Complacency is a rigid illusion nursed by those who embrace mediocrity as a way of their life. A dangerous disguise, it also deprives people of opportunities and brings growth to a standstill. In this Quotabulary post, we share with you 30 quotes and sayings by some great people from different walks of life who realized the ruinous nature of complacency and decided to break-free from its shackles.
“We have a normal. As you move outside of your comfort zone, what was once the unknown and frightening becomes your new normal.“
– Robin Sharma
Is having a goal and bringing it to fruition the only path to success? Once you succeed at achieving your goal, should you not challenge yourself with something new? We often fall into the trap of complacency once we reach our target, almost forgetting that true success lies in striving forever and not settling into a comfort zone.
Complacency stagnates our growth, deadens our vision, and stifles our creativity, it robs us from new opportunities and makes us averse to risk-taking. The only way to break ourselves free from the bonds of complacency is by challenging ourselves. Whether in a relationship or job, tell yourself that you can do better than where you find yourself today; never allow your heart from desiring and always surround yourself with people who will inspire you to push the envelop.
❝The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little; not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities.❞
― Benjamin E. Mays
❝Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.❞
― Andy Grove
❝I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.❞
― Trent Reznor
❝You need to have a redesign because familiarity breeds a kind of complacency.❞
― Timothy White
❝The biggest mistake to me is complacency.❞
― Bonnie Hammer
❝The great menace to the life of an industry is industrial self-complacency.❞
― Joyce Carol Oates
❝Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple.❞
― Charles Lamb
❝Don’t let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else does, the truth – don’t let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.❞
― Aesop
❝To take the measure of oneself by reference to one’s colleagues leads to envy or complacency rather than constructive self-examination.❞
― Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.
❝I don’t want to let my guard down and feel too comfortable. If you become complacent, you start feeling entitled. I’m ready to go dig ditches if I have to. Whatever I gotta do to provide for my family. Whatever I gotta do to make sure that I do the best possible job at whatever wonderful opportunities I’ve been handed.❞
― Mark Wahlberg
❝I think it’s dangerous to think that you’re successful, because then you become complacent.❞
― Tommy Hilfiger
❝”Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds — a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents. In 1953, excess is always a comfort, and sometimes a career.”❞
― Albert Camus
❝Humility was considered a great virtue in my family household. No show of complacency or self-satisfaction was ever tolerated. Patting yourself on the back was definitely not encouraged, and pleasure or pride would be punishable by death.❞
― Hugh Laurie
❝I hate to see complacency prevail in our lives when it’s so directly contrary to the teaching of Christ.❞
― Jimmy Carter
❝I didn’t want to settle or become complacent after winning a major, I wanted to stay hungry. It’s easy to do. It’s easy to win a big tournament and kind of get a little lazy, so it’s been a good motivator for me to work a little harder.❞
― Webb Simpson
❝Complacency is a blight that saps energy, dulls attitudes, and causes a drain in the brain. The first symptom is satisfaction with things as they are. The second is rejection of things it as they might be. “Good enough” becomes days today’s watchword and tomorrow standard.❞
― Alex and Brett Harris
❝Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.❞
― Franz Kafka
❝I hate complacency. I play every gig as if it could be my last, then I enjoy it more than ever.❞
― Nigel Kennedy
❝Photography can be a deceitful, superficial medium that leads us into believing something even though we know it’s not necessarily true. It lulls us into a false sense of complacency.❞
― Alison Jackson
❝Listen to Mr. Complacency long enough and he’ll convince you that what you really, really need is a nap.❞
― Alex and Brett Harris
❝The danger for any artist whose work is both recognizable and critically acclaimed is complacent repetition – the temptation to churn out easily identifiable, eagerly welcomed, and readily salable designs.❞
― Martin Filler
❝Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.❞
― A.W. Tozer
❝You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don’t, if you walk out onstage complacent, that’s not a good thing.❞
― Joan Jett
❝History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.❞
― Gerald R. Ford
❝Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.❞
― Nancy Pearcey
❝If we sit by and become complacent and put our heads in the sand, we’re complicit.❞
― Shelley Morrison