Quotes about ability (1809 quotes, page 14)

“Genius is the ability to look at things simply.”

E. Lee Spence (1947) German anthropologist, photographer, archaeologist, historian, photojournalist and academic

Full quote: Because of all of the shipwrecks I have discovered, people have called me a genius, but the truth is, finding wrecks isn't all that complicated. Get rid of your perceived notions, narrow everything down to the basic facts, and then just follow basic logic. Don't over complicate matters as, genius is the ability to look at things simply. Remember that and you will find the shipwrecks and their treasure.
from interview of Dr. E. Lee Spence by R. Lunsford, published in Shipwrecks magazine, Volume 1, Issue #4, December, 1989, p. 94

“During the last few decades the business world has brought about a complete revolution in the methods of manufacturing, distributing and selling goods. That the revolution is beneficial and important no businessman will deny. But however important'these things? are, the business man realizes that his most pressing problem is methods of influencing and handling men rather than things:
The young man looking forward to a career sees that the man who has unusual ability in handling men is sure to attain the position of superintendent or manager; but that the man who has great cunning in handling material things is not thereby assured of a position above that of a skilled mechanic.”

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955) President of Northwestern university and psychologist

Source: Influencing men in business, 1911, p. 9; Chapter 1 Introduction, lead paragraph

Men , World , Business , Problem

“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.”

Douglas Adams The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Source: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), Ch. 10

Error

“After I asked him [a student] what he meant, he replied that freedom consisted of the unimpeded right to get rich, to use his ability, no matter what the cost to others, to win advancement. No decent society can tolerate that definition.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

"A Legacy for the Young from Norman Thomas", Life Magazine, Mar 14, 1969

Freedom

“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.”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

2010-, Ai Weiwei: ‘Shame on Me.’, 2011

People , Art , Way , Communication

“Man is alone in the world, in tremendous eternal isolation. He has no object outside himself; lives for nothing else; he is far removed from being the slave of his wishes, of his abilities, of his necessities; he stands far above social ethics; he is alone. Thus he becomes one and all.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

[Paraphrasing Kant] p. 162.
Sex and Character (1903)

World

“Those who can create wealth — and know that they can — are able to dictate their own terms. Wealth is a means to happiness, but it is not the main one. What most people want is control over their lives. They want the ability to choose how they live: what work they do, the way they interact with friends and colleagues, the quality of their personal relationships, the way they view themselves.”

Richard Koch (1950) German medical historian and internist

Source: The 80/20 Individual (2003), Chapter: 80/20 Individuals in Organizations

People , Way , Personality , Wealth

“Our 'overhead' expense in segregating the delinquent, the defective and the dependent, in prisons, asylums and permanent homes, our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying … demonstrate our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism. No industrial corporation could maintain its existence upon such a foundation. Yet hardheaded 'captains of industry,' financiers who pride themselves upon their cool-headed and keen-sighted business ability are dropping millions into rosewater philanthropies and charities that are silly at best and vicious at worst. In our dealings with such elements there is a bland maladministration and misuse of huge sums that should in all righteousness be used for the development and education of the healthy elements of the community.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

Source: The Pivot of Civilization, 1922, Chapter 12, "Woman and the Future"

Education , Home , Communication , Failure

“The basis of social skill is the ability to relate to the situation of the ‘other.’ This means that whereas a given strategic actor has interests, he or she must take other people’s interests into account… to imaginatively identify with the states of others.”

Neil Fligstein (1951) American sociologist

Source: "Social skill and institutional theory." 1997, p. 398

People , Imagination

“The hallmark of evolution is its ability to process situations and generate order without relying on the crutch of a conscious designer. Most complex systems grow organically, solutions evolving through unguided and mindless forces, never reaching any final state.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

Source: In Defense of Chaos: The Chaology of Politics, Economics and Human Action, (2013), p. 338

“Visionaries are the first people in their industry segment to see the potential of the High Tech Marketing Enlightenment new technology. Fundamentally, they see themselves as smarter than their opposite numbers in competitive companies—and, quite often, they are. Indeed, it is their ability to see things first that they want to leverage into a competitive advantage. That advantage can only come about if no one else has discovered it. They do not expect, therefore, to be buying a well—tested product with an extensive list of industry references. Indeed, if such a reference base exists, it may actually turn them off, indicating that for this technology, at any rate, they are already too late.”

Geoffrey Moore book Crossing the Chasm

Source: Crossing the Chasm, 1991, p. 41-42

People

“The anxiety children feel at constantly being tested, their fear of failure, punishment, and disgrace, severely reduces their ability both to perceive and to remember, and drives them away from the material being studied into strategies for fooling teachers into thinking they know what they really don't know.”

John Holt book How Children Learn

How Children Learn (1967).

Children , Fear , Fools , Feeling

“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

Learning

“Most liberals agree that some rights and liberties are more basic than others. All liberals include some economic liberties on their list of basic liberties. The purpose of these liberties is (at least in part) to protect citizens’ ability to act as independent decision-makers over a wide range of choices they face in their lives, to facilitate them facing each other as autonomous and equal citizens, and to allow them to develop their moral powers.”

Jason Brennan (1979) philosopher

Neoclassical Liberalism: How I’m Not a Libertarian (2011)

Decision , Parting

“Every person born into this world has a natural right to sustain, preserve, and defend his own life to the best of his ability.”

Giovanni Boccaccio book The Decameron

Natural ragione è di ciascuno che ci nasce, la sua vita, quanto può, aiutare e conservare e difendere.
First Day, Introduction
The Decameron (c. 1350)

Life , World , Nature , Personality

“The problem of complexity is at the heart of mankind’s inability to predict future events with any accuracy. Complexity science has demonstrated that the more factors found within a complex system, the more chances of unpredictable behavior. And without predictability, any meaningful control is nearly impossible. Obviously, this means that you cannot control what you cannot predict. The ability ever to predict long-term events is a pipedream. Mankind has little to do with changing climate; complexity does.”

