Quotes about ability
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“Ability can take you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there”

Zig Ziglar (1926–2012) American motivational speaker

“Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.”

Salman Rushdie book The Satanic Verses

Source: The Satanic Verses

Courage

“Patience is not the ability to wait but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Waiting, Patience

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

Malcolm X book The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Source: The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Reading

“A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.”

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) American businessman and philanthropist

“But as long as we stay true to our democratic principles, as long as elections have integrity, as long as we respect freedom of speech, freedom of religion, as long as there are checks and balances in our governments so that the people have the ability to not just make judgments about how well government is serving them but also change governments if they're not serving them well -- then I have confidence that over the long term, progress will continue.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, News Conference With Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany (November 2016)

People, Religion, Confidence, Freedom

“If […] the ability to tell right from wrong should turn out to have anything to do with the ability to think, then we must be able to "demand" its exercise from every sane person, no matter how erudite or ignorant, intelligent or stupid, he may happen to be. Kant—in this respect almost alone among the philosophers—was much bothered by the common opinion that philosophy is only for the few, precisely because of its moral implications.”

Hannah Arendt book The Life of the Mind

Source: The Life of the Mind (1971/1978), p. 13.

Stupidity, Exercises, Intelligence, Thinking

“The Republicans inculcate, with whatever of ability they can, that the negro is a man; that his bondage is cruelly wrong, and that the field of his oppression ought not to be enlarged. The Democrats deny his manhood; deny, or dwarf to insignificance, the wrong of his bondage; so far as possible, crush all sympathy for him, and cultivate and excite hatred and disgust against him; compliment themselves as Union-savers for doing so; and call the indefinite outspreading of his bondage "a sacred right of self-government."”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision (1857)

“Part of our evolutionary heritage is the ability to adapt -- species that survive, adapt. Humans adapt by altering their priorities to match evolving values.”

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

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 242.

Parting

“Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

This Is My Story (1937)

Love, People, World, Behavior

“We live in a troubled, but wonderful time. It is our good fortune to witness and benefit from scientific advances that would have been literally unimaginable to our grandparents. However, there are dark clouds on the horizon. The rate of growth of scientific knowledge has been so great as to outstrip the ability of our society to assimilate it, the capacity of the educational system to teach it properly and the wisdom of government adequately to sustain and apply it. There is growing indifference to science among the young. Even medical science, which touches the lives of us all, is generally left to the practitioners. Whatever the reason for this disparity between the importance of science and the lack of general public understanding, it is important to address it.”

Elias James Corey (1928) American chemist

E. J. Corey, ‎Barbara Czakó, ‎László Kürti, Molecules and Medicine (2007). Introduction

Wisdom, Education, Understanding, Knowledge

“Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality – it resists and makes demands..”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Source: 1932 - 1946, The Studio 132:643', (1946), p. 279

Idea

“Within the last quarter of a century, in America, several sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines. There are the Mind Cure, the Faith Cure, the Prayer Cure, the Mental Science Cure, and the Christian-Science Cure; and apparently they all do their miracles with the same old, powerful instrument—the patient's imagination. Differing names, but no difference in the process. But they do not give that instrument the credit; each sect claims that its way differs from the ways of the others.

They all achieve some cures, there is no question about it; and the Faith Cure and the Prayer Cure probably do no harm when they do no good, since they do not forbid the patient to help out the cure with medicines if he wants to; but the others bar medicines, and claim ability to cure every conceivable human ailment through the application of their mental forces alone. There would seem to be an element of danger here. It has the look of claiming too much, I think. Public confidence would probably be increased if less were claimed.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Book I, Ch. 4
Christian Science (1907)

Faith, Way, Confidence, Imagination

“You can kill people with compassion. That's the Freudian Oedipal situation. Think about working in a nursing home. There's a rule of thumb that we can use as a guide when interacting with people in general. It is this: Do not do anything for anyone that they can do themselves. You just steal it from them. Imagine that you're working with elderly people. It might be easier to do something for them than to let them struggle through it. You just speed their demise by taking away their last vestiges of independence. People do the same thing with kids. The answer is: struggle through it. When people struggle through things on their own, using their own abilities - they learn how to live. You have to be one heard-hearted sonofabitch to allow this, but it's what's best for people. Think about that. What's the alternative? If we cater to people all the time, then we end up becoming a major cause of them becoming people who are always catered to. This is an incredibly important lesson in the triumph of fostering independence over casual compassion.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

People, Home, Imagination, Thinking

“There are evils, as someone has pointed out, that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever — money, for instance, or war.”

