I succeed –- all others must fail."
More discussion of this quotation here: It Is Not Enough to Succeed; One’s Best Friend Must Fail – Quote Investigator®.
 
Added on 10-Sep-12 | Last updated 23-Feb-24
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The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.

[L’important dans la vie ce n’est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l’essentiel ce n’est pas d’avoir vaincu mais de s’être bien battu.]

Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (1863-1937) French pedagogue, historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee
Olympic Creed, Speech, Olympic Games, London (24 Jul 1908)

Alt. trans: "The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

Original phrasing by de Coubertin: "The importance of these Olympiads is not so much to win as to take part."

De Coubertin was drawing from a sermon by Bp. Ethelbert Talbot at St Paul's Cathedral, London (19 Jul 1908): "We have just been contemplating the great Olympic Games. What does it mean? It means that young men of robust physical life have come from all parts of the world. It does mean, I think, as someone has said, that this era of internationalism as seen in the Stadium has an element of danger. Of course, it is very true, as he says, that each athlete strives not only for the sake of sport, but for the sake of his country. Thus a new rivalry is invented. If England be beaten on the river, or America outdistanced on the racing path, or that American has lost the strength which she once possessed. Well, what of it? The only safety after all lies in the lesson of the real Olympia -- that the Games themselves are better than the race and the prize. St. Paul tells us how insignificant is the prize, Our prize is not corruptible, but incorruptible, and though only one may wear the laurel wreath, all may share the equal joy of the contest. All encouragement, therefore, be given to the exhilarating -- I might also say soul-saving -- interest that comes in active and fair and clean athletic sports."
 
Added on 4-Apr-11 | Last updated 15-Jul-20
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No sooner is a Temple built to God but the Devill builds a Chappell hard by.

George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 674 (1640 ed.)
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See also Martin Luther.
 
Added on 10-Jun-10 | Last updated 22-Dec-23
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There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

Don Herold (1889-1966) American humorist, cartoonist, author
So Human, “Shetland Ponies vs. Autos,” epigraph (1924)
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Added on 23-Feb-10 | Last updated 12-May-20
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Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set — and this in a world where half our fellow men have less than enough to eat.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
“Putting First Things First”, Foreign Affairs (1960-01)
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Added on 18-Jan-10 | Last updated 13-Dec-23
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He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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Added on 18-Nov-09 | Last updated 14-Jul-20
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The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly, and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretences.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, #397 (1956)
 
Added on 15-Jan-09 | Last updated 2-May-16
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Never contend with a Man who has nothing to Lose.

[No empeñarse con quien no tiene qué perder.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 172 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
    (Source)

(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:

Never to engage with him that hath nothing to lose.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]

Do not engage with him who has nothing to lose.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]

Never compete with someone who has nothing to lose.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]

 
Added on 17-Oct-05 | Last updated 23-Jan-23
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Let us be thankful for fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 28 (1897)
 
Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 26-Jan-19
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It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong — but that’s the way to bet.

Hugh E. Keough (1864-1912) Canadian-American sports journalist
(Attributed)

Variants:
  • "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but the betting is best that way."
  • "To be sure the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but it is ninety-nine times in a hundred."
Also attributed to Damon Runyon, Franklin Pierce Adams, Grantland Rice, and Burns Mantle, all of of whom in turn credited Keough. The saying itself, a take-off on Ecclesiastes 9:11, has a number of antecedents: see here for more background.
 
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If you don’t play to win, why bother to keep score?

Adolph Rupp
Adolph Rupp (1901-1977) American college basketball coach
Comment (11 Jun 1958)

Rupp frequently returned to this phrase, usually in response to someone quoting to him from Grantland Rice's "Alumnus Football" (paraphrased, "It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, but how you play the game").

Variations:

  • "If it doesn't matter who wins or loses, then what in the hell is that scoreboard doing up there?"
  • "If it doesn't matter, then why does every school have a scoreboard? If it doesn't matter who wins why do 25,000 football fans follow a team 400 miles and sit in eight inches of snow to watch the game?" [Source]
  • "If winning isn't so important, why do they keep score?" [Source]
Rupp wasn't necessarily the originator of this thought. Clair Bee, another US college basketball coach, said during the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal that ended his career, "If the kids aren't playing for keeps, why keep score?" (20 Feb 1951).

Sometimes attributed to Vince Lombardi.

More discussion of this quotation: The Big Apple: “If winning isn’t important, why keep score?”
 
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It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races.

