Emulation Quotes - Page 3

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

Charles Caleb Colton

Envy, Victory, Spy

Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.436

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In particular, it is absurd to hope to banish envy of other people's possessions or fortunes, if only because the spirit of envy can lead to emulation and ambition and have positive consequences.

Christopher Hitchens

Ambition, People, Envy

Christopher Hitchens (2011). “God is Not Great”, p.74, Atlantic Books Ltd

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News at Work is a vivid, inside look at the collision of print journalism and electronic media. Based on close access to the leading news organizations in Buenos Aires, Boczkowski documents how contemporary journalism is caught in the grip of emulation; this spiral of imitation exacerbated further by global news media and their intensifying homogenization. The portrait of this transformation of the news is both fascinating and deeply worrying, and is guaranteed to provoke debate.

Walter W. Powell

Media, Organization, Worry

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As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be held up for emulation.... On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.

Margaret Sanger

Eugenics, Civilization, Class

"The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda". "Birth Control Review", (p. 5), October 1921.

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With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.

Thorstein Veblen

Business, Self, Economic

The Theory of the Leisure Class ch. 5 (1899)

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My ideal man is Benjamin Franklin-the figure in American history most worthy of emulation ... Franklin is my ideal of a whole man. ... Where are the life-size-or even pint-size-Benjamin Franklins of today?

Isidor Isaac Rabi

Hero, Men, History

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No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors. The oppressed must be their own example in the struggle for their redemption (Freire, 1970, p. 54).

Paulo Freire

Struggle, Example, Redemption

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To whom can I expose the urgency of my own passion?…There is nobody—here among these grey arches, and moaning pigeons, and cheerful games and tradition and emulation, all so skilfully organised to prevent feeling alone.

Virginia Woolf

Passion, Games, Feeling Alone

Virginia Woolf (2005). “The Waves”, p.43, Collector's Library

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I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; not the soldier's which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

William Shakespeare

Nice, Humorous, Sadness

William Shakespeare (2012). “Comedies of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.747, BookCaps Study Guides

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The writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

John Steinbeck

War, Believe, Heart

John Steinbeck (2003). “America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction”, p.146, Penguin

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A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

Abigail Adams

Country, People, Liberty

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I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is only from the various essays of experimental industry, and the vague excursions of mind set upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to inspire emulation, and their miscarriage taught others the way to success.

Samuel Johnson

Art, Miscarriage, Necessary Use

Samuel Johnson (1889). “Select Essays”

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Saul Bellow once said, 'A writer is a reader who has moved to emulation' — which I think is true. I just started writing and made that jump from reader to writer and learned how hard it was, but also how much fun it was — losing myself in these imaginary worlds.

Stewart O'Nan

Fun, Writing, Thinking

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Men will imitate and admire his unmoved firmness, his inflexible conscience for the right; and yet his gentleness, as tender as a woman's, his moderation of spirit, which not all the heat of party could inflame, nor all the jars and disturbances of this country shake out of its place: I swear you to an emulation of his justice, his moderation, and his mercy.

Henry Ward Beecher

Country, Party, Men

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Experiments in digitizing and running neural wetware under emulation are well established; some radical libertarians claim that, as the technology matures, death with its draconian curtailment of property and voting rights will become the biggest civil rights issue of all.

Charles Stross

Running, Technology, Rights

Charles Stross (2010). “Accelerando”, p.49, Hachette UK

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As for the system of the Commune, which makes it impossible for a man to rise or fall, it is merely the old caste system revived; if it could be put into force, all industry would be disheartened, emulation would cease, and mankind would go to sleep.

William Winwood Reade

Fall, Sleep, Men

William Winwood Reade (1874). “The Martyrdom of Man”, p.507

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Is the artist impelled by spiritual forces, by the divine afflatus, by conscious or unconscious emulation of others? Do angles whisper in the ears of the chosen few, and create for them visions of aethereal beauty? Do landscape painters of genius walk the plains of Heaven? Or is it only vanity that urges him to paint?

Walter J. Phillips

Spiritual, Artist, Vanity

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In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.

June Jordan

Children, Motherhood, Names

June Jordan (2003). “Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays”, p.277, Basic Books

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It would seem to me that If this physical life, of which we are now aware, does indeed comprise the entirety of human experience, then what we seem to intuitively know to be true is entirely backwards. For if this is the case, then it must be the despicable tyrant, free of any moral values, and not the selfless compassionate who sacrifices himself for the good of mankind that is truly the one most deserving of our reverence and emulation.

Derek R. Audette

Life, Sacrifice, Tyrants

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With these shreds They vented their complainings, which being answered And a petition granted them, a strange one, To break the heart of generosity, And make bold power look pale, they threw their caps As they would hang them on the horns o' th' moon, Shouting their emulation.

William Shakespeare

Heart, Moon, Generosity

'Coriolanus' (1608) act 1, sc. 1, l. [218]

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Our children will not survive our habits of thinking, our failures of the spirit, our wreck of the universe into which we bring new life as blithely as we do. Mostly, our children will resemble our own misery and spite and anger, because we give them no choice about it. In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.

June Jordan

Children, Motherhood, Thinking

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But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.

Samuel Johnson

Book, Men, Excellence

Samuel Johnson (2009). “The Lives of the Poets: A Selection”, p.396, OUP Oxford

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A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

Saul Bellow

Writing, Reader, Moved

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