Rivalry

“ That same spirit of rivalry which armed one against the other, princes and nations, led them to vie one with the other in seeking, by every means, greater renown and greater glory for their little states. ”

“ God grant that the noble and generous attempt shall not be in vain! May it hasten the time when the only rivalry between us shall be the peaceful rivalry of progress and the gracious interchange of good. ”

“ They are following their daily avocation,—the only one for which they are equipped,—and following it in a spirit of acute and healthy rivalry. To give to one and not to all is to arouse such a clamorous wail that it seems, on the whole, less stony-hearted to refuse altogether. ”

“ Happily the period of hostile rivalry appears passing away. The history of by-gone centuries is not the history of friends and brethren. We have met in bloody bravery, to exchange hatred for hatred and injury for injury. ”

“ Great rivalry arises as to which village shall be fortunate enough, through its representative, to set the gorgeous canopy on fire, and thereby release the good man's departed spirit and send it straight to heaven without any further transmigration or trouble. ”

“ Each must by this time have attained to a proper estimate of the other; and from that source alone a degree of respect springs up, fit to become the foundation of true friendship.”
“Your theory excludes all notion of a rivalry, sir.”
“Rivalry can exist only between small states or individuals. Great countries have great ambitions, and these are usually above mere rivalries.” ”

“ Oh, rivalry is necessary, you know, to bring out the spirit of boys and girls and make them work. It may be friendly rivalry; but if they were not rivals they would not be anything; might as well not be school girls, or school boys. ”

“ Would that some divine touch of duty could lift us all to the summits of patriotism where the only rivalry would be that of service—the only purpose that of redeeming the land from those who despoil it. ”

“ We can only conjecture dimly what difference holds between a balance and reconciliation of impulses and a mere rivalry or conflict. One difference is that a balance sustains one state of mind, but a conflict two alternating states. ”

“ And the citizens thus employed were conscious, in addition to the common motives of rivalry generally prevalent at all times among men of spirit engaged in the same pursuits, that not only their individual character, but the fame of their nation, was implicated in their labours; and fired by the warm energy of that recollection, they wrought with a glowing heat, with an ardour of enthusiasm that, in repeated instances, burst forth in the brightest blaze of excellence. ”

“ As little actuality as they may have, often as we may forget them, yet here and there they crowd in like shadows between men, like a mist gliding before every word's meaning, which must actually congeal into solid corporeality in order to be called rivalry. ”

“ One is engaged to a handsome iceberg, but that only renders him more interesting in my eyes, rivalry adds so much to the charm of one’s conquests. ”

“ Springing from the natural suggestions of self-defence against the march of a dangerous rivalry, it had the sanction of all British statesmanship for generations, backed by the consenting instinct of the people. ”

“ This rivalry created armies of a prodigious size; it created tools of murder and destruction for warfare on land and sea of such perfection, as could be made possible only by our age of advanced technical development. This rivalry creates a development of the means of destruction that finally leads to self-destruction. ”

“ Rivalry, cultural conflicts, and social organization.—Rivalry is a sublimated form of conflict where the struggle of individuals is subordinated to the welfare of the group. In the rivalry of groups, likewise, conflict or competition is subordinated to the interests of an inclusive group. Rivalry may then be defined as conflict controlled by the group in its interest. A survey of the phenomena of rivalry brings out its rôle as an organizing force in group life. ”

“ More than fifty years ago they had last fought with each other as lads, merely out of a youthful spirit of rivalry, but during the half century succeeding they had never laid hands on each other, except when, as good neighbors and fellow-peasants, they had grasped each other's hand in peace and concord, but even that, with their rather dry and undemonstrative ways, but rarely. ”

“ Such a little principality, placed between two great rival Powers without whose help it could not live, maintains its independence of them both by virtue of their very rivalry, and may become an arbiter, an element of pacification and good understanding, between forces which are only hostile because they either do not know or do not understand each other. ”

“ Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry. ”

“ Introduce a definite system of rivalry into a school or an office, and you release energies never manifested before. There are some to whom this is the main releaser of energy; struggle, competition and victory over another is their stimulus. They can play no game unless there is competition, and the solitary pleasures and satisfactions, like reading, exploring, a row on the river or a walk in the woods, cannot arouse them. Others dislike rivalry or competition; they are too sympathetic to wish victory over another and also they dread to lose. They prefer team play and cooperation. ”

“ A spirit of rivalry and emulation among them grew with increase of power and wealth, and, while acknowledging a single head and pursuing a common object, the keen struggle for pre-eminence kept alive within them the fervor of religious enthusiasm. ”

“ They have been enjoying all the ease and mental tranquillity of carrying on a close business. They should now confront the rivalry of the whole country and the whole world, and come off victors in the contest, or quietly retire out of sight. ”

“ CONSEQUENCES.—THE MACREADY CONTROVERSY AND RIOT.
Few persons have any adequate idea of the prevalence, the force, the subtile windings of envy and jealousy among men, especially among those classes into whose life the principle of rivalry directly enters. The more patiently and profoundly any one studies the workings of these passions in his own soul, the larger will be his estimate of the part they play in society. ”

“ A useful rivalry commenced between the metropolis on the one hand, the residence, independently of the court and nobles, of the most active and stirring spirits who had not been regularly educated, or who, from mischance or otherwise, had forsaken the beaten track of preferment,—and the universities on the other. ”

“ From this custom arise diversity of interests, and a mutual spirit of rivalry and antagonism, the more intense in that marriage, absolutely forbidden to the one and equally obligatory upon the other, interposes an impassable barrier between the two bodies. ”

