Ability Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people.

Thomas L. Friedman

My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. Art should live in the heart of the people. Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don't think art is elite or mysterious. I don't think anybody can separate art from politics. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention.

We've gotten into the bad habit of overlegislating. I believe in the America people's ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed.

What we call human reason, is not the effort or ability of one, so much as it is the result of the reason of many, arising from lights mutually communicated, in consequence of discourse and writing.

Patience is the ability to suffer a long time under the mistreatment of others without growing resentful or bitter.

Geology is probably the most frustrating of all professions for the young man . Men's innate creative ability reaches its full development during their twenties and thirties. Those are years of greatest achievement in many of the sciences and arts, but rarely in geology. The geologist must apply all the basic sciences to empirical observations which are infinite in variety.

This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new "class conflict" between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of workers who will make their livings through traditional ways, either by manual work... or by service work. The productivity of knowledge work - still abysmally low - will predictably become the economic challenge of the knowledge society. On it will depend the ability of the knowledge society to give decent incomes, and with them dignity and status, to non knowledge people.

I see and understand both the symbolic as well as the substantive elements of my life. Sometimes I visualise it as a journey of an individual from a remote village on the sidelines of society to the hub of social standing. But at the same time I also realise that my life encapsulates the ability of the democratic system to accommodate and empower marginalised sections of society.

K. R. Narayanan

I pray the Sovereign Sun himself to grant me ability to explain the nature of the station that he holds amongst those in whose middle he is placed! By the term "middle" we are to understand not what is so defined in the case of things contrary to each other, as "equi-distant from the extremes," as orange and dark brown in the case of colours; lukewarm, in that of hot and cold, and other things of the sort; but the power that collects and unites into one things dispersed, like the "Harmony" of Empedocles, from which he completely excludes all discord and contention.

Julian (emperor)

The situation is clear. I trust in my ability, I trust in what I do and, if people put their trust in me, I will deliver for them.

On seeing Cate Blanchett performance in Elizabeth:

I remember going to the Sunset 5 and just thinking, 'Who is that My goodness'. You just don't see people who have that kind of power and ability every day of the week.

Good literature asks for a trauma—a personal, collective, historical trauma, no matter—and then the ability to formulate it. Good literature does not need "a story."

No individual has sufficient experience, education, native ability and knowledge to ensure the accumulation of a great fortune, without the cooperation of other people.

As a director, you must keep your sense of humor, your patience and, most of all, your ability to funnel the collective energies of a large group of creative people. For that, you must stay well-hydrated, well-fed, and well-rested. It's also crucial that you have a top-notch ensemble.

Tommy Lee Wallace

The Latin American player doesn't get the recognition he deserves. Neither does the Negro player, unless he does something spectacular, like Willie Mays. We have self-satisfaction, yes. But after the season is over, nobody cares about us. Zoilo Versalles was the Most Valuable Player in the American League, but how many times has he been asked to make appearances at dinners or meetings during the winter? Juan Marichal is one of the greatest pitchers in the game, but does he get invited to banquets? … I am an American citizen … but some people act like they think I live in the jungle someplace. This is a matter of sports, of a man's ability and his accomplishments. What matters what language he speaks best?

Roberto Clemente

The device [electronic I Ching calculator] also functioned as an ordinary calculator, but only to a limited degree. It could handle any calculation which returned an answer of anything up to 4.... anything above 4 it represented merely as "A Suffusion of Yellow." Dirk was not certain if this was a programming error or an insight beyond his ability to fathom, but he was crazy about it anyway, enough to hand over twenty pounds of ready cash for the thing.

It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him.

When you analyse it carefully, it is about a family's ability to stay together and have time together. We all know, with our fractured lives in this place, how difficult it becomes when we as human beings cannot spend time with one another. However, the problem is that these industrial relations laws now set that disease in place right across the nation in every workplace, in every part of the country. What I fear most of all is the ultimate impact of this on the fabric of Australian family life.

Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now.

A player's ability to rebound is inversely proportional to the distance between where he was born and the nearest railroad tracks. The greater distance you live from the poor side of the railroad tracks, the less likely that you will be a good rebounder.

Breathing, n You had asthma as a child, had to carry around an inhaler. But when you grew older, it went away. You could run for miles and it was fine. Sometimes I worry that this is happening to me in reverse. The older I get, the more I lose my ability to breathe.

Body awareness not only anchors you in the present moment, it is a doorway out of the prison that is the ego. It also strengthens the immune system and the body's ability to heal itself.

Creativity in all forms of life, from arts to business to domestic situations, depends on our ability to recognize and explore gaps

It is a rule of creative ability that it does nothing of any value, while it is possessed by this afflatus of vanity.

Christina Stead

I have not, in general, much belief in the ability of woman as a creative artist. Unwritten lyrics, as [Ralph Waldo] Emerson said once when we conversed on this subject, should be her forte.

Frederika Bremer