Being Second Rate Quotes & Sayings

Relativism is the solution of one who is incapable of putting things in order. — Nicolas Gomez Davila

Latin America can no longer tolerate being a haven for United States liberals who cannot make their point at home, an outlet for apostles too "apostolic" to find their vocation as competent professionals within their own community. The hardware salesman threatens to dump second-rate imitations of parishes, schools and catechisms
out-moded even in the United States
all around the continent. The traveling escapist threatens further to confuse a foreign world with his superficial protests, which are not viable even at home. — Ivan Illich

I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate. — John Updike

At Childerstown High School and at college he had never led his class nor taken prizes; but, without being aware that he did, he really blamed this on his failure to work hard, or any harder than he needed to ... What he did not know, what Paul Bonbright, among others, showed him, was that those abilities of his that got him, without distinction but also without much exertion, through all previous lessons and examinations, were not first rate abilities handicapped by laziness, but second rate, by no degree of effort or assiduity to be made the equal of abilities like Bonbright's. — James Gould Cozzens

It's much easier to hire really great people like that in New York and in Brooklyn in particular, than it is in Washington. — David Plotz

Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall — Anonymous

There are a couple of specific things about the show [Into the Badlands]. We didn't want to do a contemporary show, which is always "Chinese cop comes to New York, teams up with racist cop, together they fight crime ... " — Miles Millar

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised. When it is violently, grossly, and cruelly used, it produces a good effect by creating, or at any rate bringing out, the spirit of revolt and individualism that is to kill it. When it is used with a certain amount of kindness, and accompanied by prizes and rewards, it is dreadfully demoralising. People, in that case, are less conscious of the horrible pressure that is being put on them, and so go through their lives in a sort of coarse comfort, like petted animals, without ever realising that they are probably thinking other people's thoughts, living by other people's standards, wearing practically what one may call other people's second-hand clothes, and never being themselves for a single moment. — Oscar Wilde

One of my goals as a professor of English is to teach students to recognize and think critically about what makes something art. — Andrew Hoberek

If we try to emulate the leadership style of others we perceive as successful, we end up being second-rate versions of someone else. — Henna Inam

Salutary reminder of the quality of mind that Chaos can steal. The greatest of us, the brightest, the most urbane and learned, can fall prey. — Anonymous

What bizarre planet have I landed on? So Haley settles for a single kiss, and I lose it to the first guy to ask me out, after falling for some crazy theory involving my lucky bracelet? — Talia Vance

Somebody said combat is 99 percent sheer boredom and 1 percent pure terror. They weren't an MP in Iraq. On the roads I was scared all the time. Maybe not pure terror. That's for when the IED actually goes off. But a kind of low-grade terror that mixes with the boredom. So it's 50 percent boredom and 49 percent normal terror, which is a general feeling that you might die at any second and that everybody in this country wants to kill you. Then, of course, there's the 1 percent pure terror, when your heart rate skyrockets and your vision closes in and your hands are white and your body is humming. You can't think. You're just an animal, doing what you've been trained to do. And then you go back to normal terror, and you go back to being a human, and you go back to thinking. — Phil Klay

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship. — Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

You don't need to be a star to be a bright and shining one to that friend in need. — Brian Jett

Not gods, nor men, nor even booksellers have put up with poets' being second-rate. — Horace

Fitz called after him, "We'll see how far you get without me. Enjoy it Aidan, your nosedive to the discount rack, playing second-rate concert halls, being yesterday's news. That's all this will get you
that and your Catswallow trailer park bride." An old temper surged through Aidan, moving angrily at him.
"Aidan, don't!" she shouted.
Grabbing a shoulder, Aidan spun him about, landing a solid punch to his jaw, knocking the record-producing mogul onto the pavement. "Get it straight," he said, jerking his lapel. "She's from New Jersey. — Laura Spinella

At this very moment, ... the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. — Aldous Huxley

American airmen, when they got to the front, mostly flew in borrowed, patched-up planes provided by the Allies, leaving them in the position of being sent into the most dangerous form of combat in modern times with next to no training in generally second-rate surplus planes against vastly more experienced enemies. — Bill Bryson

We must learn to live the African way. It's the only way to live in freedom and with dignity — Thomas Sankara

The meal was breakfast: the subject, utility clothing. 'As for the stuff they're turning out for men nowadays,' said Mr Thwaites bitterly, 'I wouldn't give it to my Valet.'

Mr Thwaites' valet was quite an old friend. An unearthly, flitting presence, whose shape, character, age, and appearance could only be dimly conceived, he had been turning up every now and again ever since Miss Roach had known Mr Thwaites. Mostly he was summoned into being as one from whom all second-rate, shoddy, or inferior articles were withheld. But sometimes things were good enough for Mr Thwaites' valet, but would not do for Mr Thwaites. — Patrick Hamilton

I wonder if it's ok being a second-rate painter. — W. Somerset Maugham