L. K. Samuels (1951) American writer

"The Real Science Behind Changing Climate", LewRockwell.com, August 1, 2014. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/lk-samuels/the-real-science-is-suppressed/

Behavior , Problem , Science , Change

“One of the chief reasons for the widespread fear of the Huns rested on their ability to travel very long distances in relatively short periods. This ability may well have been based on their use of horseshoes.”

Carroll Quigley (1910–1977) American historian

Source: The Evolution of Civilizations (1961) (Second Edition 1979), Chapter 10, Western Civilization, p. 349

Fear , Travel

“Human beings learn from their errors and error during a process can have educational effect, but why the humans make the mistakes? Because the process of education is the one of learning from errors. It means that the ones make the mistakes and this gives them the power of motivational ability.”

Khosrow Bagheri (1957) Iranian philosopher of education

Source: Website of Mehr News Agency, 2017 http://www.mehrnews.com/news/3954046/%D9%BE%D8%B0%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%B4-%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%AA%D8%B1%D8%A8%DB%8C%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B6%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B1%DB%8C-%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA

Education , Error , Motivation , Learning

“We can no longer expect the one big book, the single achievement, to be an author's claim to posterity's regard. We shall be more inclined to assess the stature of a novelist by his ability to create what the French call an oeuvre, to present fragments of an individual vision in book after book, to build, if not a War and Peace or Ulysses, at least a shelf.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, The Novel Now: A Student's Guide to Contemporary Fiction (1967)

War , Books , Peace

“One knew, of course, that it was not the red cape any more than it was the boots, the tights, the trunks, or the trademark “S” that gave Superman the ability to fly. That ability derived from the effects of the rays of our yellow sun on Superman’s alien anatomy, which had evolved under the red sun of Krypton. And yet you had only to tie a towel around your shoulders to feel the strange vibratory pulse of flight stirring in the red sun of your heart.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

Secret Skin http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/10/080310fa_fact_chabon (March 10, 2008)

Feeling , Sun , Heart , Flying

“Excessive toil occurred only where the masters or overseers were feeble witted as well as brutal. A persistent rumor among abolitionists was that sugar planters followed a policy of working slaves to death in seven years as a matter of economy. The persons spreading such reports were as ignorant of Negro nature as they were of conditions in the sugar mills. Furthermore, they overrated the ability of the masters to know how to kill a slave in the given time instead of leaving him a broken-down burden to the plantation. When they set out to prove the accusation they returned with no evidence, but convinced that the practice existed in some obscure region which they had not succeeded in ferreting out. Harriet Martineau, after watching slaves go through the motions of work without tiring themselves, considered the planters as models of patience and observed that new slave owners from Europe or the North were prone to be the most severe. Numerous observers, of various shades of opinion on slavery, agreed that brutality was no more common in the black belt than among free labor elsewhere, and that the slave owners were the worst victims of the system.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The Making of America (1986)

Death , Nature , Time , Personality

“The effectiveness of authority as a means of control depends first of all upon the ability to enforce it through the use of punishment. In the two organizations which have been the models for classical organization theory, the situation with respect to enforcement is clear. In the military, authority is enforceable through the court-martial, with the death penalty as the extreme form of punishment. In the Church, excommunication represents the psychological equivalent of the death penalty.”

Douglas McGregor (1906–1964) American professor

Source: The Human Side of Enterprise (1960), p. 27 (in 2006 edition)

Death , Penalty , Dependency

““Pure Mohammadan Islam”: This is what ISIS, Daesh in Arabic, promises to deliver once the caliphate has defeated “Infidel” enemies and secured its position. The promise is at the core of its propaganda, including in cyberspace. Its recent blitzkrieg victories and high-profile beheadings are not the only reason ISIS has attracted universal attention. Perhaps more interesting is Daesh’s ability to seduce large numbers of Muslims across the globe, including in Europe and the United States. It does so with an ideological “product” designed to replace other brands of Islamism marketed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Khomeinists in Iran. Daeshism, to coin a phrase, also aimed to transcend the ideological hodgepodge marketed by al Qaeda franchises.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The ugly attractions of ISIS’ ideology" http://nypost.com/2014/11/02/the-ugly-attractions-of-isis-ideology/, New York Post (November 2, 2014).
New York Post

Universe , Victory

“There have indeed been civilizations upon your planet that understood as well as you, and without your kind of technology, the workings of the planets, the positioning of the stars -- people who even foresaw "later" global changes. They used a mental physics. There were men before you who brought back data quite as "scientific" and pertinent. There were those who understood the "origin" of your solar system far better than you. Some of these civilizations did not need spaceships. Instead, highly trained men combining the abilities of dream-art scientists and mental physicists cooperated at journeys not only through time but through space.”

Jane Roberts (1929–1984) American Writer

Source: The “Unknown” Reality: Volume One, (1977), p. 196, Session 702

Men , People , Dreams , Art

“It was an okay vintage, if you could get past the fact that it was wine, and—stripped of the ability to get drunk on it—wine was just sour grape juice.”

