Ability Quotations
Ability
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- Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study.
- Francis Bacon, Essays.
- Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste.
- Lucille Ball, in Eleanor Harris, The Real Story of Lucille Ball (1954), Chapter 1.
- In the last analysis, ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
- Man is not altogether an imbecile. True, "circumstances do make the man." But they make him only in the sense and degree that he permits them to make him.
- George D. Boardman, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 1.
- Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
- Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
- Cicero, Pro Archia Poeta.
- The Dwarf sees farther than the Giant, when he has the Giant's shoulders to mount on.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend; A Series of Essays (1812), No. 15 (30 November 1809), p. 228.
- Cf. Isaac Newton, letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676): "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants."
- I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
- Diana, Princess of Wales (The Times, 22 August 1994, replying to allegations that she had been making nuisance telephone calls).
- Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson,The Conduct of Life (1860), "Considerations by the Way".
- One should oblige everyone to the extent of one's ability. One often needs someone smaller than oneself.
- Jean de La Fontaine, Fables II 'Le Lion et le Rat'.
- As we advance in life, we learn the limits of our abilities.
- James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (1867-1882), "Education".
- The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
- Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776), Volume 1, Chap. 68.
- I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
- Edward Everett Hale, in Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough, A Year of Beautiful Thoughts (1902), p. 172. This is often misattributed to Helen Keller since the 1980s.
- There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
- Elbert Hubbard, "The Crying Need", in A Message to Garcia, and Thirteen Other Things (1901), p. 163.
- What we do upon a great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are; what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline, under the grace of Christ or the absence of it.
- Henry Liddon, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 1.
- We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, , Kavanagh: A Tale (1849), Chapter 1.
- Ability involves responsibility. Power to its last particle is duty.
- Alexander Maclaren, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 1.
- Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us.
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
- Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
- Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle.
- A Traveler at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much."
"True," said he, "but every goose can."
- Plutarch (attributed), Apophthegmata Laconica (a.k.a. "Sayings of the Spartans"), in Moralia.
- The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often acquires more reputation than actual brilliancy.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678), Maxim 162.
- Every man loves what he is good at.
- Thomas Shadwell, A True Widow.
- Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
- George Bernard Shaw, The Devil's Disciple.
- A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations.
- Robert Louis Stevenson, The Treasure of Franchard.
- I think you are gonna find, when it's over... I think you're gonna find yourself one smilin' motherfucker. The thing is Butch, right now, you've got ability. But painful as it may be, ability don't last. And your days are just about over. Now that's a hard motherfuckin' fact of life. But it's a fact of life your ass is gonna hafta get realistic about. See this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't. Besides Butch, how many fights you think you got left in you anyway? Two? Boxers don't have an 'old timer's day.' You came close, but you never made it, and if you were gonna make it, you woulda made it before now.
- Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, character Marsellus Wallace.
- Possunt, quia posse videntur.
- They are able because they think they are able.
- Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), Book V, line 231.
- Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
- Horace Walpole, as quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Volume 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p. 187.
- Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
- Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues.
- Who does the best his circumstance allows
Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742–1745), "Night II", line 91.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
- Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 1-2.
- He'll find a way.
- J. M. Barrie, Sentimental Tommy (Corp's belief in Tommy and Tommy's in himself).
- For as our modern wits behold,
Mounted a pick-back on the old,
Much farther off, much further he,
Rais'd on his aged Beast, could see.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto II, line 971. Same idea in Macaulay Essay on Sir James Mackintosh.
- He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve 'em in a trice:
As if Divinity had catch'd
The itch, on purpose to be scratch'd.
- Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 163.
- You are a devil at everything, and there is no kind of thing in the 'versal world but what you can turn your hand to.
- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote (1605-15), Part I, Book III, Chapter XI.
- Etiam illud adjungo, sæpius ad laudem atque virtutem naturam sine doctrina, quam sine natura valisse doctrinam.
- I add this also, that natural ability without education has oftener raised man to glory and virtue, than education without natural ability.
- Cicero, Oratio Pro Licinio Archia, VII.
- Pigmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.
- Didactus Stella, Lucan, Volume II, 10; quoted by Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus to the Reader.
- Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
- John Dryden, Alexander's Feast (1697), line 160.
- Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more, and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.
- Gail Hamilton, Country Living and Country Thinking, Men and Women.
- A Dwarf on a Giant's shoulder sees farther of the two.
- George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum (1651).
- C'est une grande habileté que de savoir cacher son habileté.
- To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes (1665–1678), 245.
- To the very last, he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of la carrière ouverte aux talents—the took to him that can handle them.
- John Gibson Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott in London and Westminster Review, 1838.
- A Traveler at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much."
"True," said he, "but every goose can."
- Attributed to Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica (a.k.a. "Laconic Apothegms" or "Sayings of the Spartans"), Remarkable Speeches of Some Obscure Men; in Moralia.
- Illud tamen in primis testandum est, nihil præcepta atque artes valere nisi adjuvante natura.
- One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.
- Quintilian, Proœmium, I. 4.
- Die Menschen gehen wie Schiesskugeln weiter, wenn sie abgeglättet sind.
- Men, like bullets, go farthest when they are smoothest.
- Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 26.
- Parvus pumilio, licet in monte constiterit; colossus magnitudinem suam servabit, etiam si steterit in puteo.
- A dwarf is small even if he stands on a mountain; a colossus keeps his height, even if he stands in a well.
- Seneca, Epistles, 76.
- The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes.
- Sydney Smith, as quoted in Punch.
- We shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole.
- Sydney Smith, Sketches of Moral Philosophy.
- Read my little fable:
He that runs may read.
Most can raise the flowers now,
For all have got the seed.
- Alfred Tennyson, The Flowers.
- Les méchants sont toujours surpris de trouver de l'habileté dans les bons.
- The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.
- Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, Réflexions, CIII.
Unsourced
- In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.
- Native ability without education is like a tree without fruit.
- Aristippus
- I thought it was impossible too before I did it.
- Ability is of little account without opportunity.
- An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.
- It's no use saying we are doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
- The superior man is distressed by his want of ability.
- Confucius, Analects
- A gifted horse will lead a good rider to victory. A great rider will give to the horse the gift of soundness.
- Jean Luc Cornille
- I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
- Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
- Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
- The question "Who ought to be boss?" is like as "Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?" Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.
- Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're right.
- The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems.
- The possession of great powers no doubt carries with it a contempt for mere external show.
- The less their ability, the more their conceit.
- Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.
- Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more.
- One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
- Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the things you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not...
- No man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his power should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with him that can do nothing.
- Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, in as much as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.
- Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
- John Henry Cardinal Newman, also attributed to Golda Meir
- Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
- Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
- Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
- Natural ability can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation; but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural ability.
- The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere to either man or woman.
- Elizabeth Oakes Smith
- I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
- We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.
- Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
- Ability is a poor man's wealth.
- Matthew Wren
- Everyone must row with the oars he has.
- English Proverb[citation needed]
- There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.
- Anonymous
- When one must, one can.
- Proverb in many languages
External links
Look up Ability in Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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