Social Comparison Quotes & Sayings

Social networks are so full of wasted time - they could be compared to a waste disposal system. Flush, before you go and waste no time to go. — Will Advise

There has been among us, particularly in America, an adolescent competitiveness - a feeling that life is a race in which the victory of one must mean the defeat of the other. No one can measure how much personal unhappiness and inner cowardice have come from this immaturity of our social outlook, this childlike comparison, this absurd rivalry in every area of life. As our democracy becomes more mature, men have a chance of growing up and of realizing that every person is needed and has some contribution to make. — Joshua Loth Liebman

Social comparison that leads to unhappiness is the downside of social media. — Michelle Gielan

What we have become accustomed to witnessing is a social illusion that takes precedence due to the fact that the process is so intrusive that it becomes difficult to bear witness to the unobtrusive, which is so subtle in comparison. — Lujan Matus

Judgments of adequacy involve social comparison processes — Albert Bandura

How can you know if a college is prioritizing education and training rather than amenities or a bloated bureaucracy? One way is to look at the quality of the academic and professional resources (the buildings where classes are held, the classrooms themselves, the library, the laboratories, the career center, and so on) in comparison to the social and recreational amenities (the cafeteria, student union, football stadium, fitness center, and so forth). Go on a campus tour and see how the tour guide "sells" the college. — Alex Chediak

[Girls] study under the paralyzing idea that their acquirements cannot be brought into practical use. They may subserve the purposes of promoting individual domestic pleasure and social enjoyment in conversation, but what are they in comparison with the grand stimulation of independence and self- reliance, of the capability of contributing to the comfort and happiness of those whom they love as their own souls? — Sarah Moore Grimke

The sole reason to serve as a Christian is Jesus, yet He is easily lost in the various activities that consume our days. — Dan B. Allender

We can control a function of x, f(x), even if x remains vastly beyond our understanding. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Our Life: There are three types of people , number one, person always looking at survival, for them life is all about living in that short period, anything they will do to survive. Number two, Comparative person, his life is always driven by the environment, social happenings and others. They just see others and try to compete and achieve results and again they start comparing. Number three, Leading person, for them in life there is no comparison, they want to lead/initiate something and they do it for themselves. — Vishnuvarthanan Moorthy

But even if we remain in our own country, Christians and non-Christians are often widely separated from one another by social sub-cultures and lifestyles as well as by different values, beliefs and moral standards. Only an incarnation can span these divides, for an incarnation means entering other people's worlds, their thought-world, and the worlds of their alienation, loneliness and pain. Moreover, the incarnation led to the cross. Jesus first took our flesh, then bore our sin. This was a depth of penetration into our world in order to reach us, in comparison with which our little attempts to reach people seem amateur and shallow. The cross calls us to a much more radical and costly kind of evangelism than most churches have begun to consider, let alone experience. — John R.W. Stott

Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous. — Haile Selassie

In comparison with other men of their time, the Americans were distinguished by the possession of new political and social ideas, which were destined to be the foundation of the American commonwealth. — Albert Bushnell Hart

If we are ever to cope with climate change in any fundamental way, radical solutions on the social side are where we must focus, though. The relative efficiency of the next generation of solar cells is trivial by comparison. — Naomi Klein

Civilizations have always been pyramidal in structure. As one climbs toward the apex of the social edifice, there is increased leisure and increasing opportunity to pursue hapiness. As one climbs, one finds also fewer and fewer people to enjoy this more and more. Invariably, there is a preponderance of the dispossessed. And remember this, no matter how well off the bottom layers of the pyramid might be on an absolute scale, they are always dispossessed in comparison with the apex. — Isaac Asimov

This heated (environmental) debate is fundamentally about numbers. How much energy could each source deliver, at what economic and social cost, and with what risks? But actual numbers are rarely mentioned. In public debates, people just say "Nuclear is a money pit" or "We have a huge amount of wave and wind." The trouble with this sort of language is that it's not sufficient to know that something is huge: we need to know how the one "huge" compares with another "huge," namely our huge energy consumption. To make this comparison, we need numbers, not adjectives. — David Mackay

When you begin to walk your own journey, to have your own unique conversation, you will naturally stop feeling envious of others. Not because you'll realize your desires are different from theirs, but because they are so similar. You'll discover the difference between doing well and pretending to do well, between being happy and pretending to be happy, between healthy relationships and staged ones. You'll see just how many obstacles lie on any path. You'll realize that it takes the same amount of effort to work on building up the quality of the conversations in your life as it does to broadcast to the public, constantly, that those conversations are already perfect. You can either build up the mask or build up the authentic self. And you, brave and beautiful you, will make the right choice eventually. Be it now or on your deathbed. We all realize soon enough. — Vironika Tugaleva

Happiness is no longer a stroke of good luck, a moment of splendor wrung from the monotony of the everyday, it is our condition, our destiny. when the desirable becomes possible, it is immediately integrated into the category of the necessary. What used to be edenic is now ordinary. Social status is no longer determined soley by wealth or power, but also by appearance: it is not enough to be rich, you also have to look good, and this produces a new kind of discrimination and invidious comparison that is no less severe. There is a whole ethic of seeming to feel good about oneself that governs us and is supported by the smiling intoxication of advertising and merchandise. — Pascal Bruckner

I hate that phrase "the real world." Why is an aircraft factory more real than a university? Is it? — Richard Hugo

Comparative appraisals of efficacy require not only evaluation of one;s own performances but also knowledge of how others do, cognizance of nonability determinants of their performances, and some understanding that it is others, like oneself, who provide the most informative social criterion for comparison — Albert Bandura

Shane Warne's idea of a balanced diet is a cheeseburger in each hand — Ian Healy

People are much more likely to act on their self-percepts of efficacy inferred from many sources of information rather than rely primarily on visceral cues. This is not surprising because self knowledge based on information about one's coping skills, past accomplishments, and social comparison is considerably more indicative of capability than the indefinite stirrings of the viscera — Albert Bandura

Procrastination may be the enemy of productivity, but it can be a resource for creativity. — Adam M. Grant

... it's time for you to start to meet people. Any people. New people. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

By comparison, George W. Bush was light and breezy and apparently forgot during one debate that Social Security was a federal program. In fact, his depth, and his unfamiliarity with the complexities of the issues, to say nothing of the simple declarative sentence, worked remarkably to his advantage. — Charles P. Pierce

Time abides long enough for those who make use of it. — Leonardo Da Vinci

I quit Wall Street and decided that it was time to talk more about what was going on inside it, as it had changed. It had become far more sinister and far more dangerous. — Nomi Prins

Why would I want to go out to dinner and a movie with someone I'm not completely crazy about ... getting someone else involved means I have to put on a nicer outfit and stress out about the way I look chewing my food. If I'm going to have to consider my chewing face, I only want to do it for someone I think I might be able to really like. — Katie Heaney

An honor is not diminished for being shared. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Such knowledge is probably gained in several ways. One process undoubtedly operates through social comparison of success and failure experiences. Children repeatedly observe their own behavior and the attainments of others — Albert Bandura

It's hard to stop people comparing their world with the world they imagine you to have. — Carla H. Krueger

I live in a world where school is in a precarious balance with social life, parties, and sports games. He lives in a world where school is all-consuming, and when his homework isn't, Star Wars and video games are. — Selena Brooks