Challenge

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

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

• Principal Skinner: Of course we could make things more challenging, Lisa but then the stupider students would be in here complaining furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation.
• Lisa Simpson: It's too hard. My hand is slipping. I can't do this, Bart. I'm not strong enough.

Bart Simpson: I thought you came here looking for a challenge.

Lisa Simpson: Duh! A challenge I could do.

• Richard Appel, "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson", The Simpsons, (May 18, 1997).

• 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.
  • Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part II (1664), Canto II, line 499.

• Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
  • T.S. Eliot, Preface to Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus (1931), p. ix.

• Never measure the height of a mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
  • Dag Hammarskjold, Markings (1964).

• 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.
  • Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation Address (1966).

• 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!
  • Stan Lee, Silver Surfer #1 (August 1968), p. 7

• 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.

• 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.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597), Act V, scene 2, line 52.

• There I throw my gage,
  To prove it on thee to the extremest point
  Of mortal breathing.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act IV, scene 1, line 46.

• But thou liest in thy throat; that is not the matter I challenge thee for.
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act III, scene 4, line 172.

• An I thought he had been valiant and so cunning in fence, I'ld have seen him damned ere I'ld have challenged him.
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act III, scene 4, line 311.