Saul Bellow book The Dean's December

The Dean’s December (1982) [Penguin Classics, 1998, ISBN 0-140-18913-0], ch. 13, p. 140
General sources

Money, War, Evil

“We are told [that the West is threatened by] the terrorist threat of Islamic jihadism. Again, opinion is perfectly manipulated on the subject. Jihadism is merely the inevitable product of the triad's continued support of reactionary political Islam inspired and financed by Gulf Wahhabism. The exercise of this so-called Islamic power is the best guarantee of the total destruction of the ability of societies in the region to resist the dictates of liberal globalization. At the same time, it offers the best pretext for giving the appearance of legitimacy to the NATO's interventions.”

Samir Amin (1931–2018) Egyptian economist

The Election of Donald Trump https://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/amin301116.html (30 November 2016), Monthly Review Magazine (MRzine)

Exercises, Support, Appearance, Time

“To determine whether or not you have the ingredients to be charismatic, answer the following questions: What are your real feelings about who you are? What do you believe in? Do you have goals or a mission in life? Do you project optimism? Do others turn to you for leadership? Non-charismatic people spend their lives auditioning for others and hoping they'll be accepted. Charismatic people don't doubt their ability to add value to a situation, so they move forward with their mission.”

Roger Ailes (1940–2017) Television executive

You are the Message : Getting What You Want by Being Who You Are (1989)

Life, People, Hope, Feeling

“In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory. So if you just brought them back from the dead they wouldn’t do well. They’d get bad openings. You cannot compare the playing strength, you can only talk about natural ability. Memorization is enormously powerful. Some kid of fourteen today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca, and especially against the players of the previous century, like Morphy and Steinitz. Maybe they would still be able to outplay the young kid of today. Or maybe not, because nowadays when you get the opening advantage not only do you get the opening advantage, you know how to play, they have so many examples of what to do from this position. It is really deadly, and that is why I don’t like chess any more.”

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer

Radio Interview, October 16 2006 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_35_3.MP3 2000s

Nature, Dependency, Dead

“Capital is money, capital is commodities. … By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Vol. I, Ch. 4, pp. 171–172
(Buch I) (1867)

Money

“Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”

Tom Watson (1874–1956) American businessman

Watson (1939) in: American druggist Vol 100. p. 40.

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

"Address at Commencement Exercises at Eureka College in Illinois," May 9, 1982. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=42501 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985)

Peace

“Ability is nothing without opportunity.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

As quoted in Have You Ever Noticed? : The Wit and Irony of Every Day Life (1985) by Joe Moore
Attributed

“It is the duty of every man, so far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Theophilanthropist: Containing Critical, Moral, Theological and Literary Essays, in Monthly Numbers https://books.google.com/books?id=XasOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA387&lpg=PA387, p. 387 1800s

Error

“Take away a man’s actual sense of manhood — which is conventionally based on the ability to work, to earn money, to be self-sufficient, to provide for children — and you’ve got to give them something else. And they did.This hideous religion that’s all over the country — these huge church-malls — that’s what substitutes for these lost towns. But that’s not a town. That’s a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A "community" is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That’s just self-righteousness — incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. People have become so rigid; their opinions seem to them like themselves. When that happens (and it has happened) people can’t change their minds. If you are identified by your opinions — if that is the very basis of yourself — how can you change your mind?”

Fran Lebowitz (1950) author and public speaker from the United States

Ruminator Magazine interview with Susannah McNeely (August/September 2005).

Money, Children, People, Religion

“When Paul thought about his effortless rise in the hierarchy, he sometimes, as now, felt sheepish, like a charlatan. He could handle his assignments all right, but he didn’t have what his father had, what Kroner had, what Shepherd had, what so many had: the sense of spiritual importance in what they were doing; the ability to be moved emotionally, almost like a lover, by the great omnipresent and omniscient spook, the corporate personality. In short, what Paul missed was what made his father aggressive and great: the capacity to really give a damn.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 6 (pp. 66-67)

Lovers, Sense, Personality

“Taking the strong believing women as role models for both men and women, clearly indicates that the Quran acknowledges the woman's ability to be a strong person who can overcome any innate weakens in her.”

