Competent Quotes - Page 14

• Have you noticed how difficult it is just to get along in the world? If you're no good at all in your job, people treat you badly and eventually you will be unemployed. And if you're a little better than competent, everyone expects miracles from you, every single time. Like most of life, it's a no-win situation. And if you dare to mention it, no matter how creatively you phrase your complaints, you are shunned as a whiner.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Jobs, Winning, People

  Jeff Lindsay (2010). “Dexter Is Delicious: Dexter Morgan (5)”, p.27, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard

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• Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

  Edsger Dijkstra

  Learning, Mastery, Tongue

  Edsger W. Dijkstra (2012). “Selected Writings on Computing: A personal Perspective”, p.130, Springer Science & Business Media

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• It is also true that the less competent a person is in a given domain, the more he will tend to overestimate his abilities. This often produces an ugly marriage of confidence and ignorance that is very difficult to correct for.

  Sam Harris

  Ignorance, Ugly, Produce

  Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.123, Simon and Schuster

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• In real life I'm not the character I play in my films. I'm reasonably competent, I work very hard, I'm disciplined, I lead a very middle class life. I work in the mornings, I have lunch, I practise my clarinet, I go to the movies, I eat out in restaurants or watch ball games on television or at the ball games.

  Woody Allen

  Morning, Real, Character

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. September 27, 2001.

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• I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height, nor yet in obscurity. I have been called to several employments in the nation - to serve in parliaments, - and ( because I would not be over tedious ) I did endeavour to discharge the duty of an honest man in those services, to God, and his people's interest, and of the commonwealth; having, when time was, a competent acceptation in the hearts of men, and some evidence thereof.

  Oliver Cromwell

  Heart, Men, People

  Oliver Cromwell (1901). “Speeches, 1644-1658”

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• In living literature no person is a competent judge but of works written in his own language. I have expressed my opinion concerning a number of English writers; it is very possible that I may be mistaken, that my admiration and my censure may be equally misplaced, and that my conclusions may appear impertinent and ridiculous on the other side of the Channel.

  François-René de Chateaubriand

  Numbers, Judging, May

  "Sketches of English Literature: With Considerations on the Spirit of the Times, Men, and Revolutions". Book by François-René de Chateaubriand, translated by Henry Colburn, Volume II, p.36, 1836.

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• What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely interested in human beings, and have an eye sharp enough to see into them, and a hand clever enough to draw them as they are. The second is that he should be able to set them in imaginary situations which display the contents of their psyches effectively, and so carry his reader swiftly and pleasantly from point to point of what is called a good story.

  H. L. Mencken

  Clever, Eye, Psych

  The American Mercury Magazine, p. 136, May 1933.

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• If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

  Edmund Burke

  Thinking, Government, Judging

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.321

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• Is it unprecedented for two goalkeepers employed in a match comprising seven goals to be the fixture's most competent protagonists?

  Pete Gill

  Soccer, Football, Two

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• Playing acoustic and line drawings are the two things I'm most competent at.

  Robyn Hitchcock

  Two, Drawing, Insecurity

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• The future belongs to the competent

  Brian Tracy

  Brian Tracy (2005). “Create Your Own Future: How to Master the 12 Critical Factors of Unlimited Success”, p.47, BookBaby

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• If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone. (pg. 125, The Body and the Earth)

  Wendell Berry

  Yield, People, Generosity

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• The generosity of the Earth allows us to feed all mankind; we know enough about ecology to keep the Earth a healthy place; there is enough room on the Earth, and there are enough materials, so that everybody can have adequate shelter; we are quite competent enough to produce sufficient supplies of necessities so that no one need live in misery.

  E. F. Schumacher

  Generosity, Healthy, Needs

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