Competence Quotes

“It's easy to run to others. It's so hard to stand on one's own record. You can fake virtue for an audience. You can't fake it in your own eyes. Your ego is your strictest judge. They run from it. They spend their lives running. It's easier to donate a few thousand to charity and think oneself noble than to base self-respect on personal standards of personal achievement. It's simple to seek substitutes for competence--such easy substitutes: love, charm, kindness, charity. But there is no substitute for competence.”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

“Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.

That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind...”
― Immanuel Kant, An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
― Peter Drucker

“He can occasionally see to an enemy," she conceded. "If he manages to get his sword pointed in the right direction and the enemy does him the favor of falling upon it in precisely the right way.”
― Lynn Kurland, Star of the Morning

“So many people can now write competent stories that the short story is in danger of dying of competence.”
― Flannery O'Connor

“I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.”
― Billy Joel

“My weakness has always been to prefer the large intention of an unskilful artist to the trivial intention of an accomplished one: in other words, I am more interested in the high ideas of a feeble executant than in the high execution of a feeble thinker.”
― Thomas Hardy

“it is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didnt”
― Martin Van Buren

“They all have excellent resumes... So what I’m trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure.”
― Hyman G. Rickover

“Kevyn, I'm promoting you from Tech Sergeant to Munitions Commander. I want you to take responsibility for all Company weapons.

Munitions Commander? Why me?

I don't know. Call it "suspicion of extreme competence" on my part.
-Captain Tagon & Commander Kevyn Andreyasn”
― Howard Tayler, The Tub of Happiness

“Pride in office without competence is as much a sin as competence without confidence.”
― Peter Tremayne, Shroud for the Archbishop

“I have rare moments of competence.”
― Peter V. Brett, The Desert Spear

“Experts were once amateurs who kept practicing.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Good luck belongs to those who know how and are not afraid." John Hay to President Theodore Roosevelt”
― John Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes : The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt

“Skills make dreams happen. They build economies. They make people rich and famous. In today’s world, the demands for skills are staggering. Government, business and individuals have too much to achieve, their goals are huge. They are constantly, and I do mean constantly, looking for people with the right skills. People that can get the job done.”
― Emi Iyalla

“...she had always looked for sparks of competence, like a diamond prospector in an unpromising wasteland.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“Fear is your friend, your sous chef, your co-pilot -- embrace it!”
― Jennifer Guttman

“Based on your perceived level of competence, people will make a determination as to whether you are worthy of following or not.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr, Business Leadership: The Key Elements

“In his last book, in 2005, Masterson does touch upon a variation of the abandonment depression in ’the three primary cornerstones of character work.’ For the borderline, a sense of abandonment arises from a question of ’competence’; for the narcissist, ’painful vulnerability’ rests on a sense of deep imperfection; and for the schizoid, there is ’danger’ in the possibility of not being able to make any connection at all.”
― Candace Orcutt, The Unanswered Self: The Masterson Approach to the Healing of Personality Disorder

“You own skills, your capabilities, your expertise, your values, your behaviors, your personal energy, your time, your loyalty.
You’re the owner of this human capital, and you decide when, how, and where to invest it. You hold the key to value creation.”
― Benjamin Kofi Quansah

“Be fair; No cultural/ technological transformation happens overnight, it should be accepted that a company digital future can crawl at first, then walk a little bit until it builds its marathon competence to run & with some luck disrupt!”
― Sally El-Akkad

“It is not only about Tech.. It is also about imagination!”
― Sally El-Akkad

“The more skill it takes to accomplish a task, the more difficult it is to comprehend the knowledge needed to deal with it, the more likely it is that someone incompetent will perform it.”
― Luigina Sgarro

“Every decision is ultimately a guess, some better than others.”
― Jennifer Guttman, Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction

“If we knew what we do not know, then we most probably would not fear it.”
― Jennifer Guttman, Beyond Happiness: The 6 Secrets of Lifetime Satisfaction

“There is no set time for a skill to be attained. Each skill is required uniquely at a certain time and from each person.”
― Mitta Xinindlu

“In his book "Being Mortal", the surgeon Atul Gawande accurately describes the joy that flows from being good at your work. 'You become a doctor for what you imagine to be the satisfaction of the work, and that turns out to be the satisfaction of competence,' Dr. Gawande writes. 'It is a deep satisfaction very much like the one that a carpenter experiences in restoring a fragile antique chest...It comes partly from being helpful to others. But it also comes from being technically skilled and able to solve difficult, intricate problems. Your competence gives you a secure sense of identity.”
― Mary Louise Kelly, It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs

“As a psychologist, I often hear from people with different backgrounds than mine: 'You know, I'm a bit of a psychologist myself'.
I now invariably reply: "When I get home, I turn on the light: I'm a bit of an electrician myself...".”
― Luigina Sgarro