Rivalries

“What makes great rivalries is when individual or team matchups occur, something's got to be on the line, and usually that's a championship.”

“Manny Pacquiao has a whole country behind him. His journey and his rise, from a career standpoint, he was fortunate to have a lot of great opponents and rivalries for years. People forget about Barrera and Morales and those guys. That's how he built his legacy. Plus he had a country behind him.”

“It wasn't only my friends who suffered from female rivalry. I remember when I was just sixteen years old, during spring vacation, being whisked off to an early lunch by my best friend's brother, only to discover, to my astonishment and hurt, that she was expecting some college boys to drop by and didn't want me there to compete with her. When I started college at Sarah Lawrence, I soon noticed that while some of my classmates were indeed true friends, others seemed to resent that I had a boyfriend. It didn't help that Sarah Lawrence, a former girls' school, included very few straight men among its student body--an early lesson in how competing for items in short supply often brings out the worst in women. In graduate school, the stakes got higher, and the competition got stiffer, a trend that continued when I went on to vie for a limited number of academic jobs. I always had friends and colleagues with whom I could have trusted my life--but I also found women who seemed to view not only me but all other female academics as their rivals. This sense of rivalry became more painful when I divorced my first husband. Many of my friends I depended on for comfort and support suddenly began to view me as a threat. Some took me out to lunch to get the dirt, then dropped me soon after. I think they found it disturbing that I left my unhappy marriage while they were still committed to theirs. For other women, the threat seemed more immediate--twice I was told in no uncertain terms that I had better stay away from someone's husband, despite my protests that I would no more go after a friend's husband than I would stay friends with a woman who went after mine. Thankfully, I also had some true friends who remained loyal and supportive during one of the most difficult times of my life. To this day I trust them implicitly, with the kind of faith you reserve for people who have proved themselves under fire. But I've also never forgotten the shock and disappointment of discovering how quickly those other friendships turned to rivalries.”

“The rivalry between Celtic and Rangers is one of the major rivalries in world football let alone European football.”

“I've been in rivalries. Utah-BYU. Bowling Green-Toledo. Florida, we had three: Florida State, Tennessee and Georgia. You make them personal, but they're not. I didn't grow up disliking Georgia.”

“People often ask CIA Directors what keeps them up at night. Between rogue WMD programs, cyber threats, terrorist organizations, great power rivalries, and other global threats, there's bound to be more than a single reason I'm losing sleep on any given night.”

“I feel like most movies about female friends derive their conflict from an extension of the high school movie rivalries, or there's some petty grievance: a competition over a guy or a wedding date or something. And I don't relate to any of that.”

“For Mr. Putin, vacillation invites aggression. His world is a brutish, cynical place, where power is worshiped, weakness is despised, and all rivalries are zero-sum.”

“This communication alone, by the comparison of the antagonisms, rivalries, movements which give birth to decisive moments, permits the evolution of the soul, whereby a man realizes himself on earth. It is impossible to be concerned with anything else in art.”

“The day of parts of the country hating each other, or rivalries like that... I feel like that's dead.”

“The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.”

“I consider rivalries close games.”

“I had true rivalries. Not only did I want to beat my opponent, but I didn't want to let him up, either. I had a rivalry with Mac, Lendl, Borg. Everybody knew there was tension between us, on court and off. That's what's really ingrained in my mind: 'This is real. This isn't a soft rivalry.' There were no hugs and kisses.”

“I love the Copa America. It showcases all the classic rivalries of South America, all those neighbours, up against each other.”

“The emotive power of hummus all over the Middle East cannot be overstated, being the focus of some serious tribal rivalries.”

“Sibling rivalries continue even as they get older, such as who can finish their breakfast first.”

“I don't understand how a sport can play at least twice as many games as any other and not have the same schedule. It's mind-boggling to me. Don't play interleague leagues. Don't choose rivalries. Don't manipulate the schedule. Just play everyone the same.”

“Nothing will ensure war more certainly or entrench rivalries more seriously than for or against thinking!”

“I do believe that the international community cannot act based on a rivalries or things of that sort.”

“Arturo Gatti-Micky Ward. Joe Frazier-Muhammad Ali. You get these rivalries in boxing - not that often, so when you do get them, why do you want to sanitise it?”