Proficiency Quotes

• The best chess-player in Christendom may be little more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Struggle, Player, Mind

  Edgar Allan Poe (2008). “Edgar Allan Poe's Annotated Short Stories”, p.352, Bottletree Books LLC

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• To become proficient in any field you must practise. There is simply no achievement without practice and the more practice, provided it is done intelligently, the greater will the proficiency be and the sooner will it be attained.

  Emmet Fox

  Practice, Achievement, Done

  Emmet Fox (2010). “Make Your Life Worthwhile”, p.43, Harper Collins

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• It takes ten thousand hours to truly master anything. Time spent leads to experience; experience leads to proficiency; and the more proficient you are the more valuable you'll be.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Hours, Masters, Valuable

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• When you serve your passions, proficiency gradually takes over and becomes habitual.

  Robert Genn

  Passion, Habitual

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• Math proficiency is the gateway to a number of incredible careers that students may never have considered.

  Danica McKellar

  Math, Careers, Numbers

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• Proficiency in art is a contract with your self and the empowerment of your self. Not all of us demand or even desire proficiency, but for those who do it's necessary to temper the influence of groups. And while some artists think history is bunk, the historical evidence is overwhelming: "In my isolation I grow stronger."

  Paul Gauguin

  Art, Thinking, Self

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• A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Mind, Study, Capacity

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1823). “Frankenstein: ; Or, The Modern Prometheus”, p.80, DOSER Reads

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• I was myself brought up with my brother, whose name was Matthias, for he was my own brother, by both father and mother; and I made mighty proficiency in the improvements of my learning, and appeared to have both a great memory and understanding.

  Josephus

  Mother, Brother, Memories

  Flavius Josephus (1824). “The Genuine Works of Flavius Josephus: Containing four books of the Antiquities of the Jews. With the life of Josephus”, p.202

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• Travel provided many interesting experiences, but perhaps the most useful lesson I learned was that I really had no proficiency for learning the thousands of characters of the written Chinese language.

  Eric Allin Cornell

  Travel, Character, Interesting

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• I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one's existence. I don't want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism; and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Soccer, Sports, Football

  Theodore Roosevelt, Joseph Bishop (2010). “Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children”, p.63, Applewood Books

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• The most important ingredient of leadership is character. Most of the proficiencies can be learned, but what's inside you is something that's difficult to change.

  Jesse Robredo

  Change, Leadership, Learning

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• Ask any great athlete or the concert pianist or the successful actor if they have arrived at the place where they need no further practice. They will tell you that the higher you climb in proficiency and public acceptance, the greater the need for practice.

  Eric Butterworth

  Athlete, Acceptance, Successful

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• Although an increasing proportion of the Hispanic population is foreign-born - about half of adults in this group - English proficiency is and should remain a requirement for citizenship.

  Linda Chavez

  Groups, Population, Half

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• Just as we take for granted the need to acquire proficiency in the basic academic subjects, I am hopeful that a time will come when we can take it for granted that children will learn, as part of the curriculum, the indispensability of inner values: love, compassion, justice, and forgiveness.

  Dalai Lama

  Love, Forgiveness, Peace

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• If income was directly proportional to technical proficiency and education, classical and jazz musicians would be some of the most affluent people in the world.

  Robert Emerson Coleman

  People, Income, World

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• Medicine is intention. Those who are proficient at using intention are good doctors.

  Sun Simiao

  Inspirational, Doctors, Medicine

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• Versatility is one of the few human traits which are universally intolerable. You may be good at Greek and good at painting and be popular. You may be good at Greek and good at sport, and be wildly popular. But try all three and you’re a mountebank. Nothing arouses suspicion quicker than genuine, all-round proficiency.

  Dorothy Dunnett

  Sports, Greek, Trying

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• But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one’s own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Growing Up, Men, Thinking

  Anthony Bourdain (2011). “Tony Bourdain boxset: Kitchen Confidential & Medium Raw”, p.381, A&C Black

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• A proactive person needs no pressure to perform and an ineffective person offloads his pressure onto others to deform the positive work culture of the system. So practically, a progressive organization knows that no pressure environment plays a pivotal role to increase the productivity or proficiency of its workforce.

  Anuj

  Play, Organization, Needs

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• I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn't appeal to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product like - and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Sports, Successful, Clothes

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• Just as in the great moment of resignation one does not mediate but chooses, now the task is to gain proficiency in repeating the impassioned choice and, existing, to express it in existence.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Choices, Doe, Tasks

  "Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments". Book by Soren Kierkegaard, February 28, 1846.

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• All great fighting is the same, Eragon, even as all great warriors are the same. Past a certain point, it does not matter whether you wield a sword, a claw, a tooth or a tail. It is true, you must be capable with your weapon, but anyone with the time, and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness, and it is those qualities that the best warriors share, even if, on the surface, they appear completely different.

  Christopher Paolini

  Fighting, Warrior, Past

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• But anyone with the time and the inclination can acquire technical proficiency. To achieve greatness, though, that requires artistry. That requires imagination and thoughtfulness.

  Christopher Paolini

  Greatness, Imagination, Thoughtfulness

  Christopher Paolini (2012). “Inheritance Deluxe Edition (The Inheritance Cycle, Book 4)”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• I glory in the fact that a human being has multiple talents and exercises them all with a degree of integrity and artistic proficiency. That's what I do.

  Theodore Bikel

  Integrity, Exercise, Facts

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• If God gave light and wisdom, the religion of Jesus was soon learned; but without God, a man might study all his life long, and make no proficiency.

  Adoniram Judson

  Christian, Jesus, Men

  ADONIRAM JUDSON (1854). “RECORDS OF THE LIFE, CHARACTER, AND ACHIEVEMENTS”, p.108

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