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–2010) Lebanese faqih

The Woman's Personality and Role in Life http://english.bayynat.org.lb/WomenFamily/role.htm.

Women, Men, Strong, Personality

“All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, "You're no good." That's all we get told all our lives. "You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler." It happened to all of us, but if somebody had told me all my life, "Yeah, you're a great artist," I would have been a more secure person.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 9

Life, Guy, Drawing, Personality

“An individual's self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 43

Life, Behavior, Strong, Learning

“The theories that I (and others) helped develop explained why unfettered markets often not only do not lead to social justice, but do not even produce efficient outcomes. Interestingly, there has been no intellectual challenge to the refutation of Adam Smith’s invisible hand: individuals and firms, in the pursuit of their self-interest, are not necessarily, or in general, led as if by an invisible hand, to economic efficiency. The only question that has been raised concerns the ability of government to remedy the deficiencies of the market. Within academia, a significant fraction of economists are involved with developing and expanding on the ideas of imperfect information (and imperfect markets) that I explored. For instance, Edmund Phelps, this year’s Nobel Prize winner, belongs to this "school" of thought. But in political discourse, simplistic “market fundamentalism” continues to exert enormous influence.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz (1943) American economist and professor, born 1943.

Interview on Bebbe Grillo's Blog http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/2007/01/stiglitz.html, January 2007.

School, Justice, Idea, Question

“Certainly we are not going to say these things about the negro people publicly; we have no distinction between black or white, or demon or demigod, but at the same time, so long as one is demon or demigod, we have to behave in the proper way. Just like Caitanya Mahaprabhu; He had no distinction between a tiger and a man. He was so powerful that He could convert even a tiger to dance. But so far as we are concerned, we should not imitate and go to some tiger and try to make him dance! But still, tiger is equally eligible like a man. So, you can understand that these talks are not for the public, as they have not got the ability to understand. Basically we have not got hatred for anyone, but when one is demoniac or atheistic, we should try to avoid their company. A preacher’s business is to love God, to make friendship with devotees, to enlighten the innocent, and to avoid the demons. This principle we shall follow. But in higher devotional life, there is no such distinction.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Letter to Satsvarupa, San Francisco, 9 April, 1968 PrabhupadaBooks.com http://prabhupadabooks.com/letters/san_francisco/april/09/1968/satsvarupa?d=1 Quotes from other Sources, Quotes from other Sources: Racism and Homophobia

Love, Life, God, Friendship

“And then, on September 11, 2001, the world fractured. It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow — the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Preface to the 2004 edition of Dreams from My Father, p. x
2004

World, Fear, Understanding, Heart

“good art means the ability of any one man to pin down in some permanent and intelligible medium a sort of idea of what he sees in Nature that nobody else sees. In other words, to make the other fellow grasp, through skilled selective care in interpretative reproduction or symbolism, some inkling of what only the artist himself could possibly see in the actual objective scene itself.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Woodburn Harris (25 February-1 March 1929), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 487
Non-Fiction, Letters

Art, Intelligence, Idea, Nature

“To such a one my answer is that I have arrived at a nourishing kernel in that I have learnt that a man is not in any difficulty in making a reply according to his faith which he ought to make to those who try to defame our Holy Scripture. When they are able, from reliable evidence, to prove some fact of physical science, we shall show that it is not contrary to our Scripture. But when they produce from any of their books a theory contrary to Scripture, and therefore contrary to the Catholic faith, either we shall have some ability to demonstrate that it is absolutely false, or at least we ourselves will hold it so without any shadow of a doubt. And we will so cling to our Mediator, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” that we will not be led astray by the glib talk of false philosophy or frightened by the superstition of false religion. When we read the inspired books in the light of this wide variety of true doctrines which are drawn from a few words and founded on the firm basis of Catholic belief, let us choose that one which appears as certainly the meaning intended by the author. But if this is not clear, then at least we should choose an interpretation in keeping with the context of Scripture and in harmony with our faith. But if the meaning cannot be studied and judged by the context of Scripture, at least we should choose only that which our faith demands. For it is one thing to fail to recognize the primary meaning of the writer, and another to depart from the norms of religious belief. If both these difficulties are avoided, the reader gets full profit from his reading."”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

I, xxi, 41. Modern translation by J.H. Taylor
De Genesi ad Litteram

Wisdom, Books, Faith, Religion

“Every revolutionary party finds its chief support in the younger generation of the rising class. Political decay expresses itself in a loss of ability to attract youth.”

