Good Rival Quotes & Sayings

It is immensely rewarding to work carefully with Shakespeare's language so that the words, the sentences, the wordplay, and the implied stage action all become clear - as readers for the past four centuries have discovered. It may be more pleasurable to attend a good performance of a play - though not everyone has thought so. But the joy of being able to stage one of Shakespeare's plays in one's imagination, to return to passages that continue to yield further meanings (or further questions) the more one reads them - these are pleasures that, for many, rival (or at least augment) those of the performed text, and certainly make it worth considerable effort to "break the code" of Elizabethan poetic drama and let free the remarkable language that makes up a Shakespeare text. — William Shakespeare

I guess what I'm really saying is something obvious - that there's a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we're not supposed to be any good. — Serge Schmemann

While patriotism is often lauded as an unquestionable value, the status of patriotism is a problem for many thoughtful people. It is particularly troublesome for people who care about the common good but are alienated by the all too frequent use of patriotism and patriotic symbols to stifle debate, tarnish the images of rival candidates, or arouse popular support for aggressive military policies. — Stephen Nathanson

Sometimes it is good to lose in a game to make the rival happy; when you see the happiness on the face of your rival, you become the winner of your own game! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. — Leo Tolstoy

How happy is the lot of the mathematician! He is judged solely by his peers, and the standard is so high that no colleague or rival can ever win a reputation he does not deserve. No cashier writes a letter to the press complaining about the incomprehensibility of Modern Mathematics and comparing it unfavorably with the good old days when mathematicians were content to paper irregularly shaped rooms and fill bathtubs without closing the waste pipe. — W. H. Auden

Imitation becomes intensified at the heart of the hostility, but the rivals do all they can to conceal from each other and from themselves the cause of this intensification. Unfortunately, concealment doesn't work. In imitating my rival's desire I give him the impression that he has good reasons to desire what he desires, to possess what he possesses, and so the intensity of his desire keeps increasing. — Rene Girard

But God has the most fun with artists and writers: he inflames them with the desire to rival his own creations, then douses their overheated ambitions with a cold spray from the garden hose of reality. If they persist, he slams them to the ground and tweaks them on the proboscis for good measure. A fortunate few break free and prosper; the others lament the day they didn't become bank clerks. — Rick Bayan

Citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. — Alexander Hamilton

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. — Alexander Hamilton

Trust me, I never underestimate my charm or any of my other magnificent attributes. They work great on women. Alas, men tend to see me as an unwelcome rival. You, he might listen to. You're good at talking people into things."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because I'm perched in the rafters of a cannery, at risk from a man-slaying magical creature, and spending time with a drunk, a gangster, and an assassin at ... what time is it? — Lindsay Buroker

What does it matter if another player, your friend or rival, intended good things and had only your interests at heart, if the effects of his action lead to so much ruin and confusion? It is only natural for people to cover up their actions with all kinds of justifications, always assuming that they have acted out of goodness. You must learn to inwardly laugh each time you hear this and never get caught up in gauging someone's intentions and actions through a set of moral judgments that are really an excuse for the accumulation of power. — Robert Greene

There was one thing unforgivable, like things in the schoolroom so bad that only Mommy could deal with, to set up a rival good to God's. — Evelyn Waugh

So it appears to me, for when he could and should have wielded his pen to praise the virtues of so good a knight, it seems he intentionally passes over them in silence, since historians must and ought to be exact, truthful, and absolutely free of passions, for neither interest, fear, rancor, nor affection should make them deviate from the path of the truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, repository of great deeds, witness to the past, example and adviser to the present, and forewarning to the future. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

The special skill of the politician consists in knowing what passions can be most easily aroused, and how to prevent them, when aroused, from being harmful to himself and his associates ... Moreover, since politicians are divided into rival groups, they aim at similarly dividing the nation, unless they have the good fortune to unite it in war against some other nation. — Bertrand Russell

