competition quotes

While the law [of competition] may be sometimes hard for theindividual, it isbestfor therace, becauseit insures thesurvival ofthefittest ineverydepartment. Weaccept and welcome, therefore, as conditions towhichwe must accommodate ourselves, great inequality of environment, the concentration of business, industrial and commercial, in the hands of a few, and the law of competition between these, as being not only beneficial, but essential to the future progress of the race.

- Andrew Carnegie
  'The Gospel of  Wealth', in the North  American Review,  Jun.

Thou shalt not covet; but tradition Approves all forms of competition.

- Arthur Hugh Clough
  The Latest Decalogue.

It might have been supposed that competition between expert professionals, possessing judgement and knowledge beyond that of the average private investor, would correct the vagaries of the ignorant individual left to himself. It happens, however, that the energies and skills of the professional investor and speculator are mainly occupied elsewhere. For most of these persons are, in fact, largely concerned, not with making superior long-term forecasts of the probable yield on an investment over its whole life, but with foreseeing changes in the conventional bias of valuation a short time ahead of the general public† This battle of wits to anticipate the basis of conventional valuation a few months hence, rather than the prospective yield of an investment over a long term of years, does not even require gulls amongst the public to feed the maws of the professional; it can be played by professionals amongst themselves.

-John Maynard, 1st Baron Keynes (of Tilton)
  The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.

There are millions to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let thisget around.

- Herman Mankiewicz
Cable toBen Hecht in the earlydays of Hollywood. Quotedin the NewYork Times, 8  Jan1993. US director, producer and writer, brother of Herman. He won an Oscar  for  the  script  of  A  Letter  for Three Wives  (1949)  and  an Oscar for the direction and script of All About Eve (1950).

Like many businessmen of genius he learned that free competition was wasteful, monopoly efficient. And so he simply set about achieving that efficient monopoly.

- Mario Puzo
  The Godfather, bk.3, ch.14.

I don't meet competition. I crush it.

-James B(arrett) Reston
  In Time,16 Jun.

Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.

- David Ricardo
  Principles of Political Economy andTaxation.

Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death.

-John Ruskin
  Unto this Last, essay 3.

Competition brings out the best in products and the worst in people.

- David Sarnoff
Attributed.