Charles Stross book Iron Sunrise

Source: Iron Sunrise (2004), Chapter 14, “Sybarite Class” (p. 228)

Wine , Past

“Intelligence, then, is the ability to attain goals in the face of obstacles by means of decisions based on rational (truth-obeying) rules. The computer scientists Allen Newell and Herbert Simon fleshed this idea out further by noting that intelligence consists of specifying a goal, assessing the current situation to see how it differs from the goal, and applying a set of operations that reduce the difference. Perhaps reassuringly, by this definition human beings, not just aliens, are intelligent. We have desires, and we pursue them using beliefs, which, when all goes well, are at least approximately or probabilistically true.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 62

Truth , Intelligence , Idea , Decision

“"This is what's great about sports. This is what the greatest thing about sports is: you play to win the game. Hello? You play to win the game. You don't play it to just play it. That's the great thing about sports: you play to win, and I don't care if you don't have any wins. You go play to win. When you start tellin' me it doesn't matter, then retire. Get out! 'Cause it matters." - Following a question from New York Times sports reporter Judy Battista on the team's ability to win, on October 30, 2002 after a Week 8 loss to the Cleveland Browns left them at 2–5. After this speech, the Jets, sparked by the debut of quarterback Chad Pennington, would go 7–2 and win the AFC Eastern Division Championship.
:This monologue was later incorporated into a TV commercial for Coors Light beer.”

Herm Edwards (1954) American football player, coach and analyst

With New York

Game , Beer , Question , Sport

“Brain research in the last five years at Dartmouth and elsewhere has shown that human brains are not fully developed until age 25 and are particularly deficient in their frontal lobes, which control decision-making, rational thinking, judgment, the ability to plan ahead and to resist impulses. Unfortunately, we didn't know that in 1971. Those of you who have made it to age 26 without dying in a stupid drinking game — and I think congratulations are in order, by the way — understand how insane it is to allow young people to vote.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Repeal the 26th Amendment!" (10 November 2010).
2010

People , Age , Stupidity , Way

“I think to be an artist it means a certain sensitivity, because I believe in evolution. I believe the more sensitive you are the more you draw from this One Mind; which is part of the whole, part of everything. I think we all have that ability to be tuned in, but I think great artists are just more tuned in. One who's expressing God to the fullest, that's an artist.”

Peggy Moran (1918–2002) actress

Interview with Monster Kid Magazine

God , Thinking , Parting , Drawing

“"War," says Machiavel, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.”

Edmund Burke book A Vindication of Natural Society

A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)

War , Peace , Imagination , Nature

“We don't claim that there is plenty of money. Greek people are not asking for money. They are asking for work and the ability to make a living.”

Alexis Tsipras (1974) Greek politician

As quoted in "Debt debate veers with Greek polls close" (UPI), 2 June 2012. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2012/06/02/Debt-debate-veers-with-Greek-polls-close/UPI-30991338654675/

Money , People

“It's all for the planned redistribution of wealth which is also stated in this document, the redistribution of wealth which is based on a new concept called equity. And it says this: we must not lose sight of equity, or fairness based on need. Where have you heard that here, today? From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Michele Bachmann (1956) American politician

Edwatch conference, October 10-11, 2003
on Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's "Tax-Free Zones" initiative
2000s

Wealth

“I am glad to be able to fortify my position on this point by the great name and ability of Theophilus Parsons, of the Harvard Law School. In discussing the necessity of negro suffrage at a recent public meeting in Boston, he says: "Some of the Southern States have among their statutes a law prohibiting the education of a colored man under a heavy penalty. The whole world calls this most inhuman, most infamous. And shall we say to the whites of those States, 'We give you complete and exclusive power of legislating about the education of the blacks; but beware, for if you lift them by education from their present condition, you do it under the penalty of forfeiting and losing your supremacy?' Will not slavery, with nearly all its evils, and with none of its compensation, come back at once? Not under its own detested name; it will call itself apprenticeship; it will put on the disguise of laws to prevent pauperism, by providing that every colored man who does not work in some prescribed way shall be arrested, and placed at the disposal of the authorities; or it will do its work by means of laws regulating wages and labor. However it be done, one thing is certain: if we take from the slaves all the protection and defence they found in slavery, and withhold from them all power of self-protection and self-defence, the race must perish, and we shall be their destroyers."”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

World , Education , School , Law

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.. The unique talent of leaders is their ability to understand and work with culture; and that it is an ultimate act of”

Edgar H. Schein (1928) Psychologist

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 11

Understanding

“Real truth was out there in the shattered outhabs of Vervun hive. Real truth was waiting and silence, courage and stealth. Real truth was the ability to function in extremes. To fire a cannon and miss and try again. To fix a silver blade to the end of a las-weapon and leap from safety into a shroud of smoke, prepared as you did so to really use that makeshift spear. Real truth was a tiny hole in a man's forehead.”

Dan Abnett (1965) British comic book writer, novelist

In Remembrance (2005)

Truth , Courage , Silence , Waiting

“If we observe the aging of individuals, in the period after middle life, it seems to me that we can distinguish three ideal-typical outcomes. Some individuals bear within themselves some psychological sources of self-renewal; aging brings for them accretions of wisdom, with no loss of spontaneity and ability to enjoy life, and they are relatively independent of the culture’s strictures and penalties imposed on the aged. Other individuals, possibly the majority, bear within them no such resources but are the beneficiaries of a cultural preservative (derived from work, power, position, etc.) which sustains them although only so long as the cultural conditions remain stable and protective. A third group, protected neither from within nor from without, simply decay. In terms more fully delineated elsewhere, we may have autonomous, adjusted, and anomic reactions to aging.”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” p. 484
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

Life , Wisdom , Age , Penalty

“The Autonomous. In the case of someone like Bertrand Russell or Toscanini, one feels an essential aliveness of spirit that reflexively keeps the body alive too, in the face of the inevitable physiological catabolisms. … Such men are not necessarily “balanced” or “well-adjusted” people: they may … get along well with very few people, or prefer the “company” of dead people. … One can see in such cases a passionate interest or preoccupation which has remained alive since childhood—though perhaps newly justified or rediscovered in middle life. … Such individuals are fairly immune to cultural changes, or to cultural definitions of their own physical changes: they carry their preservative, their “spirits,” within. … As long as the body does not actively prevent, these men are immortal because of their ability to renew themselves.”

