Capacity Quotes - Page 21

• No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

  James Bryce

  Men, Careers, Political

  James Bryce (1889). “The American Commonwealth”

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• Nature has not placed us in an inferior rank to men, no more than the females of other animals, where we see no distinction of capacity, though I am persuaded if there was a commonwealth of rational horses... it would be an established maxim amongst them that a mare could not be taught to pace.

  Mary Wortley Montagu

  Horse, Animal, Men

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1803). “The works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: including her correspondence, poems, and essays”, p.201

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• The capacity to admire others is not my most fully developed trait.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Admiration, Admire, Traits

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• Americans have been remarkably devoted to the capacity for belief, to idealism. That's why we get into trouble all the time. We're always viewed as naive.

  A. Bartlett Giamatti

  Belief, Trouble, Idealism

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• It is in the ordinary events of every day that we develop the proactive capacity to handle the extraordinary pressures of life. It's how we make and keep commitments, how we handle a traffic jam, how we respond to an irate customer or a disobedient child. It's how we view our problems and where we focus our energies. It's the language we use.

  Stephen Covey

  Children, Commitment, Views

  Stephen R. Covey (2004). “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change”, p.92, Simon and Schuster

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• Paying attention and awareness are universal capacities of human beings.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Attention, Awareness, Humans

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• Too much of the education system orients students toward becoming better thinkers, but there is almost no focus on our capacity to pay attention and cultivate awareness.

  Jon Kabat-Zinn

  Becoming Better, Focus, Attention

  "Mindfulness In the Modern World: An Interview With Jon Kabat-Zinn". Interview with Stephan Rechtschaffen, eomega.org. February 24, 2012.

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• If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith, and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering in the world, so that those who are suffering on both sides of this ghastly struggle somehow mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe these things, the problem of evil would indeed be overwhelming.

  Dorothy Day

  Pain, Believe, Struggle

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• People who are greedy have extraordinary capacities for waste-they must, they take in too much.

  Norman Mailer

  People, Greed, Too Much

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• Promise is the capacity for letting people down.

  Cyril Connolly

  People, Promise

  Cyril Connolly (2008). “Enemies of Promise”, p.260, University of Chicago Press

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• The convenience of timekeeping is greatly overrated; and the people who practice it so faithfully that they lose the capacity for appreciating the fixed and the static and the spatially related experiences cut themselves off from a good part of reality.

  Lewis Mumford

  Time, Cutting, Reality

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• Behind the contained and orderly lives we lead as members of the respectable middle class there's a terrible human capacity that may one day overwhelm any of us.

  Diana Trilling

  Class, One Day, May

  Diana Trilling (1981). “Mrs. Harris: the death of the Scarsdale diet doctor”, Harcourt

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• The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally, and for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed.

  Immanuel Kant

  Race, Perfect, Political

  Immanuel Kant (1914). “Eternal Peace: And Other International Essays”

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• Every organization of men, be it social or political, ultimately relies on man's capacity for making promises and keeping them.

  Hannah Arendt

  Men, Organization, Political

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• I will always serve my country in any capacity, but I'm very happy with what I'm doing right now.

  Al-Waleed bin Talal

  Country, Very Happy, Right Now

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• We have the capacity to make sure that every mother has pre-natal care. Yet, we don't do it. What is it about America? It says we don't value children and families. We are hypocrites.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Mother, Children, Hypocrite

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• What really makes baseball so hard is it's retributive capacity for disaster if the smallest thing is done wrong, and the invisible presence of defeat that attends every game.

  Roger Angell

  Sports, Baseball, Games

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• When a felon s not engaged in his employment, Or maturing his felonious little plans, His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest mans.

  W. S. Gilbert

  Employment, Littles, Felons

  The Pirates of Penzance act 2 (1879)

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• It sounds strange to say it, but you can be in a war zone and have a lot of fun. Even though war is essentially pain on all sides, human beings have the capacity to enjoy themselves. The soldiers are mostly young people, full of enthusiasm and energy, and that's an exciting thing for an old guy like me.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Fun, Pain, War

  "Gavin's Woodpile". www.brucecockburn.org. December 15, 2012.

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• I need to learn. Joy is at the heart of God's plan for human beings. The reason for this is worth pondering awhile: Joy is at the heart of God himself. We will never understand the significance of joy in human life until we understand its importance to God. I suspect that most of us seriously underestimate God's capacity for joy.

  John Ortberg

  Heart, Joy, Needs

  John Ortberg (1997). “The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People”, p.65, Harper Collins

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• Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand America. Our drive, our ruggedness, our unquenchable optimism and zeal and elan go back to the challenges of the untrammeled wilderness.

  Harvey Broome

  America, Optimism, Challenges

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• Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. ... The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster.

  Gerhard Richter

  Religious, Art, Believe

  Gerhard Richter, Dietmar Elger, Hans-Ulrich Obrist (2009). “Gerhard Richter: writings 1961-2007”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• Grey. It makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations: it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make 'nothing' visible.

  Gerhard Richter

  Art, Giving, Feelings

  Robert Storr, Gerhard Richter (2000). “Gerhard Richter: October 18, 1977”, ABRAMS

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• Spirituality is an inner fire, a mystical sustenance that feeds our souls. The mystical journey drives us into ourselves, to a sacred flame at our center. The purpose of the religious experience is to develop the eyes by which we see this inner flame, and our capacity to live its mystery. In its presence, we are warmed and ignited. When too far from the blaze, we are cold and spiritually lifeless. We are less than human without that heat. Our connection to God is life itself.

  Marianne Williamson

  Religious, Eye, Journey

  Marianne Williamson (2013). “Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage”, p.33, Random House

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• It is by extending oneself, by exercising some capacity previously unused that you come to a better knowledge of your own potential.

  Harold Bloom

  Exercise, Self, Extending

  Harold Bloom (2001). “Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages”, p.16, Simon and Schuster

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