Leon Trotsky book The Revolution Betrayed

Source: The Revolution Betrayed (1936), Ch. 7

Youth, Support, Loss

“I'm asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change - but in yours. I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written: Yes, we can. Yes, we did. Yes, we can.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2017, Farewell Address (January 2017)

Faith, Justice, Idea, Change

“As for your artificial conception of "splendid & traditional ways of life"—I feel quite confident that you are very largely constructing a mythological idealisation of something which never truly existed; a conventional picture based on the perusal of books which followed certain hackneyed lines in the matter of incidents, sentiments, & situations, & which never had a close relationship to the actual societies they professed to depict... In some ways the life of certain earlier periods had marked advantages over life today, but there were compensating disadvantages which would make many hesitate about a choice. Some of the most literarily attractive ages had a coarseness, stridency, & squalor which we would find insupportable... Modern neurotics, lolling in stuffed easy chairs, merely make a myth of these old periods & use them as the nuclei of escapist daydreams whose substance resembles but little the stern actualities of yesterday. That is undoubtedly the case with me—only I'm fully aware of it. Except in certain selected circles, I would undoubtedly find my own 18th century insufferably coarse, orthodox, arrogant, narrow, & artificial. What I look back upon nostalgically is a dream-world which I invented at the age of four from picture books & the Georgian hill streets of Old Providence.... There is something artificial & hollow & unconvincing about self-conscious intellectual traditionalism—this being, of course, the only valid objection against it. The best sort of traditionalism is that easy-going eclectic sort which indulges in no frenzied pulmotor stunts, but courses naturally down from generation to generation; bequeathing such elements as really are sound, losing such as have lost value, & adding any which new conditions may make necessary.... In short, young man, I have no quarrel with the principle of traditionalism as such, but I have a decided quarrel with everything that is insincere, inappropriate, & disproportionate; for these qualities mean ugliness & weakness in the most offensive degree. I object to the feigning of artificial moods on the part of literary moderns who cannot even begin to enter into the life & feelings of the past which they claim to represent... If there were any reality or depth of feeling involved, the case would be different; but almost invariably the neotraditionalists are sequestered persons remote from any real contacts or experience with life... For any person today to fancy he can truly enter into the life & feeling of another period is really nothing but a confession of ignorance of the depth & nature of life in its full sense. This is the case with myself. I feel I am living in the 18th century, though my objective judgment knows better, & realises the vast difference from the real thing. The one redeeming thing about my ignorance of life & remoteness from reality is that I am fully conscious of it, hence (in the last few years) make allowances for it, & do not pretend to an impossible ability to enter into the actual feelings of this or any other age. The emotions of the past were derived from experiences, beliefs, customs, living conditions, historic backgrounds, horizons, &c. &c. so different from our own, that it is simply silly to fancy we can duplicate them, or enter warmly & subjectively into all phases of their aesthetic expression.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 307
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Life, Books, Age, World

“With each new child, your ability to love grows. It’s not a matter of dividing your love among more children, so that each one gets less of it, but you actually have more to give with each new delivery. Children help you to stop thinking of yourself and expand your horizons. This is a joyful challenge. It’s more difficult than football or any other job, but also more rewarding.”

Matt Birk (1976) Player of American football

Baltimore Ravens’ Matt Birk Stays Centered on Christ http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/baltimore-ravens-matt-birk-stays-centered-on-christ (February 3, 2013)

Love, Children, Thinking, Help

“One of the greatest satisfactions in life comes from getting things done and knowing you have done them to the best of your ability.”