All lives are difficult; what makes some of them fulfilled as well is the manner in which pains have been met. Every pain is an indistinct signal that something is wrong, which may engender either a good or bad result depending on the sagacity and strength of mind of the sufferer. Anxiety may precipitate panic, or an accurate analysis of what is amiss. A sense of injustice may lead to murder, or to a ground-breaking work of economic theory. Envy may lead to bitterness, or to a decision to compete with a rival and the production of a masterpiece. As — Alain De Botton

What we call "Higher" behavior is elaborated by our abstract mind to ensure survival by an efficient cohesion of our clan.
What we call "lower" behavior is to ensure survival at the expense of a rival, or to prevent the survival of a rival to be at our expense.
So,
Be they our "higher" and "lower" behavior/selves, our humanity and inhumanity, our "Divine" and "diabolic" trends, or any aspect of our Human Nature,
All are created by our abstract mind to ensure survival in an environment of scarcity.

But of course you can always choose to adopt "revelations" which present human nature as:
A messed up image of a messed up supernatural coexistence between two messed up opposite supernatural entities with a messed up relation.

Ultimately, we all think we choose by what we think we know. — Haroutioun Bochnakian

The good is the greatest rival of the best. — Nellie L. McClung

If there is any solace to be found in the carnage of September 11th, may I find it in understanding that the potential to do great good can handily rival the tendency to carry out great evil. And out of that understanding may I commit in my own life to make certain that in such a critical rivalry I will ensure that towers will never fall because of me, but people will be raised up due to me. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Gates should have exceeded Washington as a military leader. He had long experience in a professional army and was more loved by his men. But Washington's character was superior to that of his rival, and it made him a great man, whereas Gates was merely a good soldier. — John Ferling

They might be a good friend, but they are also a bitter commercial rival. Let's not kid ourselves.. The American wheat industry has done everything it possibly can to criticize the Australian wheat industry in order to take the Iraqi wheat market from us. — John Howard

Life creeps slowly upward ... When some forgotten inventor of the older world smote his rival or enemy with a branch of wood and found that it was good and thereafter made a practice of smiting rivals and enemies with branches of wood, then, and on that day, artificiality may be said to have begun. Then, and on that day, was begun a revolution destined to change the history of life. Then, and on that day, was laid the cornerstone of that most tremendous of artifices, CIVILIZATION! — Jack London

What will happen to her now?'
'If she would listen to me, she'd marry me. I've asked her more than once. I asked her again last week, but she won't. You are my rival, Knox, I'm afraid. Good luck to you. If you beat her, I'll put arsenic in your tooth-paste, that's all.'
'What do you mean?' asked George Knox, putting down his cup of tea with a crash.
'What I say. I can't say it again. All this nobility is too much for me. I can be rung up at any time if I'm wanted. Say goodnight to Mrs Morland for me.'
Dr Ford hit Mr Knox on the shoulder and went out of the room — Angela Thirkell

His ministrations were tender, his eyes hooded as he seemed to withhold certain emotions from her. She allowed him his secrets, and took what he gave with a greed that shocked her with its intensity. But he never had to know. He never had to glimpse how deeply she felt for him, or discover the secret she had always suspected and finally admitted to herself.
She loved him.
Completely. Every part of him, good and bad, her friend and lover and partner and rival. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, giving him everything, even though she knew he didn't want her. She crammed the knowledge to a secret place in- side. Then realized she'd take whatever he gave, even though it would never be enough. — Jennifer Probst

Look carefully at any region of the world where you find intractable enmity and violence between rival groups today. I cannot guarantee that you'll find religions as the dominant labels for in-groups and out-groups. But it's a good bet. — Richard Dawkins

A good rival is almost like a friend, isn't she? You make me try harder. — Alaya Dawn Johnson

Sounds like the rival is a good soldier, Cono said. Like the Russians say, a bad soldier is one who doesn't try to become a general. — Victor Robert Lee

Open the old cigar-box ... let me consider anew ... Old friends,
and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing 'o bear the yoke;
And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba ... I hold to my first-sworn vows,
If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse! — Rudyard Kipling

What may I do to get back into your good graces?"
"You've done nothing to offend me."
"Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?"
What?
"You addressed him before you addressed me."
I cleared my throat. "Just to be clear, you're upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?"
"I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges," Arland said. "An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things."
It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt. — Ilona Andrews

Survival in scarcity dictates nastiness with a rival clan, but also dictates goodness towards our own clan whose support is vital to acquire or defend the necessary scarcities.

