Quotes About Proficiency

Those having the most time to devote to a line of endeavor usually become the most proficient.

No man fully capable of his own language ever masters another.

When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but, at the same time, he loses the general faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. His every day becomes more of adroit and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that, in proportion as the workman improves, the man is degraded. Alexis de Tocqueville

The technocrats saw expertise as the only measure of a person.

Nobody can claim himself to be practically proficient in a science and yet disdain its theory without revealing himself to be an ignoramus in his area.

When one begins by expressing lack of competence in a given field, it usually implies that a flat opinion in that field will follow almost immediately

A good Technician was rarely wrong. A top Technician was never wrong.

I want to be active. I want to be able to show everything I can do. I can blitz. I can cover. I can play zone and play man. I can do it all.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.

The trouble with specialists is that they tend to think in grooves.

'What would you call the highest happiness?' Wratislaw was asked. 'The sense of competence,' was the answer, given without hesitation.

It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious.

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.

The best actors do not let the wheels show.

I think one reason we admire cats, those of us who do, is their proficiency in one-upmanship. They always seem to come out on top, no matter what they are doing - or pretend they do. Rarely do you see a cat discomfited. They have no conscience, and they never regret. Maybe we secretly envy them.

Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; and those who can do neither, administer.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Did nothing in particular, and did it very well.

I'd try to become known as a world expert on 'something,' to take a small niche you can define.

I'm getting to be a real pro at coming into things midstream and trying to catch up.

I've been playing the bass guitar for almost twelve years and fretless for about nine, so I've got quite a bit of mileage in my hands already.

Once you've been doing anything for twenty-five years people start to notice you.

You should not have a favourite weapon. To become over-familiar with one weapon is as much a fault as not knowing it sufficiently well.