Ability Quotes - Page 15

• By the end of the 1960s, the United States owned more than half of the Indian rupee money supply, and that had been acquired through food aid. So I think it's very interesting to see the very long history of how sovereignty and food go together. When some countries remove another country's ability to feed itself, it is a very powerful tool. Imperialist countries, like the United Kingdom, like the United States, have used it for centuries.

  Raj Patel

  Country, Powerful, Thinking

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• I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I'm asking you to believe in yours." Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end.

  Barack Obama

  Real, Believe, Commitment

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• Part of being a big winner is the ability to be a big loser. There is no paradox involved. It is a distinctly Harvard thing to be able to turn any defeat into victory

  Erich Segal

  Victory, Able, Loser

  Erich Segal (1970). “Love Story”

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• He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

  Ann Patchett

  Opportunity, Tchaikovsky, True Life

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• Look, calling somebody in a wheelchair handicapable doesn`t all of a sudden give them the power to climb stairs or the ability to grab Ho-Hos off the top shelf.

  Glenn Beck

  Giving, Looks, Calling

  "Is Iran Our Enemy?; Pelosi Defends Controversial Appointment; Could Scientology Have Saved Anna Nicole?". www.cnn.com. March 1, 2007.

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• I will raise my voice as long as God gives me sound or ability, against this Communistic idea that the Government will take care of us all, and everything belongs to the government. It is wrong!

  David O. McKay

  Government, Ideas, Voice

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• No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history's organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.

  Boris Pasternak

  Kings, War, Men

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• When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body.

  Donald Miller

  Long, People, Water

  Donald Miller (2007). “Miller 3-in-1: Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts, Searching for God”, p.87, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• Rohan, one of us is an unmarried man with superior mathematical abilities and no prospects for the evening. The other is a confirmed lecher in an amorous mood, with a willing and nubile young wife waiting at home. Who do you think should do the damned account books?" And, with a nonchalant wave, St. Vincent had left the office.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Book, Home, Men

  Lisa Kleypas (2007). “Mine Till Midnight”, p.21, Macmillan

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• To think better, to think like the best humans, we are probably going to have to learn again to judge a person's intelligence, not by the ability to recite facts, but by the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings. We must suspect that any statistical justification of ugliness and violence is a revelation of stupidity. (pg.192-193, People, Land, and Community)

  Wendell Berry

  Thinking, Order, Land

  Wendell Berry (2003). “The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry”, p.192, Counterpoint

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• If we are defined by reason and morality, then reason and morality must define our choices, even when animals are concerned. When people say, for example, that they like their veal or hot dogs too much to ever give them up, and yeah it's sad about the farms but that's just the way it is, reason hears in that the voice of gluttony. We can say that what makes a human being human is precisely the ability to understand that the suffering of an animal is more important than the taste of a treat.

  Matthew Scully

  Dog, Animal, Voice

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• How remarkable we are in our ability to hide things from ourselves - our conscious minds only a small portion of our actual minds, jellyfish floating on a vast dark sea of knowing and deciding.

  Andrew Sean Greer

  Dark, Sea, Knowing

  Andrew Sean Greer (2008). “The Story of a Marriage: A Novel”, p.65, Macmillan

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• Before we go, I gotta know: If mind-reading abilities are real, there's something else I wondered if fiction got right about vampires-" "Ask me if I sparkle and I'll kill you where you stand," Bones cut him off with utmost seriousness.

  Jeaniene Frost

  Real, Reading, Cutting

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• But I don’t think I’ve ever known such a natural at Potions!” said Slughorn. “Instinctive, you know — like his mother! I’ve only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, Sybill — why even Severus —” And to Harry’s horror, Slughorn threw out an arm and seemed to scoop Snape out of thin air toward them.

  J. K. Rowling

  Mother, Thinking, Air

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• We hypostatize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of the information; the message has changed. This is a language which we have lost the ability to read. We ourselves are a part of this language; changes in us are changes in the content of the information. We ourselves are information-rich; information enters us, is processed and is then projected outward once more, now in an altered form. We are not aware that we are doing this, that in fact this is all we are doing.

  Philip K. Dick

  Information, Messages, Facts

  "VALIS".

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• I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast. I kept my melancholy and my agitation hidden, careful lest any trace should be left exposed. I feigned an innocent optimism; I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric.

  Osamu Dazai

  Agony, Optimism, Agitation

  Osamu Dazai (1973). “No Longer Human”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

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• There is no such thing as Freedom (though it is the most important condition of human life, after Humility, -which does not exist either). There is only Slavery (walls around one) and absence-of-Slavery (ability to walk in any direction, or to remain still).

  John Berryman

  Wall, Humility, Important

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• Are people drawn to each other because of the stories they carry inside? At the library I couldn’t help but notice which patrons checked out the same books. They appeared to have nothing in common, but who could tell what a person was truly made of? The unknown, the riddle, the deepest truth. I noticed them all: the ones who’d lost their way, the ones who’d lived their lives in ashes, the ones who had to prove themselves, the ones who, like me, had lost the ability to feel.

  Alice Hoffman

  Book, People, Library

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• The ultimate weapon isn't this plague out in Vegas, or any new super H-bomb. The ultimate weapon has always existed. Every man, every woman, and every child owns it. It's the ability to say No and take the consequences.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Children, Men, Vegas

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• Many people falsely believe that if you want to be holy, you are not allowed to enjoy life...Holiness brings us to life. It refines every human ability. Holiness doesn't dampen our emotions; it elevates them. Those who respond to God's call to holiness are the most joyful people in history. They have a richer, more abundant experience of life, and they love more deeply than most people can every imagine. They enjoy life, all of life.

  Matthew Kelly

  Believe, People, Enjoy Life

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• In public speaking, we must appeal either to the prejudices of others, or to the love of truth and justice. If we think merely of displaying our own ability, we shall ruin every cause we undertake.

  William Hazlitt

  Thinking, Justice, Prejudice

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1484, Delphi Classics

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• Memory doesn't erase. The recall ability fails.

  James Cook

  Memories, Failing, Erase

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• Only music has the ability to take you to the edge of reality and allow you to peek in for a moment.

  Alexander Pope

  Reality, Moments, Edges

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• The souls ability to nourish itself lies in the heart.

  Aristotle

  Lying, Heart, Soul

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• All endeavour calls for the ability to tramp the last mile, shape the last plan, endure the last hours toil.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Toil, Shapes, Lasts

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