Quotes About Competition

Pick one tree; describe it, if you will, in terms of what it destroys, what it defies, and what it does not accomplish, and you have a monster of greedy roots and irresistible momentum that eats the light of other plants, their nutrients, their air. But that is not the truth of the tree. That is not the whole truth when the thing is seen as part of nature, and by nature I mean nothing sacred, I mean only the full tapestry, Akasha. I mean only the larger thing which embraces all.

You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don't know each other very well.

Betrayal was the name of the game—to get what he'd have, to use every weapon in his arsenal

Did you ever think how conceited those Oriental rug weavers are, to believe they have to try and make a mistake so as not to compete with God? Like they would have done it perfectly otherwise, if they hadn't forced themselves to mess it up?

Red grabbed the receiver at the very same instant that Abby flung herself across him to grab it herself. He had it first, but there was a little tussle and somehow she was the one who ended up with it.

Evolution loves death more than it loves you or me. This is easy to write, easy to read, and hard to believe... Are my values then so diametrically opposed to those that nature preserves? This is the key point.

And here in America rival newspapermen attack each other on sight?

At fist he didn't say anything more, and we had a little staring contest there in the darkness. but I liked staring at him, and I won.

He wanted to show the world that nobody can win against him, no matter what cards they hold. Proving that he could throw me away was just as important as taking the ruins.

mass production. Instead of making things only when people needed them, like holes in the wall did, Rusty factories had churned out vast quantities of stuff—the whole world in a giant competition to use up resources as quickly as possible.

People only rooted for the underdog in movies, not in middle school.

The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America's ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of war. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn't acting competitively—that should be encouraged—but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group.

I guess they've become so cynical that they expect to be cheated. These modern companies have things rigged to their advantage.

treasure what it means to do a day's work. It's our one and only chance to do something productive today, and it's certainly not available to someone merely because he is the high bidder. A day's work is your chance to do art, to create a gift, to do something that matters. As your work gets better and your art becomes more important, competition for your gifts will increase and you'll discover that you can be choosier about whom you give them to.

The problem with competition is that it takes away the requirement to set your own path, to invent your own method, to find a new way.

In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.

Finding security in mediocrity is an exhausting process. You can work only so many hours, fret only so much. Being a slightly better typist or a slightly faster coder is insufficient. You're always looking over your shoulder, always trying to be a little less mediocre than the guy next to you. It wears you out.

The number one thing to steal from your competitors: Wisdom.

As it becomes easier to monitor informal consumer networks, the winners will be companies that figure out what's working fastest – and do it more (and figure out what's not working – and kill it). Zara, a fast-growing retailer in Europe, changes its clothing line every three or four weeks. By carefully watching what's working and what's not, they can evolve their lineup far faster than the competition can ever hope to.

In a competitive world, adversity is your ally. The harder it gets, the better chance you have of insulating yourself from the competition. If that adversity also causes you to quit, though, it's all for nothing.

the more crowded the marketplace, the busier your customers, the more you need the Purple Cow. Half-measures will fail. Overhauling the product with dramatic improvements in things the right customers care about, on the other hand, can have a huge payoff.

It's Almost Impossible to Overinvest in Becoming the Market Leader.

most competitors quit long before they've created something that makes it to the top.

As a result, the rewards for being first are enormous. It's not a linear scale. It's not a matter of getting a little more after giving a little more. It's a curve, and a steep one.