Competence Quotes - Page 13

• Whatever sense of professional competence we feel in adult life is less the sum of accomplishment than the absence of impossibility: it's really our relief at no longer having to do things we were never good at doing in the first place - relief at never again having to dissect a frog or memorize the periodic table.

  Adam Gopnik

  Accomplishment, Adults, Relief

  "Life Studies" by Adam Gopnik, www.newyorker.com. June 27, 2011.

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• Luck is always waiting for something to turn up. Labor, with keen eyes and strong will, always turns up something. Luck lies in bed and wishes the postman will bring news of a legacy. Labor turns out at six o'clock and with busy pen or ringing hammer, lays the foundation of a competence. Luck whines. Labor whistles. Luck relies on chance, labor on character.

  Richard Cobden

  Strong, Lying, Work

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• The fundamental difference between Islamic government, on the one hand, and constitutional monarchy and republics, on the other, is this: whereas the representatives of the people or the monarch in such regimes engage in legislation, in Islam the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.

  Ruhollah Khomeini

  Islamic, Differences, Government

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• An organization's success has more to do with clarity of shared purpose, common principles and strength of belief in them than to assets, expertise, operating ability or management competence, important as they may be.

  Dee Hock

  Organization, Important, Principles

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• It's not that achievements prove our worth but rather that the process of achieving is the means by which we develop our effectiveness, our competence at living.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Mean, Effectiveness, Achievement

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• Trust has two dimensions: competence and integrity. We will forgive mistakes of competence. Mistakes of integrity are harder to overcome.

  Simon Sinek

  Integrity, Mistake, Two

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• No scientist is admired for failing in the attempt to solve problems that lie beyond his competence. ... Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.

  Peter Medawar

  Lying, Science, Thinking

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• After a period in which technocrats attempted to become stars and stars to become politicians, the political void has been occupied by the force of mediocrity, which can easily master enough of the star techniques to produce inoffensive personalities and enough of the rational vocabulary to create the sounds of competence.

  John Ralston Saul

  Stars, Vocabulary, Personality

  John Ralston Saul (2013). “Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West”, p.532, Simon and Schuster

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• You can't participate in agriculture or redesign of aircraft for making them safer if you know nothing about it.  So, whenever a person says 'will I be participating in the new world?'  Only in areas that you can participate it.  Areas that you have competence in. I'm not talking about self confidence, I'm talking about the ability to solve problems.  Electrical, chemical, technical.  I don't know of any other kind of problem.

  Jacque Fresco

  Self Confidence, Talking, Agriculture

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• The fourth paradigm forces us at every point to discern between the creationally valid and the sinfully perverse and thus confronts us with a never-ending task which requires not only competence but also spiritual discernment. Yet this is precisely the task which we must assume, even at the risk of being vague on specifics. The alternative is to compromise basic themes of authentic Christianity.

  Albert M. Wolters

  Spiritual, Risk, Tasks

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• Bruce Katz is a spectacular talent! He's a brilliant composer and arranger who uses uncommon and unique musical intelligence to redefine jazz and blues far beyond the pale of the accepted definitions of keyboard competence. Whether on piano or organ, when you hear Bruce Katz you know it's him, unmistakably and uniquely.

  Larry Coryell

  Unique, Piano, Musical

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• Courage is the most important attribute of a lawyer. It is more important than competence or vision. It can never be an elective in any law school. It can never be de-limited, dated or outworn, and it should pervade the heart, the halls of justice and the chambers of the mind.

  Robert Kennedy

  Heart, School, Law

  Robert F. Kennedy (1964). “Rights for Americans: the speeches of Robert F. Kennedy”

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• People are tied together and yet isolated from each other by invisible threads of rhythm and hidden walls of time. Time is... a primary organizer of all activities, a synthesizer and integrator, a way of handling priorities and categorizing experience, a feedback mechanism for how things are going, a measuring rod against which competence, effort, and achievement are judged as well as a special message system revealing how people really feel about each other and whether or not they can get along.

  Edward T. Hall

  Time, Wall, People

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• The game of investing is one of making better predictions about the future than other people. How are you going to do that? One way is to limit your tries to areas of competence. If you try to predict the future of everything, you attempt too much.

