Upstart Quotes

• Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.

  Naguib Mahfouz

  Writing, Men, Thinking

  30 Copy quote

• From nobody to upstart. From upstart to contender. From contender to winner. From winner to champion. From champion to Dynasty.

  Pat Riley

  Basketball, Winning, Champion

  Pat Riley (1993). “Winner Within Success”, Putnam Publishing Group

  31 Copy quote

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• Sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.

  Martin Luther

  Scary, Sacred Scripture, Earth

  9 Copy quote

• People give ear to an upstart astrologer [Copernicus]...this fool wishes
  to reverse the entire science of astronomy

  Martin Luther

  People, Giving, Wish

  52 Copy quote

• Liberalism is the party of upstarts who have insinuated themselves between the people and its big men. Liberals feel themselves as isolated individuals, responsible to nobody. They do not share the nation’s traditions, they are indifferent to its past and have no ambition for its future. They seek only their own personal advantage in the present. Their dream is the great International, in which the differences of peoples and languages, races and cultures will be obliterated.

  Arthur Moeller van den Bruck

  Dream, Party, Future

  Arthur Moeller Van Den Bruck (2012). “Germany's Third Empire”, p.82, Arktos

  29 Copy quote

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• People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon....This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13]that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.

  Martin Luther

  Moon, People, Heaven

  27 Copy quote

• If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.

  Pat Riley

  Positive, Basketball, Motivational Sports

  40 Copy quote

• I was just thinking of bunding up Cecily and feeding her to the ducks in Hyde Park," said Will, pushing his wet hair back and favoring Jem with a rare smile.

  Cassandra Clare

  Thinking, Hair, Ducks

  6 Copy quote

• A particular shot or way of moving the ball can be a player's personal signature, but efficiency of performance is what wins the game for the team.

  Pat Riley

  Basketball, Teamwork, Moving

  Pat Riley (1993). “The winner within: a life plan for team players”, Putnam Adult

  7 Copy quote

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• The popular mythology of creative genius depends on beloved stereotypes of the artist in youth and old age: the misunderstood upstart who forces us to see the world afresh; and the revered sage who shows us depths of insight attainable only through a lifetime of hard-won experience.

  Martin Filler

  Artist, Creative, Misunderstood

  6 Copy quote

• If you look now, more than ever new entrants, new upstarts, are able to grow so much faster than they could before.

  Alexis Ohanian

  Looks, Able, Faster

  Source: www.fool.com

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• Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.

  Adam Smith

  Greatness, Ancient

  Adam Smith, Robert L. Heilbroner, Laurence J. Malone (1987). “The Essential Adam Smith”, p.296, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It is a note
  Of upstart greatness to observe and watch
  For these poor trifles, which the noble mind
  Neglects and scorns.

  Ben Jonson

  Greatness, Mind, Watches

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The Works of Ben Jonson ...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and Biographical Memoir”, p.137

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• It is contended that those who have been bred at Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and Westminster, that the public sentiment within each of those schools is high-toned and manly; that, in their playgrounds, courage is universally admired, meanness despised, manly feelings and generous conduct are encouraged: that an unwritten code of honor deals to the spoiled child of rank, and to the child of upstart wealth an even-handed justice, purges their nonsense out of both, and does all that can be done to make them gentlemen.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Education, Children, School

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2009). “The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.567, Modern Library

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• If you've spent a long time developing a skill and techniques, and now some 14 year-old upstart can get exactly the same result, you might feel a bit miffed I suppose, but that has happened forever.

  Brian Eno

  Years, Skills, Long

  "Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers talk Scape, iPad apps and generative music". Interview with Stuart Dredge, www.theguardian.com. September 26, 2012.

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• I still feel needles in my back when I think about all the horrible disasters that would have befallen me if I had permanently moved to San Francisco and rented a big house, joined the company dole, become national-affairs editor for some upstart magazine—that was the plan around 1967. But that would have meant going to work on a regular basis, like nine to five, with an office—I had to pull out.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Thinking, Editors, San Francisco

  Hunter S. Thompson, Beef Torrey, Kevin Simonson (2008). “Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson”, p.149, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• A competitive threat is not the same thing as an antitrust violation… It is difficult to make out FairSearch’s precise antitrust arguments. There are alternatives to ITA’s software: both the GDSs but also upstarts such as the U.K.’s Everbread Ltd., which has relationships with 60 low-cost carriers, and Vayant Travel Technologies LLC of New York. It isn’t clear, therefore, that competition would be reduced even if Googled didn’t honor ITA’s contracts with other travel companies.

  Peter Gallagher

  New York, Technology, Competition

  6 Copy quote

• I want to be in an industry where the upstarts can grow and displace the incumbents, because that's why there's so much innovation.

  Alexis Ohanian

  Innovation, Want, Grows

  Source: www.fool.com

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• The challenge for me was not just the prosthetic work and how to move like an older man would move, but more so how to have 50 years of experience in the workplace and talk to a young Robert F. Kennedy as if he was some political upstart that didn't know what the hell he was talking about. That was the big challenge [in the J. Edgar Hoover mоvie].

  Leonardo DiCaprio

  Moving, Men, Talking

  "Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio Interview, J Edgar". MoviesOnline Interview, www.moviesonline.ca. November, 2011.

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• English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be.

  Zadie Smith

  Trying, Jargon, Hopeless

  7 Copy quote

• Britain kept its position as the dominant world power well into the 20th century despite steady decline. By the end of World War II, dominance had shifted decisively into the hands of the upstart across the sea, the United States, by far the most powerful and wealthy society in world history.

  Noam Chomsky

  Powerful, War, Hands

  4 Copy quote

• I'm afraid not." Hades sighed. "My son here convinced me that perhaps I should prioritize my list of enemies." He glared at me with distaste. "As much as I dislike certain upstart demigods, it would not do for Olympus to fall. I would miss bickering with my siblings. And if there is one thing we agree on - it is that you were a TERRIBLE father.

  Rick Riordan

  Father, Sibling, Fall

  5 Copy quote

• He rooted for the Mets, he wore Foot of the Loom underwear, and he drove a Buick. His loyalties were carved in stone and he wasn't about to be impressed with some upstart of a toaster salesman who drove a Bonneville.

  Janet Evanovich

  Loyalty, Feet, Toasters

  Janet Evanovich (2011). “Stephanie Plum One, Two, Three: One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly”, p.50, Simon and Schuster

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• In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.

  Murasaki Shikibu

  Book, Ambition, Reign

  6 Copy quote

• Why won't you drown?" he wailed, pummeling me with his fists. "I'm Poseidon's son," I said. "Curse that upstart! I was here first!

  Rick Riordan

  Son, Fists, Firsts

  27 Copy quote