“ I don’t pretend to tell you that in our days of monarchy there were neither jealousies nor party grudges, and that men were above all small and ungenerous rivalry; but, assuredly, we had less of them than now. If the field of competition is more open to every one, so are the arts by which success is won; a preeminence in a republic means always the ruin of a rival If we fail, as fail we must, he’ll be a general.’
‘But why must we fail?’
‘For every reason; we are not in force; we know nothing of what we are about to attack ”

“ We may be rivals in many material paths, but our rivalry should be generous and open, ever aiming toward the attainment of larger results and the mutually beneficial advancement of each in the line of its especial adaptabilities. ”

“ May we not hope that a period of calm reflection will eradicate these petty but pernicious feelings of rivalry, which tend only to retard and place a stumbling block in the way of those who are struggling forward in their Christian course? ”

“ The rivalry among the more powerful cantons not only set these at variance, but spread into every dependent clan, into every village, often indeed into every house, for each individual chose his side according to his personal relations. ”

“ And there being no rule nor law by which a solution may be obtained of the things which are called in question, but, as in other matters, this ambitious rivalry running out into excess, there is nothing to which it does not cause damage and injury. ”

“ I mean by rivalry a competitive striving urged on by the desire to win. It resembles conformity in that the impelling idea is usually a sense of what other people are doing and thinking, and especially of what they are thinking of us: it differs from it chiefly in being more aggressive. Conformity aims 275to keep up with the procession, rivalry to get ahead of it. ”

“ Many of these strivings seem almost wholly individual, but most of them on careful analysis turn out to be intimately related to group competition. A third form, rivalry, describes struggle for status, for social prestige, for the approval of inclusive publics which form the spectators for such contests. The nation is an arena of competition and rivalry. ”

“ Seeing in their employers their friends, and during war-time their comrades, they vie with each other in proving their devotion to the good cause. There thus sets in among them a generous rivalry as to who shall be nearest their lords in the hour of peril. Such a competition provides many happy openings for sketches of votaries of the sceptre and the crozier outdoing each other in the still-room and the servants’ hall. ”

“ The feeling was also strong that the loss of one's footing in one large army, unless caused by exceptional reasons, fully understood, is a reason against a transfer to another, where, in generous rivalry, all have been striving to merit advanced instead of diminished grades. ”

“ This makes for character and good citizenship. We must not underestimate the value of the enthusiasm which comes from rallying against a common antagonist. When the rivalry is good-natured and every rule of fair play is observed, the effect is wholesome. ”

“ In this rivalry they sometimes give each other lusty blows on the ear, and he who bears the blows most patiently, turning the other cheek to the smiter, acquires the reputation of having most holiness. ”

“ We hear a great deal about the merits of some rival reaping-machines, but we know of nothing that can equal in the force of rivalry those wonderful reaping-machines—a barrister's tongue, and a physician's finger and thumb ”

“ If the vast "cottages," which raise their heads higher and higher in foolish rivalry, were swept away, no harm would be done. They are there by accident, and they will last only so long as a wayward fashion tolerates their presence. ”

“ And there is that of the larger, which is esteemed the more practical party, of those who are persuaded that the present state of rivalry and recurrent irritation is bound to culminate in an armed conflict, which, by definitely reducing one or other of the parties to a position of manifest inferiority, will settle the thing for at least some time, until after a longer or shorter period a state of relative equilibrium is established, and the whole process will be recommenced da capo. ”

“ There is thus nothing morally distinctive about rivalry; it is harmful or beneficent according to the objects and standards with reference to which it acts. All depends upon the particular game in which one takes a hand. ”

“ And there is a sort of diabolical rivalry among these profligates to outdo one another in their zealous use of reproaches and foul words, whereby they put the whole company out of countenance, and those go away victorious who have found the largest store of railings and the greatest indecencies to throw at their neighbors. ”

“ Hence, as long as their interests are identical, they are friends. But when these begin to clash, first comes rivalry, and then a dissolution of their friendship. Sometimes they turn round and become bitter enemies, even of their own brothers and near relatives. ”

“ Even in the temporary truces of sanguinary wars, the warriors who had recently striven together in the deadly conflicts of the field, laid aside their animosity, met at tournaments, jousts, and other military festivities, and exchanged the courtesies of gentle and generous spirits. Thus the opposite races became frequently mingled together in peaceful intercourse, or if any rivalry took place, it was in those high courtesies and nobler acts which bespeak the accomplished cavalier. Warriors of opposite creeds [Pg 521] became ambitious of transcending each other in magnanimity as well as valor. ”

“ When two gentlemen compete for the favour of a lady, and the one succeeds and the other is rejected, and (as will sometimes happen) matter damaging to the successful rival’s credit reaches the ear of the defeated, it is held by plain men of no pretensions that his mouth is, in the circumstance, almost necessarily closed. Your Church and Damien’s were in Hawaii upon a rivalry to do well: to help, to edify, to set divine examples. ”

“ It has been said that this serves to create rivalry and emulation in the people of the different civilised nations, by placing their industries in contact with each other, to be judged by special men named for the purpose to give them their merited reward. ”

“ Competition among men, on the other hand, has been very largely converted into rivalry and conflict. The effect of conflict has been to extend progressively the area of control and to modify and limit the struggle for existence within these areas. The effect of war has been, on the whole, to extend the area over which there is peace. Competition has been restricted by custom, tradition, and law, and the struggle for existence has assumed the form of struggle for a livelihood and for status. ”