“A society that put more emphasis on birth than ability was likely to breed ability out of its ruling class.”

— Damon Knight , book A for Anything

Source: A for Anything (1959), Chapter 19 (p. 190)

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Damon Knight 9

American science fiction writer, editor and critic 1922–2002

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“There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. The sternest comment that can be made against employers as a class lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

The Philistine magazine, August 1901 http://books.google.com/books?id=xxI8AQAAMAAJ&q=%22There+is+something+that+is+much+more+scarce+something+finer+far+something+rarer+than+ability+It+is+the+ability+to+recognize+ability+The+sternest+comment+that+can+be+made+against+employers+as+a+class+lies+in+the+fact+that+men+of+Ability+usually+succeed+in+showing+their+worth+in+spite+of+their+employer+and+not+with+his+assistance+and+encouragement%22&pg=PA87#v=onepage
"The Crying Need", in A Message to Garcia, and Thirteen Other Things (1901), p. 163 http://books.google.com/books?id=iSo3AAAAIAAJ&q=%22There+is+something+that+is+much+more+scarce+something+finer+far+something+rarer+than+ability+It+is+the+ability+to+recognize+ability+The+sternest+comment+that+can+be+made+against+employers+as+a+class+lies+in+the+fact+that+men+of+Ability+usually+succeed+in+showing+their+worth+in+spite+of+their+employer+and+not+with+his+assistance+and+encouragement%22&pg=PA163#v=onepage

“The ability to learn is older — as it is also more widespread — than is the ability to teach.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Source: 1960s, Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964), p. 44

“I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

From an address before the Women’s National Committee for Law Enforcement, as quoted in The New England historical and genealogical register, Volume 87, H. F. Waters, New England Historic & Genealogical Society (1933), p. 100.
1930s
Context: I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement. It is a maxim of our institutions, that the government does not make the people, but the people make the government.

“For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interests the common interest of all the members of society, that is, sality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones. The class making a revolution appears from the very start, if only because it is opposed to a class, not as a class but as the representative of the whole of society; it appears as the whole mass of society confronting the one ruling class.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

"Concerning the production of Consciousness"
The German Ideology (1845/46)

“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

Attributed in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1937) by Dale Carnegie

“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

“Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”

Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer

Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

“The ruling class, the billionaires who profit from human suffering care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy. Understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression and exploitation is in our interest. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior.”

Michael Prysner (1983) American anti-war political activist

"Our Real Enemies"

“The joy of love when it comes late is like the burning of a green log, which gives out all the more heat and keeps its ability to do so all the longer, the slower it is to kindle.”

Chrétien de Troyes French poet and trouvère

Joie d'amors qui vient a tart
Sanble la vert busche qui art,
Qui dedanz rant plus grant chalor
Et plus se tient en sa valor,
Quant plus demore a alumer.
Source: Yvain or Le Chevalier au Lion, Line 2521

“The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.”

Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer

Shown at the end of the episode "Scorched Earth", no. 14 in the 3rd season of Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict, first aired on February 7, 2000.

“A society that put more emphasis on birth than ability was likely to breed ability out of its ruling class.”

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