Complacent Quotes

• The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Inspirational, Success, Congratulations

  Summing Up (1938) p. 187

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• Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.

  Andy Grove

  Success, Fear, Business

  "Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth". Book by Robert E Litan and William Baumol, p. 228, 2007.

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• The complacent, the self-indulgent, the soft societies are about to be swept away with the debris of history. Only the strong, only the industrious, only the determined, only the courageous, only the visionary who determine the real nature of our struggle can possibly survive.

  John F. Kennedy

  Strong, Real, Struggle

  Address before the American Society of Newspaper Editors at the Statler Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., April 20, 1961.

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• If we sit by and become complacent and put our heads in the sand, we're complicit.

  Shelley Morrison

  Sand, Ifs

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• No one tells you that your life is effectively over when you have a child: that you're never going to draw another complacent breath again... or that whatever level of hypochondria and rage you'd learned to repress and live with is going to seem like the good old days.

  Anne Lamott

  Children, Levels, Life Is

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• People find themselves in ruts all the time. You're in a complacent lifestyle where you work 9 to 5 and then you add a mortgage and kids. You feel trapped, but guess what, brother? You constructed that life. If you're OK with it, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you've got unease, then you've got to make a change.

  Jeremy Renner

  Brother, Kids, People

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• It often seems easier not to move on; even the muck and mire in which we're stuck seems less fearful and less challenging than the unknown path ahead. Some people use faith as a reason to remain stuck. They often say, "I have faith, so I'm waiting." But faith is not complacent; faith is action. You don't have faith and wait. When you have faith, you move. Complacency actually shows lack of faith. When it's time to move in a new direction in order to progress, the right people will come to us.

  Betty Eadie

  Faith, Moving, Order

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• If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is the slogan of the complacent, the arrogant or the scared. It's an excuse for inaction, a call to non-arms.

  Colin Powell

  Arrogant, Arms, Complacency

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• I think the biggest challenge is to continue on the same path. I think it's easy to become complacent from the success you've had.

  Jason Derulo

  Thinking, Challenges, Path

  Interview with Denise Kodia, www.mtv.co.uk. October 4, 2011.

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• It is nice to be around people who think differently than you. They challenge your ideas and keep you from being complacent.

  Tucker Carlson

  Nice, Thinking, Ideas

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• In this new, hyper competitive age, none of us, none of us can afford to be complacent.

  Barack Obama

  Age, Hyper

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• A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

  B. H. Liddell Hart

  Bars, Satisfaction, Pursuit

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• I would rather have one man with enthusiasm working with me than ten who are complacent.

  Thomas A. Edison

  Men, Enthusiasm, Ten

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• Success lulls you. It makes the most ambitious of us complacent and sloppy. In a way, you have to cultivate a kind of amnesia and forget all of your previous prosperity.

  Pat Summitt

  Sports, Ambitious, Way

  Pat Head Summitt (1998). “Reach for the Summit: The Definite Dozen System for Succeeding at Whatever You Do”, Broadway

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• Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

  Camille Paglia

  Past, Rome, Hopeless

  "Welcome to the Revolution: Universalizing Resistance for Social Justice and Democracy in Perilous Times". Book by Charles Derber, p. 12, 2017.

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• I think that companies always become complacent, over time. Or most companies, that is.

  Tim O'Reilly

  Thinking, Company

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• Complacent ignorance is the most lethal sickness of the soul

  Plato

  Ignorance, Soul, Sickness

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• History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Confusion, Progress, Trials

  State of the Union Address, January 19, 1975.

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• This is a formidable enemy. To dismiss it as a bunch of 'cowards' perpetuating 'senseless acts of violence' is complacent nonsense. People willing to kill thousands of innocents while they kill themselves are not cowards. They are deadly vicious warriors and need to be treated as such.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Warrior, People, Enemy

  "This is not crime, this is war" by Charles Krauthammer, townhall.com. September 12, 2001.

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• If people are not safe, they will not make themselves vulnerable. If they feel too comfortable, they can become complacent or lose their curiosity. They can become intellectually lazy about what matters most.

  Erica Brown

  What Matters, People, Lazy

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• After winning, most teams become individuals; most teams become complacent.

  Lou Holtz

  Team, Winning, Individual

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• You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don't, if you walk out onstage complacent, that's not a good thing.

  Joan Jett

  Butterfly, Want, Good Things

  Twitter post from Sep 25, 2013

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• Mom used to quote Isaiah 64: about waiting on the Lord. It doesn't mean being complacent. It means understanding that he has a plan, and that we're not the ones in control. In the meantime, we need to strive to use our gifts and abilities fully.

  Tim Tebow

  Inspirational, Mom, Mean

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• Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.

  Nancy Pearcey

  People, Competition, Mediocrity

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• I'm afraid of being lazy and complacent. I'm afraid of taking myself too seriously.

  Barbara Hershey

  Lazy, Laziness, Being Lazy

  "20 Questions: Barbara Hershey". Playboy Interview with David Rensin, May 1, 1987.

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