Competent Quotes

• A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Sad, Jealousy, Knowledge

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Time Enough for Love”, p.236, Penguin

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• Because of the nature of Moore's law, anything that an extremely clever graphics programmer can do at one point can be replicated by a merely competent programmer some number of years later.

  John Carmack

  Clever, Years, Law

  GameSpy.com Interview with Tom Ham, January 2004.

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• Housework is the only activity at which men are allowed to be consistently inept because they are thought to be so competent at everything else.

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin

  Men, Activity, Consistently

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin (1983). “Family politics: love and power on an intimate frontier”, McGraw-Hill Companies

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• I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.

  Billy Joel

  Birthday, Insecurity, Age

  33 Copy quote

• All highly competent people continually search for ways to keep learning, growing, and improving. They do that by asking WHY. After all, the person who knows HOW will always have a job, but the person who knows WHY will always be the boss.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Jobs, Asking Why, People

  114 Copy quote

• There is no reason to believe that the people who staff the managerial and professional positions in our service institutions are any less qualified, any less competent or honest, or any less hard-working than the men who manage businesses. Conversely, there is no reason to believe that business managers, put in control of service institutions, would do better than the 'bureaucrats'. Indeed, we know that they immediately become bureaucrats themselves.

  Peter Drucker

  Believe, Hard Work, Men

  7 Copy quote

• Competence, like truth, beauty, and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

  Laurence J. Peter

  Beauty, Truth, Work

  Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull (1969). “The Peter Principle”

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• ...revolutions are not won by enlisting the masses. Revolution is a science for the few who are competent to practice it. It depends on correct organisation and above all, on communications.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Communication, Practice, Revolution

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• You cannot trust Jesus in areas in which you don't think him competent.

  Dallas Willard

  Jesus, Thinking, Areas

  55 Copy quote

• Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give.

  T. S. Eliot

  Communication, Simple, Reality

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• If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Humble, People, Would Be

  John Maynard Keynes (1952). “Essays in Persuasion”

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• There are actors who can pull of a writer's lines; I am not competent enough to do that.

  Salman Khan

  Actors, Lines, Enough

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• It is by now beyond question that Elton John is a competent and classy entertainer. Few people who have achieved his popularity have succeeded in maintaining his standards for performance and professionalism.

  Jon Landau

  People, Maintaining, Professionalism

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• The Faces do not, as some have recently alleged, play badly. They are more than competent, especially at creating a mid-Sixties Rolling Stones-styled groove, as their excellent version of 'Memphis' proves.

  Jon Landau

  Play, Creating, Rolling

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• Justice Ginsburg is a very competent justice, and it is a joy to have her on the court, but particularly for me it is a pleasure to have a second woman on the court.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Justice, Joy, Insecurity

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• What I'm really addicted to is getting people to understand that if their kids aren't competent readers coming out of middle school, it's really going to be hard for them in high school.

  James Patterson

  School, Kids, People

  "Surviving Summer Camp In James Patterson's 'Middle School'". "Weekend Edition Saturday" with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. June 22, 2013.

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• Whenever serious and competent people need to get things done in the real world, all considerations of tradition and protocol fly out the window.

  Neal Stephenson

  Real, People, Needs

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• It has long been apparent that many people in the media don't believe you're competent to make your own decisions.

  Harry Browne

  Believe, Media, Long

  24 Copy quote

• I am constitutionally competent to contest the elections.

  Benazir Bhutto

  Election, Contests

  Interview With Zahid Hussain, newslinemagazine.com. July 2002.

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• When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.

  Tommy Shaw

  Rights, Insecurity, Labels

  Interview with A-J Charron, www.guitarnoise.com.

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• I have seen good nurses and bad nurses. They existed along a continuum: from hard-working, kind and competent people, to office-hugging, bone-idle types, to apathetic, disengaged automatons.

  Jo Brand

  Hard Work, Nurse, People

  8 Copy quote

• Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole.

  Ralph Nader

  Law, Innocent Person, Perfect

  "Meet the Press" Interview, June 25, 2000.

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• We can teach a lot of things, but if the teacher can't relate by talking to a group of friendly students, he'll never be a competent teacher.

  William Glasser

  Teacher, Retirement, Talking

  37 Copy quote

• There must be only three supreme values which govern a person's life: Reason, Purpose, and Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge--Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve--Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. These three values imply and require all of man's virtues, and all his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride.

  Ayn Rand

  Honesty, Integrity, Self Esteem

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• A fair trial is one in which the rules of evidence are honored, the accused has competent counsel, and the judge enforces the proper courtroom procedures - a trial in which every assumption can be challenged.

  Harry Browne

  Judging, Trials, Assumption

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