Competence Quotes - Page 8

• If we conducted ourselves as sensibly in good times as we do in hard times, we could all acquire a competence.

  William Feather

  Hard Times, Discipline, Good Times

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• It's instructive to consider the more spectacular and well-known falls from grace of leaders in the public eye... In the main, the issues behind these falls could be grouped under a lack of competence, a lack of support or loyalty from those they sought to lead, and a lack of failure of integrity. Of all these the last is the most egregious, the most fatal. We so much want our leaders to be unfailingly decent that an obvious or perceived flaw in integrity can be the toxin which kills them off.

  Peter Cosgrove

  Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity

  53 Copy quote

• In tribal times, there were the medicine men. In the Middle Ages, there were the priests. Today, there are the lawyers. For every age, a group of bright boys, learned in their trades and jealous of their learning, who blend technical competence with plain and fancy hocus-pocus to make themselves masters of their fellow men. For every age, a pseudo-intellectual autocracy, guarding the tricks of the trade from the uninitiated, and running, after its own pattern, the civilization of its day.

  Fred Rodell

  Running, Jealous, Men

  23 Copy quote

• Dignity and quiet joy in all that we do are the expression of perfect concentration and perfect wisdom.

  Gautama Buddha

  Expression, Perfect, Joy

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• A genuine approach to budget cutting - knowing exactly what you're cutting and why, and with what real-life consequences - is beyond my competence, and probably beyond the competence of any politician in America.

  George Packer

  Real, Cutting, Knowing

  "Ask the Author Live: George Packer on Obama and the Budget". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. April 15, 2011.

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• We cannot expect in the immediate future that all women who seek it will achieve full equality of opportunity. But if women are tostart moving towards that goal, we must believe in ourselves or no one else will believe in us; we must match our aspirations with the competence, courage and determination to succeed.

  Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

  Motivational, Moving On, Success

  30 Copy quote

• One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

  James Thurber

  Loss, Men, Imagination

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

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• The most important thing in terms of your circle of competence is not how large the area of it is, but how well you've defined the perimeter.

  Warren Buffett

  Circles, Important, Term

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• Some aim to be deft, others to be laboriously careful. Neither dexterity nor conscientiousness is enough.

  Chai Lu

  Dexterity, Enough, Aim

  8 Copy quote

• What will matter is not your competence, but your character. What will matter is not how many people you knew but how many will feel a lasting loss when you are gone. What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by who and for what?

  Michael Josephson

  Character, Loss, Long

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• There is one brain organ that is optimised for understanding and articulating logical processes and that is the outer layer of the brain, called the cerebral cortex. Unlike the rest of the brain, this relatively recent evolutionary development is rather flat, only about 0.32 cm (0.12 in) thick and includes a mere 6 million neurons. This elaborately folded organ provides us with what little competence we do possess for understanding what we do and who we do it.

  Ray Kurzweil

  Understanding, Brain, Development

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• When reputable scientists correct flaws in an experiment that produced fantastic results, then fail to get those results when they repeat the test with flaws corrected, they withdraw their original claims. They do not defend them by arguing irrelevantly that the failed replication was successful in some other way, or by making intemperate attacks on whomever dares to criticize their competence.

  Martin Gardner

  Successful, Atheism, Tests

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• That myth--that image of the madonna-mother--has disabled us from knowing that, just as men are more than fathers, women are morethan mothers. It has kept us from hearing their voices when they try to tell us their aspirations . . . kept us from believing that they share with men the desire for achievement, mastery, competence--the desire to do something for themselves.

  Lillian B. Rubin

  Mother, Father, Believe

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• There are a few investment managers, of course, who are very good - though in the short run, it's difficult to determine whether a great record is due to luck or talent. Most advisors, however, are far better at generating high fees than they are at generating high returns. In truth, their core competence is salesmanship. Rather than listen to their siren songs, investors - large and small - should instead read Jack Bogle's The Little Book of Common Sense Investing.

  Warren Buffett

  Running, Song, Book

  20 Copy quote

• Only in the exceptional case, where the integrity and competence of the advisers have been thoroughly demonstrated, should the investor act upon the advice of others without understanding and approving the decision made.

  Benjamin Graham

  Integrity, Decision, Advice

  Benjamin Graham (1959). “The Intelligent Investor: A Book of Practical Counsel”

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• First, we need to focus government on the things that are required of the State. Second, we need to achieve competence in government so that the State delivers on the things it sets out to do.

  Narendra Modi

  Government, Focus, India

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• I don't understand these national awards, because half of those who sit in judgement over Indian films do not... possess the competence to evaluate a film correctly.

  Satyajit Ray

  Motivational, Awards, Judgement

  30 Copy quote

• For many activities, people cannot rely solely on themselves in evaluating their ability level because such judgments require inferences from probabilistic indicants of talent about which they may have limited knowledge. Self-appraisals are, therefore, partly based on the opinions of others who presumably possess evaluative competence

  Albert Bandura

  Self, People, Levels

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• We send our [peacekeepers] off to some disputed zone, full of local intrigue and power blocs and uncertainty and danger, and they are supposed to save lives not with their weapons, but through their competence and their character. And they do it.

  Romeo LeBlanc

  Character, Weapons, Save A Life

  Speech on the occasion of the presentation of the insignia of the Order of Military Merit, February 05, 1997.

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• What an investor needs is the ability to correctly evaluate selected businesses. Note that word “selected”: You don't have to be an expert on every company, or even many. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.

  Warren Buffett

  Circles, Knowing, Important

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• The only way one should buy stocks is if you understand the underlying business. You stay within the circle of competence. You buy businesses you understand.

  Mohnish Pabrai

  Circles, Way, Should

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• I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man; lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and a proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. To such doubtful amulets had my self-respect been pinned, and I faced myself that day with the non-plused apprehension of someone who has come across a vampire and has no crucifix at hand.

  Joan Didion

  Children, Men, Keys

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Sep 10, 2011

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• Most important, [research on affirmative action] has completely failed to show that affirmative action ever closes the academic gap between minorities and whites. And failing in this, affirmative action also fails to help blacks achieve true equality with whites - the ultimate measure of which is parity in skills and individual competence. Without this underlying parity there can never be true equality in employment, income levels, rates of home ownership, educational achievement and the rest.

  Shelby Steele

  Educational, Home, Skills

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• The individual attributes of warmth and competence are often perceived to be negatively correlated. That doesn't mean they actually are, but that's how people perceive the world. So, cruel people, those who gave negative book reviews, for instance, were seen as less likeable but as more intelligent.

  Jeffrey Pfeffer

  Book, Mean, Intelligent

  Source: bobmorris.biz

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• With a profound first-hand knowledge of participants, encompassing linguistic competence, and engaging prose, Padraic Kenney recreates the simultaneously serious and playful currents of East Europe's overthrow of repressive state socialism. What an invaluable guide to the elusive exhilaration that motivated the actors and captivated all of us who followed the transformation with such hope! We can appreciate neither the ebullience of 1989 nor the disappointment with the quotidian reality that followed without understanding Kenney's 'carnival.'

  Charles S. Maier

  Disappointment, Reality, Hands

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