Quotes & Sayings About One Upmanship

Interestingly, female kangaroos have three vaginas, but male kangaroos only have a two-pronged penis. It's like they've started a Darwinian game of one-upmanship and the girls are winning. (Fascinating factoid: Kangaroos also drool on themselves to keep cool [because nothing looks cooler than a drooling kangaroo] but that's helpful to know because when you see them drooling at the mouth it doesn't necessarily mean that they have rabies. It just means they're hot [hot referring to their temperature, not sexiness]. If you find drooling kangaroos sexy you probably need help.) I — Jenny Lawson

I know where the Iberian Peninsula is, Iris."
"I know, I know, you probably built the first road or furrowed the first wheat field ever sown there."
"Brat."
"Cradle robber."
"Grave robber. — Molly Harper

I think everyone can recognize the one-upmanship and the competition that go on wherever you are, especially among groups where the women don't have to hold down office jobs and instead get in a total snit about who won the longest carrot contest or took first prize for summer chutney in the August fete. — Rachel Johnson

I do love one-upmanship sometimes, like when you see kids breakdancing and who can do the best tricks. It's common, it's in our nature as animals, like the birds of paradise who've got the best feathers and that sort of stuff. But it's fun when it's impulsive and it's about fun. — Bjork

One of our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, and we had family in Jamestown as well ... I was raised where service was a part of the fabric of life. It wasn't one-upmanship. No one bragged about their medals, but you could see the look in the eyes, the tip of the hat. You served your country first, then you went to work and had a family. — Steve Daines

In the metropolitan haunts of the highly sophisticated, the cocktail is no longer an instrument of friendship but a competitive fashion statement, or one-upmanship. — Barbara Holland

It was a kind of one-upmanship, where nobody knows what's going on, and they'd put the other one down as if they did know. They all fake that they know, and if one student admits for a moment that something is confusing by asking a question, the others take a high-handed attitude, acting as if it's not confusing at all, telling him that he's wasting their time ... All the work they did, intelligent people, but they got themselves into this funny state of mind, this strange kind of self-propagating "education" which is meaningless, utterly meaningless. — Richard Feynman

Many people believe they are faithful to Jesus, and yet they address superficial reproaches to the Gospels. This shows that they remain subject to mimetic rivalries and their violent one-upmanship. If we don't see that the choice is inevitable between the two supreme models, God and the devil, then we have already chosen the devil and his mimetic violence. Our — Rene Girard

Traditional angling is to escape the noise and one-upmanship of modern angling in favour of something simple and beautiful. — Fennel Hudson

Regardless of its causes, thoughtlessly blaming the present is a weakness which, even if it is never outlawed, ought to be resisted. Though commonly flaunted as a sign of sophistication, it can be an opportunity for one-upmanship and an excuse for misanthropy, especially against the young. — Steven Pinker

Quotations have always been supremely effective rhetorical devices, instruments of one-upmanship, ways of supporting any position under the sun with borrowed or stolen authority. — Justin Kaplan

Would there be that subtle one-upmanship like there was between mothers? "It's so stressful having a gifted child." What would be the equivalent for a prison wife? "It's such a strain when your husband is a model prisoner! The others are constantly beating him up! — Liane Moriarty

Rivalistic desires are all the more overwhelming since they reinforce one another. The principle of reciprocal escalation and one-upmanship governs this type of conflict. This phenomenon is so common, so well known to us, and so contrary to our concept of ourselves, thus so humiliating, that we prefer to remove it from consciousness and act as if it did not exist. But all the while we know it does exist. This indifference to the threat of runaway conflict is a luxury that small ancient societies could not afford. — Rene Girard

The human tendency to find their sense of accomplishment within their family, caste, community, region, nation, language and religion will only lead to anarchy for others. In their particular reference framework, this whole quest is about finding one's identity, not eternal peace. The ongoing popular discourse in the world is guided by populist slogans for religion, country and community. It's selfish, misleading and is about one-upmanship. Most often, support is sought for the so called fight for identity in the name of religion and justice. Do — Acharya Balkrishna

Intellectuals seemed to think that their life - the life of the mind, the endless self examination, the continuous autobiography afflicted upon all comers-was somehow higher than the repetitive, meaningless lives of the common people. Virlomi knew the opposite to be true. The intellectuals in the university were all the same. They had precisely the same deep thoughts about exactly the same shallow emotions and trivial dilemmas. They knew this, unconsciously, themselves. When a real event happened, something that shook them to the heart, they withdraw from the game of university life, for reality had to be played out on a different stage.
In the villages, life was about life, not about one-upmanship and display. Smart people were valued because they could solve problems, not because they could speak pleasantly about them. — Orson Scott Card

Happiness needs one-upmanship. — Zygmunt Bauman

By denying people's sense of visual beauty in painting and sculpture , melody in music , meter and rhyme in poetry , plot and narrative and character in fiction , the elite arts wrote off the vast majority of their audience . They purposely excluded people who approach art in part for pleasure and edification in favour of social one-upmanship and an ever-narrowing, in-crowd elite. — Steven Pinker