Twain - horse races - wist_info quote

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, ch. 19, epigraph (1894)
 
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Those blush to lose a conquering game,
And fain would peril life for fame:
These bring success their zeal to fan;
They can because they think they can.

[Hi proprium decus et partum indignantur honorem
ni teneant, vitamque volunt pro laude pacisci;
hos successus alit: possunt, quia posse videntur.]

Virgil the Poet
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 5, l. 229ff (5.229-231) (29-19 BC) [tr. Conington (1866)]
    (Source)

Of the crews of the two remaining ships racing at the funeral games of Anchises: Cloanthus' Scylla which is closing on the finish line; Mnestheus' Pristis which has come up from last place and may yet take the lead. (Cloanthus wins the race by offering a sacrifice to the sea gods.)

(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:

These their new glory, honours got despise,
Unless they keep it, and to gaine the prize
Would sell their lives; success feeds them; they may
Because they think they can obtain the day.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]

Resolv'd to hold their own, they mend their pace,
All obstinate to die, or gain the race.
Rais'd with success, the Dolphin swiftly ran;
For they can conquer, who believe they can.
[tr. Dryden (1697)]

These are fired with indignation, lest they should lose their possession of glory and honor they have won; and they are willing to barter life for renown. Those success cherishes; they are able because they seem to be able.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]

These scorn to lose the honour that is their own, the glory in their grasp, and would sell life for renown; to these success lends life; power comes with belief in it.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]

These, thinking shame of letting fall their hardly-gotten gain
Of glory's meed, to buy the praise with very life are fain;
Those, fed on good-hap, all things may, because they deem they may
[tr. Morris (1900), l. 228ff]

These scorn to lose their vantage, stung with shame,
And life is wagered willingly for fame.
Success inspires the hindmost; as they dare,
They do; the thought of winning wins the game.
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 31, l. 274ff]

The leaders now with eager souls would scorn
to lose their glory, and faint-hearted fail
to grasp a prize half-won, but fain would buy
honor with life itself; the followers too
are flushed with proud success, and feel them strong
because their strength is proven.
[tr. Williams (1910)]

These think it shame not to keep the honour that is theirs, the glory they have won, and would barter life for fame: those success heartens; strong are they, for strong they deem themselves.
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]

               On the Scylla
They would give their lives to hold their place, they have won it,
The glory and honor are theirs already, almost;
And Mnestheus’ men take courage from their nearness;
They can because they think they can.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]

One crew was compelled by the shame of losing a prize they had all but
Gained for their own, and would give their lives for its glory; the other
Was fired by success -- they could do it because they believed they could do it.
[tr. Day-Lewis (1952)]

               Cloanthus' crewmen
now think it a disgrace to fail to keep
the fame and honor they themselves have won,
and they would give their very lives for glory;
but Menestheus' men are strengthened by success,
they have the power because they feel they have it.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 301ff]

One crew fought off the shame of losing honor
Theirs already, glory won; they'd give
Their lives for fame; but luck empowered the others
Who felt that they could do it, and so could.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981), l. 294ff]

Cloanthus and his men on the Scylla saw the honour as theirs by right. They had already won the victory and had no intention of giving it up. They would rather have lost their lives than lose the glory. Mnestheus and his men on the Pristis were feeding on success. They could win because they thought they could.
[tr. West (1990)]

The former crew are unhappy lest they fail to keep
the honour that is theirs and the glory already
in their possession, and would sell their lives for fame.
the latter feed on success: they can because they think they can.
[tr. Kline (2002)]

One crew, stung by the shame of losing victory now
with glory won, would trade their lives for fame.
But Mnestheus and his crew, fired by their success,
can just about win the day because they think they can.
[tr. Fagles (2006), l. 256ff]

One crew would hate to lose the glory of an honor all but one. They'd trade their lives for victory. The others were encouraged by success. Belief in victory spurred them on.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]

 
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When men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas — that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
Abrams v. United States, 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) [Dissent]
 
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Look around the table. If you don’t see a sucker, get up, because you’re the sucker.

"Amarillo Slim" Preston (1928-2012) American gambler [Thomas Austin Preston, Jr.]
(Attributed)

Though he used the phrase, he did not take credit for it.  More information here. Variants:
  • "If after ten minutes at the poker table you do not know who the patsy is -- you are the patsy."
  • "If you sit in on a poker game and don't see a sucker, get up. You're the sucker."
  • "If you enter a poker game and you don't see a sucker, get up and leave -- you’re it."
 
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