Capacity Quotes - Page 20

• I think it's the human spirit inside of all of us that has an enormous capacity to survive.

  Amanda Lindhout

  Thinking, Spirit, Enormous

  "Journalist kidnapped in Somalia: Reunion with mom 'felt like home'" by Scott Stump, www.today.com. October 14, 2016.

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• So there was not an "I" anymore - not a basis on which I could organize my self-respect - save my limitless capacity for toil that it seemed I possessed no more.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Self, Toil, Limitless

  "The Crack-Up" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, www.esquire.com. 1936.

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• To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

  George Eliot

  Opportunity, Views, Cheerful

  George Eliot (2016). “Middlemarch”, p.683, Xist Publishing

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• I never could keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical organization. It is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was given to the organ which enables me to make promises that the organ which should enable me to keep them was crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things. I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two faculties of mere ordinary capacity.

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Grieving, Space

  Mark Twain (1871). “The Innocents Abroad, Or, The New Pilgrims' Progress: Being Some Account of the Steamship Quaker City's Pleasure Excursion to Europe and the Holy Land : with Descriptions of Countries, Nations, Incidents and Adventures, as They Appeared to the Author”, p.239

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• Modern life means democracy, democracy means freeing intelligence for independent effectivenessthe emancipation of mind as an individual organ to do its own work. We naturally associate democracy, to be sure, with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos.

  John Dewey

  Mean, Independent, Mind

  John Dewey (1977). “The Middle Works, 1899-1924”, p.229, SIU Press

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• The good society was, like the good self, a diverse yet harmonious, growing yet unified whole, a fully participatory democracy in which the powers and capacities of the individuals that comprised it were harmonized by their cooperative activities into a community that permitted the full and free expression of individuality.

  John Dewey

  Self, Expression, Community

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• Having lost religious faith and the humanistic values bound up with it, he [man] concentrated on technical and material values and lost the capacity for deep emotional experiences, for the joy and sadness that accompany them.

  Erich Fromm

  Religious, Sadness, Men

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• Culture as art is the peak expression of man's creativity, his capacity to break out of nature's narrow bounds, and hence out of the degrading interpretation of man in modern natural and political science.

  Allan Bloom

  Art, Creativity, Men

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• Now more than ever, as the role of memory in our culture erodes at a faster pace than ever before, we need to cultivate our ability to remember. Our memories make us who we are. They are the seat of our values and source of our character. Competing to see who can memorize more pages of poetry might seem beside the point, but it's about taking a stand against forgetfulness, and embracing primal capacities from which too many of us have became estrangedmemory training is not just for the sake of performing party tricks; it's about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human.

  Joshua Foer

  Memories, Party, Character

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• Folly enlarges men's desires while it lessens their capacities.

  Robert South

  Men, Desire, Folly

  Robert South (1842). “Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions”, p.370

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• Nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother. Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities. They can't even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring. It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.

  Norman Douglas

  Funny, Mother, Children

  Norman Douglas (2014). “South Wind”, p.198, Courier Corporation

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• Why then should women be denied the benefits of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God almighty would never have given them capacities.

  Daniel Defoe

  Sex, Women, Understanding

  An Essay upon Projects "Of Academies: An Academy forWomen" (1697)

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• The capacity for friendship usually goes with highly developed civilizations. The ability to cultivate people differs by culture and class; but on the whole, educated people have more ways to make friends... . In England, for instance, you find everyone in your class has read the same books. Here, people grope for something in common-like a newly engaged girl who came to me and said, "It's absolutely wonderful! His uncle and my cousin were on the same football team.

  Margaret Mead

  Friendship, Girl, Football

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• According to the Office of Technology Assessment, 3 Minuteman missiles and 7 Poseidon missiles could destroy 73 percent of oil-refining capacity in the Soviet Union.

  James Fallows

  Technology, Assessment, Oil

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• God has blessed me with the capacity to meditate even while I am talking.

  Sri Chinmoy

  Blessed, Talking, God Has Blessed Me

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• Often what we take for a kindness is just someone acting in their capacity as a human being.

  Robert Breault

  Kindness, Acting, Being Human

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• A cosmology that admits of only one male god limits women’s capacity to envision their full potential as human beings.

  Layne Redmond

  Males, Full Potential, Limits

  Layne Redmond (1997). “When the Drummers Were Women: A Spiritual History of Rhythm”

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• The audience is a very curious animal. It is shrewd rather than intelligent. Its mental capacity is less than that of its most intellectual members.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Animal, Intelligent, Intellectual

  W. Somerset Maugham (1954). “Mr. Maugham Himself”

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• The poet is born with the capacity of arranging words in such a way that something of the quality of the graces and inspirations he has received can make itself felt to other human beings in the white spaces, so to speak, between the lines of his verse. This is a great and precious gift; but if the poet remains content with his gift, if he persists in worshipping the beauty in art and nature without going on to make himself capable, through selflessness, of apprehending Beauty as it is in the divine Ground, then he is only an idolater.

  Aldous Huxley

  Art, Inspiration, White

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• Modern man's capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity's capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.

  George Will

  Powerful, Men, Humanity

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• In joy or sorrow, health or sickness, prosperity or the reverse, the effort must still continue. One must rise after every fall and gradually acquire courage, faith, the will to succeed and the capacity to love.

  Alexis Carrel

  Fall, Capacity To Love, Effort

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• Consider the wheelbarrow. It may lack the grace of an airplane, the speed of an automobile, the initial capacity of a freight car, but its humble wheel marked out the path of what civilization we still have.

  Hal Borland

  Work, Humble, Airplane

  Hal Borland (1946). “An American year: country life and landscapes through the seasons”, New York

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• I'm sure the feeling of fear, as long as you can take advantage of it and not be rendered useless by it, can make you extend yourself beyond what you would regard as your capacity. If you're afraid, the blood seems to flow freely through the veins, and you really do feel a sense of stimulation.

  Edmund Hillary

  Blood, Long, Feelings

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• Computer science only indicates the retrospective omnipotence of our technologies. In other words, an infinite capacity to process data (but only data -- i.e. the already given) and in no sense a new vision. With that science, we are entering an era of exhaustivity, which is also an era of exhaustion.

  Jean Baudrillard

  Technology, Data, Omnipotence

  Jean Baudrillard (1990). “Cool memories”, Verso

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• On the quality of life: #1. Realize that each human being has a built-in capacity for recuperation and repair. #2. Recognize that the quality of life is all-important. #3. Assume responsibility for the quality of your own life. #4. Nurture the regenerative and restorative forces within you. #5. Utilize laughter to create a mood in which the other positive emotions can be put to work for yourself and those around you. #6. Develop confidence and ability to feel love, hope and faith, and acquire a strong will to live.

  Norman Cousins

  Strong, Laughter, Health

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