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Comparison, a great teacher once told me, is the cardinal sin of modern life. It traps us in a game that we can't win. Once we define ourselves in terms of others, we lose the freedom to shape our own lives.

James C. Collins

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James C. Collins
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: January 25
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Comparison
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More quotes by James C. Collins

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Just because a company falls doesn't invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.
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A great company will have many once-in-a-liftetime opportunities.
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You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time, have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
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Growth! is not a Hedgehog Concept. Rather, if you have the right Hedgehog Concept and make decisions relentlessly consistent with it, you will create such momentum that your main problem will not be how to grow, but how not to grow too fast.
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Discipline should amplify creativity rather than stifle it.
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I see the Baldrige process as a powerful set of mechanisms for disciplined people engaged in disciplined thought and taking disciplined action to create great organizations that produce exceptional results.
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Most people will look back and realize they did not have a great life because it's just so easy to settle for a good life.
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Profit is like oxygen, food, water, and blood for the body they are not the point of life, but without them, there is no life.
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Indeed, the real question is not, Why greatness? but What work makes you feel compelled to try to create greatness? if you have to ask the question, Why should we try to make it great? Isn't success enough? then you're probably int he wrong line of work.
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There is a sense of exhilaration that comes from facing head-on the hard truths and saying, We will never give up. We will never capitulate. It might take a long time, but we will find a way to prevail.
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The only way to remain great is to keep on applying the fundamental principles that made you great.
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If you have a charismatic cause you don't need to be a charismatic leader.
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Good is the enemy of great. And that's one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
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An organization is not truly great, if it cannot be great without you.
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We must reject the idea... Well-intentioned, but dead wrong... That the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is to become more like a business. Most businesses... Like most of anything else in life... Fall somewhere between mediocre and good.
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Good is the enemy of great.. The vast majority of good companies remain just that - good, but not great.
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The only way to deliver to the people who are achieving is to not burden them with the people who are not achieving.
James C. Collins
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Those fortunate enough to find or create a practical intersection of the three circles have the basis for a great work life.
James C. Collins
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The people who don't have a great life are the ones who settle for a good one.
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By definition, it is not possible to everyone to be above the average.
James C. Collins