David Riesman (1909–2002) American Sociologist

“Clinical and Cultural Aspects of the Aging Process,” pp. 484-485
Individualism Reconsidered (1954)

Life , Men , People , Feeling

“The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

Reportedly said to a young John Bannister Gibson, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, when Gibson remarked that Marshall had reached the acme of judicial distinction; in David Goldsmith Loth, Chief Justice: John Marshall and the Growth of the Republic (1949), p. 275. See also Albert J. Beveridge, "Life of John Marshall" (1919)

“The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!

Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.

The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.”

Winnifred Harper Cooley (1874–1967) American author and lecturer

The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

Women , Men , Money , Children

Ray Harryhausen (1920–2013) American animator

Source: An Animated Life (2003), p. 195

Death , History , Nature

“Any performance is discussible either from the standpoint of what it attains or what it misses. Comprehensiveness can be discussed as superficiality, intensiveness as stricture, tolerance as uncertainty—and the poor pedestrian abilities of a fish are clearly explainable in terms of his excellence as a swimmer. A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing—a focus upon object A involves a neglect of object B.”

Kenneth Burke (1897–1993) American philosopher

Source: Permanence and Change (1935), p. 70

Way , Fish

“It might seem limited to impose our human perception to try to deduce the grandest cosmic code. But we are the product of the universe and I think it can be argued that the entire cosmic code is imprinted in us. Just as our genes carry the memory of our biological ancestors, our logic carries the memory of our cosmological ancestry. We are not just imposing human-centric notions on a cosmos independent of us. We are progeny of the cosmos and our ability to understand it is an inheritance.”

Janna Levin (1967) American theoretical cosmologist

How the Universe Got its Spots (2002)

Understanding , Thinking , Universe , Memory

“There is no need to deny that other 'objectives' are often important—power, prestige, public approval, or the mere love of the game— it need only be recognized that the attainment of these ends more often than not is associated directly with the ability to make profits.”

Edith Penrose (1914–1996) economist

Source: The Theory of the Growth of the Firm, 1959, p. 30

Love , Game

“What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Five: Lightness and Weight

“If we succumb to pardoning these men, then we are sabotaging and undermining our own ability to act without fear or favour. We reap what we sow. We will sow a culture of coups for our children. We must therefore, uphold the Rule of Law and Justice.”

Koila Nailatikau (1953) Fijian politician

On her boycott of the "Fiji Week" reconciliation ceremonies, Senate Speech, 22 October 2004 (excerpts) http://www.parliament.gov.fj/hansard/viewhansard.aspx?hansardID266&viewtypefull

Men , Children , Fear , Justice

“I have always been a religious person in the sense that I maintain a working partnership with God. I was aware that the best work required more ability than I possessed and therefore I needed help that only God could give me. I made a true estimate of my own ability, then raised it by 50 per cent and put myself in God's hands. In this partnership, I have always received all the power I needed, and in fact have actually felt it flowing through me. Today, I can affirm that the kingdom of God is within you in the form of this power, to help achieve your goals and realise your dreams.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 49.

God , Dreams , Sense , Help

“He is terribly rare. He is like Bach, who in his time had a great concentration of ability, essence, knowledge, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; there is so much of the dance in him that it has been distilled.”

Fred Astaire (1899–1987) American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter

George Balanchine in Nabokov, Ivan and Carmichael, Elizabeth. "Balanchine, An Interview". Horizon, January 1961, pp. 44-56. (M).

Music , Knowledge , Time , Dance

“There are those who are going to be disappointed when no life is found on other planets. Not I — I want to be reminded and delighted and surprised once again, through interplanetary exploration, with the infinite variety and novelty of phenomena that can be generated from such simple principles. The test of science is its ability to predict. Had you never visited the earth, could you predict the thunderstorms, the volcanoes, the ocean waves, the auroras, and the colorful sunset? A salutary lesson it will be when we learn of all that goes on on each of those dead planets — those eight or ten balls, each agglomerated from the same dust cloud and each obeying exactly the same laws of physics.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

volume II; lecture 41, "The Flow of Wet Water"; section 41-6, "Couette flow"; p. 41-12
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1964)

Life , Law , Disappointment , Color

“Although grace comes from above, that is not to say that everyone has the ability to accept to it.”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Heimsljós (World Light) (1940), Book Two: The Palace of the Summerland

“Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it.”

Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American writer

Preliminary.
My Summer in a Garden (1870)

Life , Men , Success

“Americans must know that we're putting the American people first again on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy. The jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority. No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and our enemies put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must start doing the same. We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism. The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony. I am skeptical of international unions that tie us up and bring America down, and will never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, April, Foreign Policy Speech (27 April 2016)

People , Falseness , Country , Happiness

“We have more information now than we can use, and less knowledge and understanding than we need. Indeed, we seem to collect information because we have the ability to do so, but we are so busy collecting it that we haven’t devised a means of using it. The true measure of any society is not what it knows but what it does with what it knows.”

Warren Bennis (1925–2014) American leadership expert

Warren G. Bennis (1990) Why leaders can't lead: the unconscious conspiracy continues. p. 143
1990s

Understanding , Business , Knowledge

“Conditions to the north of us, in the Voronezh and Steppe Fronts zone of action, and our offensive on Kharkov demands that we not lose time and we commit all forces so that we can draw off as many divisions as possible from Kharkov. And even if we do not draw them off, at least we will not give Manstein the ability to take any of his units from our part of the front. If we attract one or two German tank divisions - it will be the best contribution to the defeat of the enemy in the south.”

Aleksandr Vasilevsky (1895–1977) Soviet military commander

To Vasily Chuikov. Quoted in "Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War" - Page 228 - by David M. Glantz - History - 1989.

