55 Competence Quotes

A man who knew his job as he spent a long time commanding a regiment and who earned great respect from everybody.

Unfortunately, it's possible to be able to do something extremely well that nobody ever wants done.

What keeps you going isn't some fine destination but just the road you're on, and the fact that you know how to drive.

Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.

The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.

Asking 'who ought to be the boss' is like asking 'who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.

About First Landing by Robert Zubrin: Someday I'd like to read a story about competent people on Mars.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

There is small risk a general will be regarded with contempt by those he leads, if, whatever he may have to preach, he shows himself best able to perform.

Harriet Miers isn't qualified to play a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, let alone to be a real one.

'When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent'

The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.

The height of ability consists in a thorough knowledge of the real value of things, and of the genius of the age in which we live.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.

Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

Leadership means that a group, large or small, is willing to entrust authority to a person who has shown judgement, wisdom, personal appeal, and proven competence.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

He was a fairly competent chairman of Housing [on Lambeth Council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, 'What on earth is Councillor Major doing?' I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either.

I went to the White House shortly after tea where I found 'the original gorilla,' about as intelligent as ever. What a specimen to be at the head of our affairs now!

Somewhere in the world is the world's worst doctor. And what's truly terrifying is that someone has an appointment with him tomorrow morning.

On Opening Day, the President doesn't throw out the first ball. He throws it in. If he threw it out, it would land in the parking lot and someone would have to go get it.

And yet somehow the ruling class decayed, lost its ability, its daring, finally even its ruthlessness, until a time came when stuffed shirts... could stand out as men of exceptional talent. As for Baldwin, one could not even dignify him with the name of stuffed shirt. He was simply a hole in the air.

A foreign minister who knew little of foreign affairs and nothing of foreign policy.

I never thought much of Ribbentrop's abilities. As a foreign minister he was lacking in understanding and experience. I was against Hitler's choosing Ribbentrop at the time he did. I wanted Neurath to remain. He was not a strong man, and Hitler could tell him what to do, but he would do it more intelligently and with more finesse than Ribbentrop.

Prentice: My nerves are on edge. Rance: You should consult a qualified psychiatrist. Prentice: I am a qualified psychiatrist. Rance: You're a fool. That isn't quite the same thing. Though, in your case, the two may have much in common.

We wondered why we ever thought there was, during the Cold War, any serious danger of Russia conquering the world when they couldn't even deliver the scenery for The Tempest.

When Elizabeth Blackwell studied medicine and put up her sign in New York, she was regarded as fair game, and was called a 'she doctor.' The college that had admitted her closed its doors afterward against other women; and supposed they were shut out forever. But Dr. Blackwell was a woman of fine intellect, of great personal worth and a level head. How good it was that such a woman was the first doctor! She was well equipped by study at home and abroad, and prepared to contend with prejudice and every opposing thing.

The only thing about masturbation to be ashamed of is doing it badly.

I think of him as well intentioned, poorly informed, high status idiot.

'If he [THH] has a fault it is... that like Caesar, he is ambitious... [it might be said that] cutting up apes is his forte, cutting up men is his foible'

Did you see that eye? I trust that man to do it, but I wouldn't want to serve under him.

You wouldn't hire a clown to fix a leak in the John. So why do you let these hooligans tear down the biz?? Yeeeaaahh!

I've overseen over 150 presidentially declared disasters. I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it.

When all is said, we are ruled by the amateurs and the second-rate. The methods of our departments would bring any private firm to bankruptcy. The methods of Parliament - pardon me - would disgrace any board of directors. Our rulers pretend to buy expert knowledge, but they never pay the price for it that a business man would pay, and if they get it they have not the courage to use it. Where is the inducement for a man of genius to sell his brains to our insipid governors? And yet knowledge is the only power - now as ever. A little mechanical device will wreck your navies. A new chemical combination will upset every rule of war. It is the same with our commerce. One or two minute changes might sink Britain to the level of Ecuador, or give China the key of the world's wealth. And yet we never dream that these things are possible. We think our castles of sand are the ramparts of the universe.

Sex and politics are a lot alike. You don't have to be good at them to enjoy them.

You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.

Having touched Christ's feet is not an excuse for punctuation mistakes.

All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job.

When you meet the president, you ask yourself, 'How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be governor much less president?'

'Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit.'

'I hadn't heard the door open, but the man was on the spot once more. My private belief, as I think I have mentioned before, is that Jeeves doesn't have to open doors. He's like one of those birds in India who bung their astral bodies about--the chaps, I mean, who having gone into thin air in Bombay, reassemble the parts and appear two minutes later in Calcutta. Only some such theory will account for the fact that he's not there one moment and is there the next. He just seems to float from Spot A to Spot B like some form of gas.

People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

Dol Bonner, to her employee Amy Duncan, chapter 2: Bosh. I find a rival - but no, I won't flatter myself that Tecumseh Fox would consider himself a rival of Dol Bonner - I find an eminent detective in your apartment, and that alone is enough, without adding that he is concealed in your bedroom while I am discussing my business with you...

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.

I think women have demonstrated in leadership positions that they're capable of handling very difficult situations.

Keitel, Jodl and Warlimont had never been in the war....Their lack of fighting experience tended to make them underrate practical difficulties, and encourage Hitler to believe that things could be done that were quite impossible...