Ability Quotes - Page 34

• The intelligence and ability of a colored person are in pretty direct proportion to the amount of white blood he has, and … most of the positions of leadership, influence, and prominence in the Negro race are held not by real Negroes but by Mulattoes, many of whom have very little Negro blood.

  Madison Grant

  Real, Blood, White

  Madison Grant (2013). “The Conquest of a Continent”, p.298, The Palingenesis Project (Wermod and Wermod Publishing Group)

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• True gratitude is the ability to humbly see, feel, and even receive love. Gratitude is a form of returning love to God. Recognize His hand, tell Him so, express your love to Him.

  Gene R. Cook

  Gratitude, Hands, Form

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• We judge so superficially of things, that common words and actions spoke and done in an agreeable manner, with some knowledge of what passes in the world, often succeed beyond the greatest ability.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Judging, Done, World

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• Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never known men of ability to be ungrateful.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Ungrateful, Weakness

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (2015). “Maxims and Reflections”, p.82, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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• Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Men, Animal, Metaphor

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

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• The survival of democracy depends on the ability of large numbers of people to make realistic choices in the light of adequate information.

  Aldous Huxley

  Light, Numbers, People

  Aldous Huxley (1961). “Selected Essays”

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• It is easier to get one or a few of good sense, and of ability to legislate and adjudge, than to get many.

  Aristotle

  Easier, Good Sense

  Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes (1823). “Aristotle's Treatise on Rhetoric”, p.4

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• Rational behavior ... depends upon a ceaseless flow of data from the environment. It depends upon the power of the individual to predict, with at least a fair success, the outcome of his own actions. To do this, he must be able to predict how the environment will respond to his acts. Sanity, itself, thus hinges on man's ability to predict his immediate, personal future on the basis of information fed him by the environment.

  Alvin Toffler

  Future, Men, Data

  ALVIN TOFFLER (1970). “FUTURE SHOCK”

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• That's the difference between the serious artist and the craftsman--the craftsman can take material and because of his abilities do a professional job of it. The serious artist, like Proust, is like an object caught by a wave and swept to shore. He's obsessed by his material; it's like a venom working in his blood and the art is the antidote.

  Truman Capote

  Art, Jobs, Blood

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.172, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Loyalty, People, Giving

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1961). “Autobiography”

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• Anybody with a good sense of humor is one-up on their competition. We respond to somebody who has the ability to make us laugh. It's a bonding influence.

  Robert Orben

  Laughing, Competition, Sense Of Humor

  "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to The White House - The one-laugh-one-vote theory has candidates cracking wise". Kevin Merida, The Dallas Morning News, February 15, 1988.

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• Even the men most richly endowed with ability, education, and opportunity, even the giants of the race, after the completest life possible, feel, as they stand on the edge of the grave, that they are but human acorns with all their possibilities still in them, just beginning to sprout.

  Orison Swett Marden

  Opportunity, Men, Race

  Orison Swett Marden (2016). “The Miracle of Right Thought”, p.17, FV Éditions

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• If you develop just one muscle, one skill, make it the ability to focus and just get on with it. It will not only make you desirably employable, but it will make you happy.

  Kate Reardon

  Skills, Focus, Make You Happy

  "Tatler Editor Kate Reardon defends speech to school girls on politeness and good grades" by Jenn Selby, www.independent.co.uk. July 10, 2014.

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• Many can argue that it is our power of intelligence that is the key to the human domination of our planet. I suggest that it is the ability to put our thoughts into words that can be communicated to others.

  Yehuda Berg

  Keys, Arguing, Planets

  "The Power of Words" by Yehuda Berg, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 14, 2010.

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• The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.

  Richard Linklater

  Dream, Waking, Infinite

  "Fictional character: Guy Forsyth". "Waking Life", www.imdb.com. 2001.

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• Differences in political opinions are as unavoidable as, to a certain point, they may perhaps be necessary; but it is exceedingly to be regretted that subjects cannot be discussed with temper on the one hand, or decisions submitted to without having the motives, which led to them, improperly implicated on the other; and this regret borders on chagrin when we find that men of abilities, zealous patriots, having the same general objects in view, and the same upright intentions to prosecute them, will not exercise more charity in deciding on the opinions and actions of one another.

  George Washington

  Regret, Exercise, Men

  Jay A. Parry, Andrew M. Allison, George Washington (1991). “The real George Washington”, Natl Center for Constitutional

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• There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. The sternest comment that can be made against employers as a class lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Encouragement, Lying, Class

  Elbert Hubbard (1901). “A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things: As Written”

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• I've turned down a lot of trades where I might have gotten a better player, but I wasn't totally sure of the chemistry of that new player coming in. Even though he might possess golden ability, his personality and the way he gets along with teammates might be things you just don't want to cope with.

  Red Auerbach

  Player, Personality, Teammate

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• The able have no desire to appear to be so, and this is part of their ability.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Desire, Able

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• I refuse to apologize for my ability -- I refuse to apologize for my success -- I refuse to apologize for my money. If this is evil, make the most of it.

  Ayn Rand

  Money, Evil, Apologizing

  Ayn Rand (2005). “Atlas Shrugged”, p.463, Penguin

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• Needless to say, under either system [socialism or fascism], the inequalities of income and standard of living are greater than anything possible under a free economy -- and a man's position is determined, not by his productive ability and achievement, but by political pull and force. Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis -- and "the public good" is the altar on which victims are immolated.

  Ayn Rand

  Sacrifice, Men, Political

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.175, Penguin

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• When the Son of God comes to rescue us and bring us back to God, He does not find in us the ability to believe.

  Richard Baxter

  Believe, Son, Doe

  "The Saint's Everlasting Rest: Or a Treatise of the Blessed State of the Saints in Their Enjoyment of God in Heaven". Book by Richard Baxter. Chapter: "The Nature of the Saints' Rest", 1650.

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• If I had to pick a hero, it would be Charles Darwin--the size of his mind, which included all that scientific curiosity and knowledge seeking, and the ability to put it all together. There is a genuine spirituality about Darwin's thinking.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Hero, Thinking, Curiosity

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• Ability in man is an apt good, if it be applied to good ends.

  Diogenes

  Men, Ends, Ifs

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• Did Christians live according to their Religion, they would do nothing but what Truth, Righteousness, and Goodness do, according to their understanding and ability: and then one man would be a God unto another.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Christian, Men, Understanding

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