35 Quotes About Settling for Second Best

The choices we may in our life can either bring us consequence or blessings. There is no settling for less than what we work for. These quotes about settling for second best will remind you of what you have at stake.

“Being educated means to prefer the best not only to the worst but to the second best.”

“By elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”

“Charles could care less about shoes – and he suspected he wasn’t alone among men in his feelings. Shoe, no shoe, he didn’t care. Naked was good, though over the past couple of weeks he was beginning to think that dressed in his clothes was a decent second best.”

“Don’t go for second best. Put your love to the test.”

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

“For myself, losing is not coming second. It’s getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I’ve been in.”

“Hang on to your dreams with everything you got. Because the best life is when your dreams come true. The second-best is when they don’t but you never stop chasing them.”

“Honesty has become the second best policy with your spouse… discretions apply elsewhere.”

“Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.”

“I was an apprentice television engineer when I decided to pack it up and go full-time, much to my father’s disgust. But I’m still interested and I like messing about with TV.”

“I’d rather have a second-best decision diligently pursued than a first-best decision lackadaisically pursued.”

“If loneliness was a choice, what was the other option? To settle for second-best and try to be happy with that? And was that fair to the person you settled for?”

“If the best way to learn to succeed is to fail as fast as possible, then the second-best way is to watch someone else fail as fast as possible. Watching someone else screw up is a kind of rehearsal for your own eventual downfall.”

“Most people give up finding their soul mate, and settle down to just having a flesh mate.”

“Never settle for less than your best.”

“No man comes out of his own memorandum of conversation looking second best.”

“Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.”

“Second best is not good enough really. Although if someone turned around now and said ‘you will be promoted, but you will come in second’ then I would take it.”

“Smile. it’s the second best thing you can do with your lips.”

“The best business in the world is a well run oil company. The second best business in the world is a badly run oil company.”

“The best possible thing in baseball is winning The World Series. The second best thing is losing The World Series.”

“The best thing you have to offer the world is yourself. You don’t have to copy anyone else. If you do, you’re second best. To achieve success is to be first, and that’s being yourself.”

“The best things cannot be told, the second best are misunderstood. After that comes civilized conversation; after that, mass indoctrination; after that, intercultural exchange.”

“The best things in life are free. The second best things are very, very expensive.”

“The best time to act on this was decades ago. The second best time is now.”

“The best way to learn is live, in person, cooking, feeling, smelling and tasting, but TV is the second-best thing to that; it’s a halfway facsimile.”

“The greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally – weaknesses, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guise of weakness.”

“There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second best is anything but second best.”

“They tell me that there’s someone else you really truly love and even when we kiss that she’s the one you’re thinking of… I’m a second hand love, a second hand love.”

“They’re the second best team in the world, and there’s no higher praise than that.”

“What I look for is a man who can be a friend, someone who is an equal and one with whom I feel comfortable. I want to be happy and loved, and not settling for something second best and less than I deserve.”

“When the writer has done his best, he then should proceed to do his second best.”

“When you ask one friend to dine, Give him your best wine! When you ask two, The second best will do!”

“You should never try and out guess Mother Nature because when you do, you come off second best.”

“You’ve got to learn the footwork, the positioning, how to box out, how to pass, how to shoot your free throws. All these things are necessary, not to be the No. 1 player in the world, but maybe you can play against him.”

Settling for second best in life requires sacrifice and acceptance.