Time , Parting , Drawing

“For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

http://paws.kettering.edu/~jhuggins/humor/stupid.html
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (US), Notes From a Big Country (UK) (1998)

People , Stupidity , Time , Perfection

“The next phase of the work was when Joseph LeDoux and I came up with the idea of the interpreter. Twenty-five years into studying these patients we finally got around to asking the patients, "Why did you do that?" after they had a response with the left hand that was being governed by the separated, silent, speechless right hemisphere. We began to understand that the left hemisphere "made up" a story as to why the patient did what he/she did, and in that moment we began to see the cardinal feature of the left hemisphere: the ability to interpret actions generated outside its realm of conscious awareness.”

Michael S. Gazzaniga (1939) American neuroscientist

Idea , Understanding , Study

“Some years ago, the planning group at Shell surveyed 30 companies that had been in business for more than 75 years. What impressed us most was their ability to live in harmony with the business environment, to switch from a survival mode when times were turbulent to a self-development mode when the pace of change was slow. And this pattern rang a familiar bell because Shell’s history is similarly replete with switches from expansion to self-preservation and back again to growth.”

Arie de Geus (1930) Dutch businessman

Arie P. de Geus, " Planning as learning https://hbr.org/1988/03/planning-as-learning/ar/1." Harvard Business Review, March/April 1988: 70-74.

History , Business , Change , Time

“The irony of scientific progress is that in solving human problems it creates problems that are not humanly soluble. Science has given humans a kind of power over the natural world achieved by no other animal. It has not given humans the ability to remodel the planet according to their wishes. The Earth is not a clock that can be wound up and stopped at will. A living system, the planet will surely rebalance itself. It will do so, however, without any regard for humans.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

Sweet Morality (p. 212)
The Immortalization Commission: The Strange Quest to Cheat Death (2011)

World , Nature , Problem , Science

“When my ability to reason shows me that the suffering of another being is very similar to my own suffering and matters just as much to that other being as my own suffering matters to me, then my reason is showing me something that is undeniably true…. The perspective on ourselves that we get when we take the point of view of the universe also yields as much objectivity as we need if we are to find a cause that is worthwhile in a way that is independent of our own desires. The most obvious such cause is the reduction of pain and suffering, wherever it is to be found.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

p. 238 http://books.google.com/books?id=BoDMBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT238
Writings on an Ethical Life (2000)

Pain , Way , Suffering , Universe

“Inclusiveness is disguised by the ability to offer a sometimes disturbed community a vision of themselves and the means to achieve it together.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Opening address to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference in Nadi, 6 September 2005.

Communication

“From the book I got the impression that that the Maya’s strength was not in their military prowess, but in their ability to absorb invaders, adopt some of the new customs, retain some of their own. For the most part, they held their own until the Spanish came along. The Spanish conquistadors overcame the Mayan armies; the Catholic Church subdued the survivors. The friars seemed, from the book’s account, to be concerned with saving the heathens’ souls even if it meant ending their lives.”

Pat Murphy book The Falling Woman

Source: The Falling Woman (1986), Chapter 6 (p. 87)

Books , Soul , Parting

“When the women of the country come in and sit with you, though there may be but very few in the next few years, I pledge you that you will get ability, you will get integrity of purpose, you will get exalted patriotism, and you will get unstinted usefulness.”

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) American politician

Address to the Senate, November 21, 1922

Women , Country

“I do not think this is a permanent condition. The craziness comes more from cultural ethnic issues than anything else, because you have a… A lot of the real craziness come from, if you like, from rural White Americans who feel that they’re losing their country, they’re losing ownership of the country. And they are right — we are becoming more diverse, more multicultural. And in the end, they are they…they…they are not the future. In the end, the power they still have will go away. But it’s a very difficult time until then. So the future is Mayor Deblasio of New York, but Ted Cruz is still out there with the ability to do a lot of damage.”

Paul Krugman (1953) American economist

in Paul Krugman Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-8yFPTwhKs&feature=youtu.be&t=363 by Norwegian TV channel NRK (January 8, 2014)

Feeling , Thinking , Time , Future

“"Old" and "new" are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested all our past, our wisdom, our memories, our sadness, our sense of realism. We cannot do without faith in the new, because in what is new is invested all our energy, our capacity for optimism, our blind biological yearning, our ability to forget — the healing ability that makes reconciliation possible.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Frankfurt Book Fair speech (2003)

Wisdom , World , Sadness , Faith

“In the new environment and markets it is not enough to only promote the export of Finland. We need the political view where the countries are developing and political abilities to contribute the direction of development, e. g. in the human rights and security issues.”

Pekka Haavisto (1958) Finnish politician

Source: Pekka Haavisto: Moninapaista arvokeskustelua http://www.ulkopolitiikka.fi/article/910/pekka_haavisto_moninapaista_arvokeskustelua/ Ulkopolitiikka 4/2011” ”Uusissa toimintaympäristöissä ja uusilla markkinoilla ei riitä, että edistetään Suomen vientiä. Pitää olla myös poliittinen näkemys siitä, mihin maat ja alueet ovat kehittymässä, sekä poliittisia valmiuksia vaikuttaa kehityksen suuntaan, esimerkiksi ihmisoikeus- ja turvallisuuskysymyksiin.”

Country

“The strength of capitalism does not lie in the neoclassical idea of stability, but in its ability to unleash this creative energy. like a chaotic mathematical system, it is capable of producing surprise.”

David Orrell (1962) Canadian mathematician

Source: The Other Side Of The Coin (2008), Chapter 6, At Rest Versus In Motion, p. 194

Lie , Mathematics , Idea

“Anybody with a good sense of humor is one-up on their competition. We respond to somebody who has the ability to make us laugh. It's a bonding influence.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Kevin Merida (February 15, 1988) "A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to The White House - The one-laugh-one-vote theory has candidates cracking wise", The Dallas Morning News, p. 1C.

