“Knowledge and ability were tools, not things to show off.”

“Knowledge is a tool, and like all tools, its impact is in the hands of the user.”

Dan Brown book The Lost Symbol

“The emergent humans were still animals, still bound by natural law. No innovation in the way they lived would have taken root if it had not given them an adaptive advantage in the endless struggle to survive. An ability to believe in things that weren’t true was a powerful tool.”

Stephen Baxter book Evolution

“If you give people tools, and they use their natural abilities and their curiosity, they will develop things in ways that will surprise you very much beyond what you might have expected.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

“Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

“So far as it goes, a small thing may give an analogy of great things, and show the tracks of knowledge.”
Dum taxat, rerum magnarum parva potest res exemplare dare et vestigia notitiai.

Lucretius (-94–-55 BC) Roman poet and philosopher

“The body of knowledge is advancing at an absolutely incredible rate, and new tools are constantly being made available to the researcher that were previously not only unavailable, but often not even dreamed of.”

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) German, later an American, aerospace engineer and space architect

“The intelligence recedes, no more a tool of learning - because knowledge is based on experience - but a tool of the outside world it is deprived of knowing. It tries to contact other minds by telepathy; it becomes the Ancestor. Words and Numbers come to hold mystic significance: they were invented by some arcane magic older than man. The line between the word and the thing vanishes; the intervals of numbers in infinity collapse with infinity.”

Jack Abbott book In the Belly of the Beast

“In order to labor, there are required not only ability and will, but also room to work, tools, raw materials and means of sustenance. The poor man must, therefore, by force of necessity, apply to those who possess these things in plenty.”

Johann Most (1846–1906) German-American anarchist politician, newspaper editor, and orator

“I'm going to use all my tools, my God-given ability, and make the best life I can with it.”

LeBron James (1984) American basketball player