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

“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“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?

“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

“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

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

“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

“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

“A society punishing a boy for stealing because he is otherwise unable to feed himself, would be hypocritical if not also blaming the instrument for not being tuned.”
― Monaristw

“We sometimes do something fast to compensate for our inability or unwillingness to do it well.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“By being aware of your own limitations, keeping important decisions inside your circle of competence, and avoiding decisions that are too hard, it is reasonable to feel more confident in your abilities.”
― Tren Griffin, Charlie Munger: The Complete Investor

“The illusion of competence is Ignorance in reality”
― Talees Rizvi, 21 Day Target and Achievement Planner [Use Only Printed Work Book: LIFE IS SIMPLE HENCE SIMPLE WORKBOOK

“Work like a professional. Don’t sweat. Don’t complain.”
― Utibe Samuel Mbom, The Event Usher’s Handbook

“Some people will never be highly successful not because of their lack of competence but because of the lack of welcoming new ideas and new people into their lives.”
― Anuj Jasani

“The French don’t valorize a pregnant woman’s anxiety. Instead, in the word cloud of French pregnancy, terms like serenity, balance, and Zen keep popping up. Mothers-to-be are supposed to signal their competence by showing how calm they are and by making it clear that they still experience pleasure. This small shift in emphasis makes a big difference.”
― Pamela Druckerman, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting

“Hello dementia and goodbye health, competence and memories.”
― Steven Magee, Hypoxia, Mental Illness & Chronic Fatigue

“We don't pray to have it easy, else the less competent triumphs over us. Instead we pray for the sterner stuff it requires to assail our travails.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

“When President Obama is photographed standing in the middle of a field of dead solar modules and he is telling the world how wonderful it is, you have to query his competence!”
― Steven Magee

“You own skills, your capabilities, your expertise, your values, your behaviors, your personal energy, your time, your loyalty.
You’re the owner of this human capital, and you decide when, how, and where to invest it. You hold the key to value creation.”
― Benjamin Kofi Quansah

“Be fair; No cultural/ technological transformation happens overnight, it should be accepted that a company digital future can crawl at first, then walk a little bit until it builds its marathon competence to run & with some luck disrupt!”
― Sally El-Akkad

“It is not only about Tech.. It is also about imagination!”
― Sally El-Akkad

“The more skill it takes to accomplish a task, the more difficult it is to comprehend the knowledge needed to deal with it, the more likely it is that someone incompetent will perform it.”
― Luigina Sgarro