Sense

“I have always felt rather badly for orchestra musicians, especially the stringed instrument player who certainly in his youth expected to be a virtuoso… I admire their patience and ability, and through the years have made the effort to show them my respect and – love in many instances.”

Pierre Monteux (1875–1964) French conductor

From Monteux, Doris G (1965). It's All in the Music: The Life and Work of Pierre Monteux. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. OCLC 604146, p. 197

Love , Youth , Effort , Patience

“But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not one-dimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice. I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler's death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them. I can think of some answers, and they are good ones, which would probably end up persuading me. But hasn't the time come when we should stop being frightened even to put the question?”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

Richard Dawkins, From the Afterword, The Herald Scotland, (November 20, 2006) http://www.heraldscotland.com/from-the-afterword-1.836155

Death , Dogs , Music , Mathematics

“If we want our children to have a balance between their abilities to earn money and show love, it will help if both their parents model that balance.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

page 114.
Father and Child Reunion (2001)

Love , Money , Children , Parent

“They were the misfits of the world, the outcasts, for they deviated from the norm of humanity as established through all of history. Yet it was this very deviation which made them the hope of all mankind. Ordinary human beings—the kind of human beings who had brought the race this far—were not enough today. The ordinary humans had pushed the culture forward as far as they could push it. It had served its purpose; it had brought the ordinary human as far as he could go. Now the race evolved. Now new abilities had awoke and grown—exactly as the creatures of the Earth had evolved and specialized and then evolved again from that first moment when the first feeble spark of life had come into being in the seething chemical bath of a new and madcap planet.
Twisted brains, the normal people called them; magic people, dwellers of the darkness—and could anyone say no to this? For each people set its standards for each generation and these standards and these norms were not set by any universal rule, by no all-encompassing yardstick, but by what amounted to majority agreement, with the choice arrived at through all the prejudice and bias, all the faulty thinking and the unstable logic to which all intelligence is prone.”

Clifford D. Simak book Time is the Simplest Thing

Source: Time is the Simplest Thing (1961), Chapter 31 (pp. 233-234)

Life , People , World , Hope

“A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration… The unsuccessful individual on the other hand, tends to show one of two reactions: he sets his goal very low, frequently below his past achievement… or he sets his goals far above his abilities.”

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist

Source: 1940s, Resolving social conflicts; selected papers on group dynamics, 1948, p. 133 as cited in: Roger Dale, Madeleine MacDonald, Geoff Esland (1976) Schooling & Capitalism: A Sociological Reader. p. 111.

Way , Success , Past

“Fears to look bad in front of other people, to say something wrong, to be laughed at - all those fears deprive us of half of our abilities. This is one of the main school problems. That teacher understands it, who can teach students to study without fear of the teacher, without fear of classmates, and, the most important, without fear of a subject.”

Simon Soloveychik (1930–1996) Russia writer and philosopher

Source: The Last Book (1999), Ch.20 (In Russian, Последняя книга,1999, ISBN 5-8246-0030-9

People , Fear , School , Understanding

“To a fair extent the Tyrannosaurus species are the tyrannosaur's of tyrannosaurs; they have taken to an extreme the development of skull size, strength, and power. This and the larger, more forward-pointing mid-upper jaw teeth suggest a more potent wounding ability than the albertosaur's. The stoutness of Tyrannosaurus relative to albertosaurs is readily apparent in the skeletal restorations. They are not as graceful, but they have a well-proportioned, majestic attractiveness of their own.”

Gregory Scott Paul (1954) U.S. researcher, author, paleontologist, and illustrator

Gregory S. Paul (1988) Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, Simon and Schuster, p. 338
Predatory Dinosaurs of the World

“Here you will find a pleasant and agreeable style, of a natural simplicity. The narrative is pure and the good faith of the author shines from it, exempt from the vanity of talking about oneself, and from partiality or envy when speaking of others. His ideas and exhortations are accompanied more by good zeal and truth than by any fine ability; and all throughout there is an authoritative tone and gravity proper to a man of good background, brought up in great affairs.”

Philippe de Commines (1447–1511) writer and diplomat

Vous y trouverez le langage doux et aggreable, d'une naïfve simplicité, la narration pure, et en laquelle la bonne foy de l'autheur reluit evidemment, exempte de vanité parlant de soy, et d'affection et d'envie parlant d'autruy : ses discours et enhortemens, accompaignez, plus de bon zele et de verité, que d'aucune exquise suffisance, et tout par tout de l'authorité et gravité, representant son homme de bon lieu, et élevé aux grans affaires.
Michel de Montaigne Essais Bk. II, ch. 10: "Des Livres"; translation from Serge Hughes (trans.) The Essential Montaigne (New York: New American Library, 1970) p. 293.
Criticism

Truth , Faith , Idea , Nature

“Paul Ryan combines a profound sense of responsibility for what we owe the next generation with an unbounded optimism in America's future and an understanding of all the wonderful things the American people can do. Paul also combines firm principles with a practical concern for getting things done. He has never been content to simply curse the darkness; he would rather light candles. And throughout his legislative career he's shown the ability to work with members of both parties to find common ground on some of the hardest issues confronting the American people.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-11
http://mittromneycentral.com/2012/08/11/video-and-transcript-romney-making-his-vp-announcement/
Video and Transcript: Romney Making His VP Announcement
Mitt Romney Central
2012

People , Optimism , Understanding , Sense

“.. any revolution or any usurpation is justified before the bar of history by the exclusive ability govern, even its rigorous judgement must acknowledge that the corporation duly comprehended and worthily fulfilled its great task.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1. Book II. Chapter 3. Translated by W.P.Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 1