  Charlie Munger

  Games, People, Trying

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• The situation around Terri Schiavo was a deeply held conflict over what to do if someone isn't going to return to consciousness or competence. Who will decide? Even there, where we had settled legal rules, we still had disagreement. We're torn about these things.

  Ezekiel Emanuel

  Return, Consciousness, Conflict

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• Perhaps there is no other knowing than the mere competence of the act. If at the heart of one's being, there is no self to which one ought to be true, then sincerity is simply nerve; it lies in the unabashed vigor of the pretense. But pretense is only pretense when it is assumed that the act is not true to the agent. Find the agent.

  Alan Watts

  Truth, Lying, Heart

  Alan W. Watts, Daniel Pinchbeck (2013). “The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness”, p.38, New World Library

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• We have a system which, though far from perfect, is strong with idealism. It gives elbow room for men of all races and all beliefs. It is vital and dynamic. And it works. We have the means of shaping the world in our pattern. If we do, freedom will be assured for all men. The decision is in the hands of this generation. It is a challenge to our political competence. For Western civilization it is the greatest challenge of all time.

  William O. Douglas

  Strong, Mean, Men

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• I just sat there looking at television, sort of dumb and thought how horrible it was. I had -- the grand aspects of it did not occur to me -- I had no notion of this terrorist network that existed. I knew the were a lot of people in the world who didn't like us, but I had no idea that it was as well organized as it apparently is. That's one of the amazing facets of this terrible event: how well they did it. Incredible. The competence of these evil people.

  Andy Rooney

  Ideas, Terrible Events, Evil People

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• No doubt there are some who, when confronted with a line of mathematical symbols, however simply presented, can only see the face of a stern parent or teacher who tried to force into them a non-comprehending parrot-like apparent competence--a duty and a duty alone--and no hint of magic or beauty of the subject might be allowed to come through.

  Roger Penrose

  Teacher, Parent, Magic

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• The way I played music there was the way I wanted to farm, chop wood, cook, make love, raise children. Everything. A lo of it had to do with things I felt while I played. If only I could feel that sense of total absorption in what I was doing when I was doing other things. It was more than absorption, it was spontaneity, competence, a sense of grace and playfulness, of being in touch with an inexhaustible source of energy and beauty.

  Mark Vonnegut

  Children, Grace, Making Love

  Mark Vonnegut (2011). “The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity”, p.52, Seven Stories Press

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• An intimate relationship is one in which neither party silences, sacrifices, or betrays the self and each party expresses strength and vulnerability, weakness and competence in a balanced way.

  Harriet Lerner

  Party, Sacrifice, Intimate Relationships

  Harriet Lerner (2009). “The Dance of Intimacy: A Woman's Guide to Courageous Acts of Change in Key Relationships”, p.3, Harper Collins

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• Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing.

  George Stillman Hillard

  Character, Opportunity, Roots

  George Stillman HILLARD (1854). “The Dangers and Duties of the Mercantile Profession. An Address Delivered Before the Mercantile Library Association, Etc”, p.31

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• we found that success correlates more closely with confidence than it does with competence. Yes, there is evidence that confidence is more important than ability when it comes to getting ahead. This came as particularly unsettling news to us, having spent our own lives striving toward competence.

  Katty Kay

  Confidence, Important, Doe

  Katty Kay, Claire Shipman (2014). “The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance---What Women Should Know”, p.11, Harper Collins

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• Stories told around the water-cooler as well as statistics confirm that a man's competence is more likely to be presupposed, a woman's questioned.

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson

  Men, Water, Stories

  Kathleen Hall Jamieson (1995). “Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership”, p.122, Oxford University Press on Demand

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• Industry suffers from the managerial dogma that for the sake of stability and continuity, the company should be independent of the competence of individual employees.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Motivational, Independent, Suffering

  "Computing Science: Achievements and Challenges". Edsger Dijkstra's keynote address at the ACM Symposium on Applied Computing in San Antonio, Texas, www.cs.utexas.edu. March 1, 1999.

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