50 Complacency Quotes For Completing Higher Goals

These complacency quotes are perfect for anyone experiencing that smug uncritical satisfaction that can come with our achievements.

Complacency is a dangerous place to be.

Let us know about your experiences with complacency in the comment section below.

It is the human dilemma of being pleased with our work to the point where we no longer wish to push ourselves to be better.

Feeling complacent usually is a result of some form of ignorance. Ignorance is when we are unaware of something.

Whether it is our personal lives, relationships, our careers, or our dreams, we all have blind spots.

It is human nature to want to explore, push and reveal what is unknown to us.

Sometimes in life, when some people feel they have reached the maxim of pleasure or security and they become unaware of potential dangers or defects.

Complacency is the self-satisfaction with an existing situation that can cause us to put our guard down and stop working to be our best.

Check out our most popular quote article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily inspiration.

Our inspirational quotes category page has all of our motivational quotes for all the different areas of life.

Short complacency quotes that make you think

Is complacency a bad thing? Read through these and see what you think!

1. “Don’t be lulled into complacency.” — Alan Gerry

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2. “Happiness is death by complacency.” — Laz Ingram

3. “The tragedy of ignorance is complacency.” — Robert Quillen

4. “I didn’t want to fall into the trap of complacency.” — Taj Mahal

5. “The biggest mistake to me is complacency.” — Bonnie Hammer

6. “Poor motivation and alertness cause complacency.” — V.S. Parani

7. “I think complacency is what you allow it to be.” — Draymond Green

8. “Self-complacency is the companion of ignorance.” — Solomon Schechter

9. “Complacency is a continuous struggle that we all have to fight.” — Jack Nicklaus

10. “The hardest obstacle I’ve had to overcome is complacency.” — Malcolm Goodwin

Complacency quotes about the danger of settling

What happens when we become complacent? How bad is it to settle? 

11. “Complacency is our worst enemy.” — Mike Apicello

12. “I always say, complacency is the kiss of death.” — Shari Redstone

13. “Frivolity is destructive, and complacency is corrosive” ― Allison Pataki

14. “We have only two modes—complacency and panic.” — James R. Schlesinger

15. “Complacency makes one as guilty as those who destroy the Earth.” — Tom Brown, Jr.

16. “The dream is over only when you have become complacent.” ― Lorin Morgan-Richards

17. “Established is a dangerous word for me. It could imply a modicum of complacency.” — Sean Dyche

18. “Mediocrity is a pit that swallows people who have rested on seats of complacency for long.” ― Israelmore Ayivor

19. “I think it’s dangerous to think that you’re successful, because then you become complacent.” ― Tommy Hilfiger

20. “People who are complacent about the failures of others are the most cunning and deceitful. They never find the true meaning of success.” ― Srinivas Mishra

Complacency quotes about progress and innovation

Progress and innovation come from a need for new ideas. 

21. “Complacency is the death of innovation.” — Michelle Sandlin

22. “Complacency doesn’t make sense for a guy trying to redefine normal.” — John Fairclough

23. “The great menace to the life of an industry is industrial self-complacency.” ― Joyce Carol Oates

24. “I like to improve all the time and never let complacency creep into my system.” — Sandeep Singh

25. “I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.” ― Trent Reznor

26. “Complacency is the last hurdle standing between any team and its potential greatness.” — Pat Riley

27. “He who is content with what has been done is an obstacle in the path of progress.” — Helen Keller

28. “You need to have a redesign because familiarity breeds a kind of complacency.” ― Timothy White

29. “Sometimes success needs interruption to regain focus and shake off complacency.” — Lennox Lewis

30. “History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.” ― Gerald R. Ford

Why we should avoid complacency quotes

Read through these complacency quotes to discover how and why we should avoid being complacent.

31. “Of all the things a leader should fear, complacency heads the list.” — John C. Maxwell

32. “Complacency is not an option when so many of our citizens are struggling to make ends meet.” — John Bel Edwards

33. “Listen to Mr. Complacency long enough and he’ll convince you that what you really, really need is a nap.” ― Alex and Brett Harris

34. “Don’t become complacent because ‘things could be worse’ but rather get busy because ‘things could be better’.” ― Bobby Darnell

35. “Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.” ― Nancy Pearcey

36. “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.

37. “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

38. “The downfall of every civilization comes, not from the moral corruption of the common man, but rather from the moral complacency of common men in high places.” — E. Digby Baltzell

39. “History shows that all protest movements rely on symbols—boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, flags, songs. Symbolic action on whatever scale—from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to wearing a simple wristband—is designed to disrupt our everyday complacency and force people to think.” — Hugh Evans

40. “The young person isn’t certain that love can be real; the middle-aged man is only discovering that it is; and the older person seems so sure of it. I was interested in the way that many of us go through the whole of our lives staying with someone just out of complacency, because leaving isn’t easy.” — Conor McPherson

Complacency quotes about various situations

Complacency can occur in any industry or area of our lives. These complacency quotes speak to a variety of different situations.

41. “Complacency is almost always the product of success or perceived success.” — John P. Kotter

42. “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.” ― Andy Grove

43. “The greatest obstacle to those who hope to reform American education is complacency.” — Diane Ravitch

44. “Success has a knack of making one complacent, but failure can keep one rooted firmly on the ground.” ― Dr. Prem Jagyasi

45. “When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.” — Pat Riley

46. “Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire complacency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances of a new-married couple.” ― Charles Lamb

47. “There is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

48. “I have absolutely no idea what my generation did to enrich our democracy. We dropped the ball. We entered a period of complacency and closed our eyes to the public corruption of our democracy.” — Wynton Marsalis

49. “There’s a lot of complacency in philanthropy. People figure organizations are trying to do good, and that’s enough, even if the results aren’t there. But that’s wasteful and inefficient. It crowds out better programs.” — Dustin Moskovitz

50. “The newspaper headlines may shout about global warming, extinctions of living species, the devastation of rain forests, and other worldwide catastrophes, but Americans evince a striking complacency when it comes to their everyday environment and the growing calamity that it represents.” — James Howard Kunstler

Reflect on how you feel about complacency

Are there areas in your life worth reflecting on? Only you would know.

As a youth, I was always inspired by the example of Helen Keller who was born not being able to see, hear, or speak normally.

She had a very difficult childhood.

They immortalized her life in the film The Miracle Worker. 

What makes Keller such a special figure of resilience is that despite birth defects, lack of resources from health professionals, and challenging conditions, she refused to ever become complacent.

She would not just accept her life’s conditions.

She fought with every fiber of her being to reach her goal of learning literacy and communication skills.

Later in her life, she once proclaimed “He who is content with what has been done is an obstacle in the path of progress.”

We all do not have the strength of Helen Keller, but we can take the steps necessary to not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of complacency.

If you liked these complacency quotes, be sure to check out these Bum Quotes.

Share your favorite complacency quotes with us in the comment section, we would love to hear from you.