History

“Frankly I've never really subscribed to these adjectives tagging me as an 'icon', 'superstar', etc. I've always thought of myself as an actor doing his job to the best of his ability.”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

“Muhammad seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Muhammad said that he was sent in the power of his arms—which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning, Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Muhammad forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place any faith in his words believe foolishly.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Summa Contra Gentiles, I, 6.4 (trans. Anton C. Pegis)

Wisdom , Men , People , Pleasure

“We must not despair, we must not for a moment pretend that we cannot face these things. Dangers come upon the world; other nations face them. When, in old days, the sea gave access to this island, it was a danger to this island, it made it the most invadable place at any point, but by taking proper measures our ancestors gained the command of the sea, and, consequently, what had been a means of inroad upon us became our sure shield and protection; and there is not the slightest reason why, with our ability and our resources, and our peaceful intentions, our desire only to live quietly here in our island, we should not raise up for ourselves a security in the air above us which will make us as free from serious molestation as did our control of blue water through bygone centuries.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1934/mar/08/air-estimates-1934#column_2071 in the House of Commons (8 March 1934) during the debate on the Government's White Paper on Defence that announced an increase in the Royal Air Force
The 1930s

World , Peace , Water , Sea

“One simple method is to take a pen or pencil and hold it up against a blank wall or ceiling. Now concentrate on the pen as if it is the most important thing in the world. Then allow your sense to relax, so you see the pen against the background of the wall. Concentrate again. Relax again. Keep on doing this until you become aware of the ability to focus attention at will. You will find that this unaccustomed activity of the will is tiring; it produces a sense of strain behind the eyes. My own perception is that if you persist, in spite of the strain, the result is acute discomfort, followed by a sudden immense relief - the 'peak experience.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Access to Inner Worlds (1990), p. 33

World , Sense

“The ability and the desire to transmit knowhow, intention, and insight to others around us have co-evolved with humanity itself. Mixed reality is a huge milestone in that human project of record keeping, perspective sharing, empathising, and merging with the ‘other’, a project that began with the first cave painting, or even earlier.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"‘Cost of Coal’, India’s first documentary in VR" in The Hindu (16 July 2016) http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/cost-of-coal-indias-first-documentary-in-vr/article8856593.ece

Reality , Painting

“Since it is always the same person whose mind thinks, wills, and judges, the autonomous nature of these activities has created great difficulties. Reason’s inability to move the will, plus the fact that thinking can only “understand” what is past what neither remove it nor “rejuvenate it” … have led to the various doctrines asserting the mind’s impotence and the force of the irrational, in brief to Hume’s famous dictum that “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions,” that is, to a rather simple-minded reversal of the Platonic notion of reason’s uncontested rulership in the household of the soul. What is so remarkable in all these theories and doctrines is their implicit monism, the claim that behind the obvious multiplicity of the world’s appearances and, even more pertinently to our context, behind the obvious plurality of man’s faculties and abilities, there must exist a oneness — the old hen pan, “the all is one””

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

either a single source or a single ruler.
Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 70.

World , Soul , Understanding , Nature

“The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) Polish-American Conservative Judaism Rabbi

"No TIme for Neutrality", p. 107
Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays (1997)

God , Faith

“My father taught me that one of the most important abilities in life is to be able to take the pain and persevere, and for years this lesson had served me well.”

Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer

Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin

For Parents , For Father , Life , Pain

“When you live on your own for a long time, however, your personality changes because you go so much into yourself you lose the ability to be social, to understand what is and isn't normal behavior. There is an entire world inside yourself, and if you let yourself, you can get so deep inside it you will forget the way to the surface. Other people keep our souls alive, just like food and water does with our body.”

Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality

Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)

People , World , Food , Way

“The great struggle in the world today is not one of popularity but one of power, and our power depends in considerable measure upon our ability to influence other nations, upon their willingness to associate themselves with our efforts, upon the strength of our stature and leadership. … this deterioration in our prestige abroad threatens our bases, our alliances, our security and the peace itself and it is time we were respected once again throughout the would as the good neighbor.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1960, Speech at East Los Angeles College Stadium, Los Angeles, California

World , Peace , Effort , Time

“Seventy thousand years ago, homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.”

Yuval Noah Harari book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

God , Youth , Business , Animals

“Leaks have happened before. They are not new. But the industrial scale of leaking made possible through the digitisation of information and the ability to communicate instantly across the globe - that is new. If it is to be revolutionary, however, we need a model for a new type of politics.”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 226.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

Communication

“Openness is an essential factor underlying a system's viability, continuity, and its ability to change.”

Walter F. Buckley (1922–2006) American sociologist

Source: Sociology and modern systems theory (1967), p. 50 as cited in: Roberta R. Greene (2011) Human Behavior Theory and Social Work Practice. p. 182.

Change

“The unremitting division of labour resulted in admirable levels of productivity. The company’s success appeared to bear out the principles of efficiency laid down at the turn of the twentieth century by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who theorized that a society would grow wealthy to the extent that its members forfeited general knowledge in favour of fostering individual ability in narrowly constricted fields. In an ideal Paretan economy, jobs would be ever more finely subdivided to allow for the accumulation of complex skills, which would then be traded among workers. … But however great the economic advantages of segmenting the elements of an afternoon’s work into a range of forty-year-long careers, there was reason to wonder about the unintended side effects of doing so. In particular, one felt tempted to ask … how meaningful the lives might feel as a result.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (2009)

Feeling , Knowledge , Appearance , Success

“It’s a thing of beauty, the ability to spin the cloth of reality, and you’re a sucker for it: Isn’t story-telling what being human is all about?”

