Competence Quotes

“It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.

That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind...”
― Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
― Peter Drucker

“He can occasionally see to an enemy," she conceded. "If he manages to get his sword pointed in the right direction and the enemy does him the favor of falling upon it in precisely the right way.”
― Lynn Kurland, Star of the Morning

“So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.”
― Billy Joel

“My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.”
― Thomas Hardy

“it is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didnt”
― Martin Van Buren

“If she had a flaw, it was that she was the Best, and she knew she was the Best. Some called it arrogance. She called it competence untainted by performative humility.”
― Brigitte Knightley, The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy

“They all have excellent resumes... So what I’m trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure.”
― Hyman G. Rickover

“Kevyn, I'm promoting you from Tech Sergeant to Munitions Commander. I want you to take responsibility for all Company weapons.

Munitions Commander? Why me?

I don't know. Call it "suspicion of extreme competence" on my part.
-Captain Tagon & Commander Kevyn Andreyasn”
― Howard Tayler, The Tub of Happiness

“Pride in office without competence is as much a sin as competence without confidence.”
― Peter Tremayne, Shroud for the Archbishop

“I have rare moments of competence.”
― Peter V. Brett, The Desert Spear

“Experts were once amateurs who kept practicing.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Good luck belongs to those who know how and are not afraid." John Hay to President Theodore Roosevelt”
― John Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes : The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt

“Skills make dreams happen. They build economies. They make people rich and famous. In today’s world, the demands for skills are staggering. Government, business and individuals have too much to achieve, their goals are huge. They are constantly, and I do mean constantly, looking for people with the right skills. People that can get the job done.”
― Emi Iyalla

“...she had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“The problem with experiments is that they tell you nothing unless they are competently done, but in controversial science no-one can agree on a criterion of competence.”
― Harry Collins, The Golem: What You Should Know about Science

“Confidence
Is a remarkable substitute,
For competence.”
― MissFit Writes, I Did Not Survive. I Just Refused To Stop.

“In his book "Being Mortal", the surgeon Atul Gawande accurately describes the joy that flows from being good at your work. 'You become a doctor for what you imagine to be the satisfaction of the work, and that turns out to be the satisfaction of competence,' Dr. Gawande writes. 'It is a deep satisfaction very much like the one that a carpenter experiences in restoring a fragile antique chest...It comes partly from being helpful to others. But it also comes from being technically skilled and able to solve difficult, intricate problems. Your competence gives you a secure sense of identity.”
― Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

“As a psychologist, I often hear from people with different backgrounds than mine: 'You know, I'm a bit of a psychologist myself'.
I now invariably reply: "When I get home, I turn on the light: I'm a bit of an electrician myself...".”
― Luigina Sgarro

“Perception of competence at an activity will depend [on]...whether one has to succeed by his or her own standards or by someone else's.”
― Mark Lepper and David Greene

“A ‘true’ leader takes people to the places where they cannot go on their own. And once they’ve arrived, a ‘great’ leader will point out that the destination was always within their reach. It’s simply that their confidence was not.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Because what my mother showed me is that if you try to keep your children from feeling fear, you're essentially keeping them from feeling competence, too.”
― Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“Michelangelo was just 26 when he sculpted the David. The slab of marble he used was deemed unusable for 35 years. Why? Experience and age are not the same as creativity or competence.”
― Richie Norton

“Don’t overate your experience to hide incompetence.”
― Richie Norton

“Those who invest time in pursuing success often have more opportunities to achieve it than their counterparts. They gain more knowledge, experience, skills, abilities, confidence, and competence.”
― Gift Gugu Mona, The Kind of Substance You Need For Your Success

“The problem with democracy is that it is the 51% determining what only the 0.1% can understand.”
― Brett Stevens

“Alex had already established himself as a formidable operator in opposition, an inspiring orator in debate, and a tactician who was always a step (or three) ahead of his opponents, but he really came into his own in government. For someone who often made mischief for his opponents, the hallmarks of his own time in office were competence in government and investment for the longer term. Everything was strategic, whether it was capital investment in roads, schools, affordable homes and other essential infrastructure, investment in the NHS and other public services, or investment in people through access to education and skills. It was all oriented towards building a more successful and sustainable Scotland for the future.”
― Eilidh Whiteford, iScot 100, November/December 2024