There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.
—Indian Proverb
And what is the greatest number? Number one.
—David Hume (1711–76) Scottish Philosopher, Historian
How you respond to the challenge in the second half will determine what you become after the game, whether you are a winner or a loser.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
All winning teams are goal-oriented. Teams like these win consistently because everyone connected with them concentrates on specific objectives. They go about their business with blinders on; nothing will distract them from achieving their aims.
—Lou Holtz (1893–1980) American Stage Performer
No wise combatant underestimates their antagonist.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Does anyone believe for one moment that the progress we have made would have been possible under bureaucratic control of any government. This country was founded upon the principle of the regulation of private effort, of making rules for the game, and under that system alone can we look for the same success in the future which has been ours in the past. Our position today is the direct result of the free play among our people of private competitive effort.
—Roger Babson (1875–1967) American Economist
Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
—Lou Brock (1939–2020) American Baseball Player
The medals don’t mean anything and the glory doesn’t last. It’s all about your happiness. The rewards are going to come, but my happiness is just loving the sport and having fun performing.
—Jackie Joyner-Kersee (b.1962) American Athlete
The weakness of an enemy forms part of our own strength.
—Common Proverb
Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves – to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before.
—Stewart B. Johnson
In this game, by trying to win; you automatically lose.
—Ruth Ross
When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.
—Tom Landry (1924–2000) American Sportsperson
Competition is the whetstone of talent.
—Common Proverb
Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.
—Arthur Ashe (1943–93) American Tennis Player
Without the spur of competition we’d loaf out our life.
—Arnold Glasow (1905–98) American Businessman
It is better for a woman to compete impersonally in society, as men do, than to compete for dominance in her own home with her husband, compete with her neighbors for empty status, and so smother her son that he cannot compete at all.
—Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American Feminist Author, Lecturer
After the game the King and pawn go into the same box.
—Italian Proverb
The price which society pays for the law of competition, like the price it pays for cheap comforts and luxuries, is great; but the advantages of this law are also greater still than its cost—for it is to this law that we owe our wonderful material development, which brings improved conditions in its train. But, whether the law be benign or not, we must say of it: It is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
Competitions are for horse, not artist.
—Bela Bartok (1881–1945) Hungarian Composer, Ethnomusicologist
There is a tendency among some businesses to criticize and belittle their competitors. This is a bad procedure. Praise them. Learn from them. There are times when you can co-operate with them to their advantage and to yours! Speak well of them and they will speak well of you. You can’t destroy good ideas. Take advantage of them.
—George Matthew Adams (1878–1962) American Columnist, Journalist
Our life is not really a mutual helpfulness; but rather, it’s fair competition cloaked under due laws of war; it’s a mutual hostility.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
Someone will always be getting richer faster than you. This is not a tragedy.
—Charlie Munger (b.1924) American Investor, Philanthropist
You find that you have peace of mind and can enjoy yourself, get more sleep, and rest when you know that it was a one hundred percent effort that you gave—win or lose.
—Gordie Howe (1928–2016) Canadian Ice-Hockey Player
Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one.
—Bob Knight (b.1940) American Basketball Coach
A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too… But first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or not, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and wine at your will. Then, in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, to be severely thrashed, and after all of these things, to be defeated.
—Epictetus (55–135) Ancient Greek Philosopher
By competition the total amount of supply is increased, and by increase of the supply a competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.
—Henry Clay (1777–1852) American Politician
A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength; and this weakness gives strength to your opponents.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
You must play boldly to win.
—Arnold Palmer (b.1929) American Sportsperson
So long as the system of competition in the production and exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on; and if that system is to last for ever, then art is doomed, and will surely die; that is to say, civilization will die.
—William Morris (1834–96) British Designer, Craftsman, Poet, Writer
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place.
—Vince Lombardi, Jr. (1913–70) American Football Player, Coach
Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
Most games are lost, not won.
—Casey Stengel (1890–1975) American Sportsperson
When you step onto that field, you cannot concede a thing.
—Gale Sayers (1943–2020) American Football Player
The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation.
—Charles Cooley (1864–1929) American Sociologist
One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion.
—Anatol Rapoport (1911–2007) Russian-born American Mathematical Psychologist
You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go… Don’t ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
—Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (b.1947) American Basketball Player, Author, Actor
Even after you’ve just won the Super Bowl—especially after you’ve just won the Super Bowl—there’s always next year. If Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing, then the only thing is nothing—emptiness, the nightmare of life without ultimate meaning.
—Tom Landry (1924–2000) American Sportsperson
If you make every game a life and death proposition, you’re going to have problems. For one thing, you’ll be dead a lot.
—Dean Smith (1931–2015) American Basketball Coach
You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
—Napoleon I (1769–1821) Emperor of France
Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath.
—Wilt Chamberlain (1936–99) American Basketball Player
Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
—Arthur Ashe (1943–93) American Tennis Player
We want to be first; not first if, not first but; but first!
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.
—Indira Gandhi (1917–84) Indian Head of State
Men often compete with one another until the day they die; comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.
—Edward Hoagland (b.1932) American Essayist, Novelist
Adversaries in law strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
—Wendell Berry (b.1934) American Poet, Novelist, Environmentalist