Charles Stross book Halting State

Source: Halting State (2007), Chapter 13, “Jack: In Hell” (p. 96)

Beauty , Reality , Clothes

“As I grew I no longer lost any sleep over the questions of God and infinity. I understood they could have no answers. At some point the reality of God was no longer present in my mind. I believed in the basic Church teachings because I thought they were correct, not because God wanted me to. In my mind, in the way I interpret them, I still live by them today. Not by the rules and regulations, but by the principles. For example, in the matter of abortion, I am pro-choice, but by personal choice would have nothing to do with an abortion of a child of my own. I believe in free will, and believe I have no right to tell anyone else what to do. Popes come and go, and John XXIII has been the only one I felt affection for. Their dictums strike me as lacking in the ability to surprise. They have been leading a holding action for a millennium.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God

God , Way , Question , Reality

“It is said that adversity introduces us to ourselves. This is true of a nation as well. We see our national character in our ability to rally together in times of difficulties, celebrations and in eloquent acts of sacrifice.”

Josefa Iloilo (1920–2011) President of Fiji

Opening address to the National Day of Prayer in Suva, 15 May 2005 (excerpts) http://www.fiji.gov.fj/publish/page_4607.shtml

Time

“To be perfectly just is an attribute in the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 99.
The Guardian (1713)

Nature

“Capitalism in the twentieth century was dominated by finance, with the exception of that half of the century that was taken up by its world wars, the Great Depression and its Keynesian aftermath. Even before, in the nineteenth century, finance seduced industrial capitalism by offering a vision of capitalist reproduction expanded by the resources generated by financial inflation, ostensibly held in check by controls on the issue of paper money. The extensive and negative reaction of English political economy to Adam Smith’s views on usury was symptomatic of the expansion of financial markets and their growing confidence in their ability to contribute to commerce and industry. From Veblen through Keynes to Minsky, a series of critics of finance argued that economies do not operate in the benign way in which it appears in equilibrium economics. These critics can be divided into those like Veblen, Hawtrey, Kalecki, Steindl and Minsky, who took a general view of finance; those like Smith, Fisher and Breit, who saw the financial system as essentially a banking system; and those like Keynes, Kindleberger and Galbraith, who have identified the pathology of modern capitalism in its capital markets.”

Jan Toporowski (1950)

Theories of Financial Disturbance (2005), Ch. 15. Conclusion: the disturbance of economists by finance

Money , War , World , Way

“I am not really suggesting that we should construct cybernetic cigarette boxes, merely that the situation described contains all the elements which would have to be taken into account in a design of a practical cognitive system. These can be described as:
1. The actual physical system (the box), whose construction is such that conditions hazardous to it can be identified;
2. A disordered and changing environment containing such hazards;
3. A motor ability capable of removing the system from the vicinity of danger;
4. Means of perceiving these aspects of the environment, capable of signalling the danger in advance,
5. A brain or a mechanism for deciding what to do on the basis of the perceived information.
The inclusion of complementary positive elements such as advantageous situations and the desire to seek them, would not affect the general scheme in any essential way.”

Edward Ihnatowicz (1926–1988) Cybernetic sculptor

Source: The Relevance of Manipulation to the Process of Perception, 1977, p. 134

Way , Change , Box

“All my life I have felt most strongly against social distinction of any kind. I have at all time tried to paint to the best of my ability and would only hope that any remembrance of me when I'm am gone will be base on my work.”

L. S. Lowry (1887–1976) British visual artist

Letter of 1967 and 1970 to Prime Ministers Wilson and Heath declining knighthood.L. S. Lowry - A Biography by Shelley Rhode Lowry Press 1999 ISBN 9781902970011.
Other

Life , Hope , Time , Painting

“Corruption is the enemy of development. It must be got rid of. Both the government and the people at large must come together to achieve this national objective. You have always shown an ability to understand events happening around you; expressed your views and I am sure you will not fail in building a strong, progressive, cohesive and corruption-free India. These are totally unacceptable and must be opposed by one and all. The government, social organizations, NGOs and other voluntary bodies all have to work collectively. Therefore, their issues received my constant attention during my Presidency. Women have talent and intelligence but due to social constraints and prejudices, it is still a long distance away from the goal of gender equality. A paradigm shift, where, in addition to, physical inputs for farming, a focused emphasis placed on knowledge inputs, can be a promising way forward. This knowledge-based approach will bring immense returns particularly in rainfed and dryland farming areas. I believe economic growth should translate into the happiness and progress of all. Alongwith it, there should be development of art and culture, literature and education, science and technology. We have to see how to harness the many resources of India for achieving common good and for inclusive growth.”

Pratibha Patil (1934) 12th President of India

Patil's goodbye wish: A 'corruption-free India' https://in.news.yahoo.com/patils-goodbye-wish-corruption-free-india-143318154.html in: IANS India Private Limited By Indo Asian News Service, 24 July 2012.
Goodybe Wish

Women , People , Education , Art

“I think a woman who's confident, who's aware of her own abilities and her own limitations and who accepts gracefully failure as part of her life. All this combination makes a beautiful woman.”

Mallika Sherawat (1976) Indian actress

[The Quest for beauty, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/01/quest/index.html, June 16 2006]

Life , Beauty , Confidence , Failure

“The troubles of the 20th century are not unlike those of adolescence -- rapid growth beyond the ability of organizations to manage, uncontrollable emotion, and a desperate search for identity. Out of adolescence, however, comes maturity in which physical growth with all its attendant difficulties comes to an end, but in which growth continues in knowledge, in spirit, in community, and in love; it is to this that we look forward as a human race. This goal, once seen with our eyes, will draw our faltering feet toward it.”

Kenneth E. Boulding (1910–1993) British-American economist

Kenneth Boulding, 1973, p. 21 as cited in: Donald W. Cole (1983) Conflict resolution technology. p. 5
1970s

Love , Search , Communication , Knowledge

Quotes about ability page 14

Quotes about ability
page 14