Rivalship

“ But in the reverse of this eligible situation, we shall discover, that the rivalships of the parts would make them checks upon each other and would frustrate all the tempting advantages which nature has kindly placed within our reach. ”

“ But Professor James, deaf to social sentimentalities, averred that rivalry is the spur of action, and the impelling force of civilization. "There is a noble and generous kind of rivalry as well as a spiteful and greedy kind," he wrote truthfully, "and the noble and generous form is particularly common in childhood. All games owe the zest which they bring with them to the fact that they are rooted in the emulous passion, yet they are the chief means of training in fairness and magnanimity." ”

“ I cannot bear your horse races and theatres, and this rage for rivalry in expense and party spirit. We unharness, and harness ourselves on the other side, we neigh against each other, we almost beat the air, as they do, and fling the dust towards heaven, like those which are excited; and under other masks satisfy our own rivalry, and become evil arbiters of emulation, and senseless judges of affairs. ”

“ And so the fun goes on, the victor meeting rival after rival, until he disposes of all who are courageous enough to try conclusions with him, or he himself is brought to grief by some one abler or fresher. ”

“ But the shrewd, worldly spy, the supplanted rival, the woman who was guilty of that lowest baseness of wishing to make of a lover the tool of her purposes, all grow better by seeing the action of this noble creature under the crucifixion they have prepared for him; especially the feelings of the rival, who learns from his remorse to understand genius and magnanimity, are admirably depicted. ”

“ There is now prevalent among us a morbid and sickly notion, that emulation, even as honorable rivalry, is a debasing passion, and not to be encouraged. It supposes that the mind should be left without such excitement, in a dreamy and undisturbed state, flowing or not flowing, according to its own impulse, without such aids as are furnished by the rivalry of one with another. ”

“ Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry, of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god of what used to be considered the basest of all vices—the vice of envy—and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this temper of mind cannot be at peace. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For you have a dangerous rival already in the field, and fully prepared, in the extraordinary expectation formed of you; and this rival you will vanquish with the greatest ease, only on one condition—that you make up your mind to put out your full strength in the cultivation of those qualities, by which the noble actions are accomplished, upon the glory of which you have set your heart. ”

“ You become engaged in the noblest of rivalries: in defending your own, you fight for your comrade’s existence. You are assured that the dread of shame, if not emulation, is making him equally wary and alert. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Duty to kings, piety to parents, gratitude to benefactors, and fidelity to friends, are different and particular ties. But the name of rival cuts ’em all asunder, and is a general acquittance. Rival is equal, and love like death an universal leveller of mankind. ”

“ Unquestionably, emulation with one's former self is a noble form of the passion of rivalry, and has a wide scope in the training of the young. But to veto and taboo all possible rivalry of one youth with another, because such rivalry may degenerate into greedy and selfish excess, does seem to savor somewhat of sentimentality, or even of fanaticism. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ And these two forces we may regard as in some sense rivals,—rivals not by the necessity of their own nature, but as exhibited in man and his history,—and rivals dividing the empire of the world between them. ”

“ Such counsels of force are in the court of passion, not of reason. Imagine such a conflict, imagine a victory, no matter by which side. Can the victors rejoice in the blood of brethren shed in a family brawl? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wise rival is he who knows how to seize upon the psychological moment and urge his suit in no faint-hearted manner. Later on there will come the time when every line of the chosen one's countenance, every trick of manner and speech, have entered into the very warp and woof of her love. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. ”

“ I have heard of girls persecuted as I am, who have appealed in behalf of their favoured lover to the generosity of his rival—suppose I were to try it—there stands the hated rival—an officer too!—but oh, how unlike my Beverley! ”

“ The thousand rivalries of our daily business, the fierce animosities when we are beaten, the even fiercer exultation when we have beaten, the crashing blows of disaster, the piercing scream of defeat—these things we have not yet gotten rid of, nor in this life ever will. ”

“ In a little while, vain rivalry will make you blind, embitter your disposition, and deceive you as to the nature of your sentiments—believing yourself seriously in love you will be unable to withdraw. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Apropos of enemies, too, how they can be punished! How a rival can be ignominiously driven here and there, and into all sorts of uncomfortable places—under bushes and behind trees, wired and pegged, and treated in the most cruel manner! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh, how delightful to hear that the long-talked-of rival has declined the contest, and that the course is clear! or to find by a short canvass that one's majority is safe, and the pleasures of crowing over an unlucky, friendless foe quite secured! ”

“ If they entertained a magnificent dislike for one another, it was to be set down to a spirit of commercial rivalry, which, though it might work out good in some instances, was of itself to be deplored, inasmuch as it had nothing in common with that generosity of soul which should rule universal among men of letters. ”

“ Then seeing him about to repeat his bow, I added sharply: "You need not trouble yourself to show me too much politeness. If I meddle in this matter at all it will not be as your coadjutor, but as your rival."
"My rival?"
"Yes, your rival; and rivals are never good friends until one of them is hopelessly defeated."
"Miss Butterworth, I see myself already at your feet." ”

“ Which decision will appear more manly in the eyes of my rival and will win my own esteem to the deeper degree, namely-to accept coolly his offer to cut one another's throats, or to allay his anxiety by withdrawing from the field with dignity? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our rival, unable to compete with us, abandoned the race, and was soon left behind; our people satisfied with this wonderful triumph relaxed in their speed; the ladies recovered from their fears, and one by one crept into their berths. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Successful rivalry requires organization of rival forces;35 the tendency is for a business such as oil, for example, to organize itself into two rival groups, between them covering the world. They might, of course, combine, and they would no doubt increase their wealth if they did so. But combination would take the zest out of life. The object of a football team, one might say, is to kick goals. ”

“ Let us suppose that we be left a race of men only, and, in the interchange of ideas among ourselves, is it not highly probable that long before we became extinct we would have lost the effect of what is oftenest termed the 'refining influence,' and in the competition for each other's possessions an unholy rivalry would soon exist which, in the absence of that better influence, would degrade us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A thousand hindrances arose with increasing force from every side—jealousy, dislike, and even betrayal were secretly prompted by expert agents, who employed every form of pressure, whether threats or promises, besides fanning and casting rival passions and interests into collision. ”

“ Nothing is more striking than the difference, or rather contrast, in the conduct and methods of the rival claimants to this wild but magnificent domain. Each was strong in its own qualities, and utterly wanting in the qualities that marked its opponent. ”