Man's nastiness or goodness is not his fault or merit;
They both create the vital coping mechanism to his environment of scarcity. — Haroutioun Bochnakian

The actions of bad men produce only temporary evil, the actions of good men only temporary good ; and eventually the good and the evil altogether subside, are neutralized by subsequent generations, absorbed by the incessant movements of future ages. But the discoveries of great men never leave us; they are immortal; they contain those eternal truths which survive the shock of empires, outlive the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay of successive religions. — Henry Thomas Buckle

Of course, ministers look upon theaters as rival attractions, and most of their hatred is born of business views. They think people ought to be driven to church by having all other places closed. In my judgment the theater has done good, while the church has done harm. The drama never has insisted upon burning anybody. Persecution is not born of the stage. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Given is the word. Given publicly, on the first Good Friday, on a hill, in the sight of all, was the visible demonstration of the only permanent way to overcome evil. Human nature demands something more enduring than the unquiet equilibrium of rival powers. — Muriel Lester

Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object [ ... ] If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy. — C.S. Lewis

The community of Partageuse had drifted together like so much dust in a breeze, settling in this spot where two oceans met, because there was fresh water and a natural harbor and good soil. Its port was no rival to Albany, but convenient for locals shipping timber or sandalwood or beef. Little businesses had sprung up and clung on like lichen on a rock face, and the town had accumulated a school, a variety of churches with different hymns and architectures, a good few brick and stone houses and a lot more built of weatherboard and tin. It gradually produced various shops, a town hall, even a Dalgety's stock and station agency. And pubs. Many pubs. — M.L. Stedman

In life, always choose a serious rival even if you know you have no chance to win, because a good rival is always a good teacher! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

She still loved the profession and enjoyed the lives and piece to cameras, but she knew it was all a tad too farcical at times. There were far too many stories they reported and forgot. Far too many conflicts that were once headlines and had captured the imaginations of many now awaited resolution, stale and unwanted as yesterday's tea. It was hard to keep up your spirit when you started realizing it was just a job after all and that a headline did not change someone's destiny. Except maybe the reporter's if she or he was picked up by a rival channel for better pay. So getting into the profession wanting to make a difference and working for the greater good as the journalists of yore had done was certainly not an option anymore. — Shweta Ganesh Kumar

Even before 2007, this half of a small island was the richest football country on earth. In 2005-2006 the Premiership's total revenue was about £1.4bn, 40 per cent more than its nearest rival, Italy's Serie A. That was before take-off. Now foreign television channels are sending so much cash that the Premiership is expected to take in nearly £1.8bn this season. Even the team that finishes bottom of the table (Wigan might be a good bet) will get £26.8m from TV. That's more than all of Argentine or Belgian football put together. — Simon Kuper

The rival you both share is myself. I do not wish to marry ... First, because my past habituated me to loneliness. I had always thought I hated it. And now I have found I treasure it. I do not want to share my life. I wish to be what I am, not what a husband must expect me to become in marriage. My second reason is my present. I never expected to be happy in life. Yet I find myself happy where I am situated now. I have varied congenial work ... I am admitted to the daily conversation of genius. Such men have their faults. Their vices. But they are not those the world chooses to imagine. I have no genius myself, I have no more than the capacity to aid genius in very small and humble ways ... I believe I owe a debt to good fortune. I am not to seek it elsewhere. I am to see it as precarious, as a thing of which I must not allow myself to be bereft. — John Fowles

And they had a fairly pleasant time in Pretoria. Eventually, I believe, wars will be quite bloodless; rival armies will perambulate, and whenever one side has got into a good position, the other will surrender wholesale. — W. Somerset Maugham

I would show her I wasn't a bit of cobweb in the corner, something to be wiped or straightened, but a rival worth her notice. I would learn her ways and habits, and track her closely until I knew what she was and how to best her, and what precisely it would take to steal my good life back. — Paula McLain