Challenge

invitation to measure oneself against others, to confront them in a competition

Challenge is a common English word that is used generically for many different named competitions and for things that are imbued with a sense of difficulty and victory.

Quotes

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Believe me, I've only been doing my job. Someone has to keep the flame. Someone has to weed out those who haven't got what it takes. You see, the champions, the legends, they serve as a purpose, a challenge, an incentive. ~ George Clayton Johnson
 
Everyone needs a challenge, Jesse- someone great out of the past to say, "match what I've done, boy, and make it better. That's true in all walks of life- music, politics, sports, you name it. ~ George Clayton Johnson
Bart Simpson: I thought you came here looking for a challenge.
Lisa Simpson: Duh! A challenge I could do.
  • If not, resolve, before we go,
    That you and I must pull a crow.
    Y' 'ad best (quoth Ralpho), as the Ancients
    Say wisely, have a care o' the main chance.
  • Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
  • James Howard "Fats" Brown: Believe me, I've only been doing my job. Someone has to keep the flame. Someone has to weed out those who haven't got what it takes. You see, the champions, the legends, they serve as a purpose, a challenge, an incentive.
Jesse Cardiff: I don't need a challenge.
James Howard "Fats" Brown: Everyone needs a challenge, Jesse- someone great out of the past to say, "match what I've done, boy, and make it better. That's true in all walks of life- music, politics, sports, you name it.
    • George Clayton Johnson, "A Game of Pool", [The Twilight Zone|The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)]], (October 13, 1961).
  • Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.
  • Norrin Radd: Those to whom no distant horizons beckon ... for whom no challenges remain ... though they have inherited a Universe ... they possess only empty sand!
  • The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
    • Bertrand Russell, as quoted in Crainer's The Ultimate Book of Business Quotations (1997), p. 258.
  • The best indicator of your level of consciousness is how you deal with life's challenges when they come. Through those challenges, an already unconscious person tends to become more deeply unconscious, and a conscious person more intensely conscious. You can use a challenge to awaken you, or you can allow it to pull you into even deeper sleep. The dream of ordinary unconsciousness then turns into a nightmare.
    If you cannot be present even in normal circumstances, such as when you are sitting alone in a room, walking in the woods, or listening to someone, then you certainly won't be able to stay conscious when something "goes wrong" or you are faced with difficult people or situations, with loss or the threat of loss. You will be taken over by a reaction, which ultimately is always some form of fear, and pulled into deep unconsciousness. Those challenges are your tests.
  • When such challenges come, as they always do, make it a habit to go within at once and focus as much as you can on the inner energy field of your body. This need not take long, just a few seconds. But you need to do it the moment that the challenge presents itself. Any delay will allow a conditioned mental-emotional reaction to arise and take you over.
  • I never in my life
    Did hear a challenge urg'd more modestly,
    Unless a brother should a brother dare
    To gentle exercise and proof of arms.
  • There I throw my gage,
    To prove it on thee to the extremest point
    Of mortal breathing.
  • An I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I'ld have seen him damned ere I'ld have challenged him.
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