Robert W. Bly (1957) American writer

101 Ways to Make Every Second Count: Time Management Tips and Techniques for More Success With Less Stress (1999)

Life

“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil administration this oath even forbade me to practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared this many times, and in many ways. And I aver that, to this day, I have done no official act in mere deference to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did understand however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government — that nation — of which that constitution was the organic law.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, "If Slavery Is Not Wrong, Nothing Is Wrong" (1864)

Law, Way, Feeling, Understanding

“You & James Ferdinand simply can't learn to distinguish betwixt intellectual opinion & irrelevant instinctive emotion... For instance, he has the idea that I place an exaggerated intellectual valuation on the 18th century merely because my chance emotions have given me a strong but irrational subjective sense of belonging to it. I've told that bird dozens of times that I have no especial intellectual brief for Georgian days... He can't understand my ability to class as merely one period among others an age to which random early impressions have so closely bound my emotions & sense of identity... the point is that my own personal mess of subjective emotions has nothing whatever to do with my intellectual opinions. I have freely declared myself at all times (like everybody else in his respective way) a mere product of my background, & do not consider the values of that background as applicable to outsiders. The only way for the individual to achieve any contentment or harmonic relationship to a pattern is to adhere to the background naturally his; & that is what I am doing. Others I urge to adhere to their own respective backgrounds & traditions, however remote from mine these may be. When I venture now & then to suggest values of a more general kind, I approach the problem in an entirely different way—speaking not as Old Theobald of His Majesty's Rhode-Island Colony, but as the cosmic & impersonal Ec'h-Pi-El, denizen of the invisible world 'Ui-ulh in the second zone of curved space outside angled space... If there is any approach to an absolute value in the cosmos—or at least on this planet—then this is it. Sincerity—is-or-isn't-ness—technical perfection—harmony—coherence—consistency—symmetry—all these things are obviously aspects of one single property of space, energy, & general mathematical harmonics whose universality gives it the deepest possible significance. I have thought this all my life, & that is why to me one Newton or Einstein, one M. Atilius Regulus, M. Porcius Cato, or P. Cornelius Scipio, seems to me in certain ways worth a full dozen of your prattling little Keatses & Baudelaires.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Frank Belknap Long (27 February 1931), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 312
Non-Fiction, Letters, to Frank Belknap Long

Life, Age, World, Way

“The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don’t just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child…. There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Dear Parents (1997)

Love, God, Change, Time

“I believe with all my heart in athletics, in sport, and have always done as much thereof as my limited capacity and my numerous duties would permit; but I believe in bodily vigor chiefly because I believe in the spirit that lies back of it. If a boy can not go into athletics because he is not physically able to, that does not count in the least against him. He may be just as much of a man in after life as if he could, because it is not physical address but the moral quality behind it which really counts. But if he has the physical ability and keeps out because he is afraid, because he is lazy, because he is a mollycoddle, then I haven't any use for him. If he has not the right spirit, the spirit which makes him scorn self-indulgence, timidity and mere ease, that is if he has not the spirit which normally stands at the base of physical hardihood, physical prowess, then that boy does not amount to much, and he is not ordinarily going to amount to much in after life. Of course, there are people with special abilities so great as to outweigh even defects like timidity and laziness, but the man who makes the Republic what it is, if he has not courage, the capacity to show prowess, the desire for hardihood; if he has not the scorn of mere ease, the scorn of pain, the scorn of discomfort (all of them qualities that go to make a man's worth on an eleven or a nine or an eight); if he has not something of that sort in him then the lack is so great that it must be amply atoned for, more than amply atoned for, in other ways, or his usefulness to the community will be small. So I believe heartily in physical prowess, in the sports that go to make physical prowess. I believe in them not only because of the amusement and pleasure they bring, but because I think they are useful. Yet I think you had a great deal better never go into them than to go into them with the idea that they are the chief end even of school or college; still more of life.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)

Life, Pain, People, Pleasure

“Only a seaman realises to what great extent an entire ship reflects the personality and ability of one individual, her Commanding Officer. To a landsman, this is not understandable—and sometimes it is even difficult for us to comprehend—but it is so! A ship at sea is a different world in herself, and in consideration of the protracted and distant operations of the fleet units, the Navy must place great power, responsibility and trust in the hands of those leaders chosen for command. In each ship there is one man who, in the hour of emergency or peril at sea, can turn to no other man. There is one who alone is ultimately responsible for the safe navigation, engineering performance, accurate gunfire and morale of the ship. He is the Commanding Officer. He is the ship. This is the most difficult and demanding assignment in the Navy. There is not an instant during his tour as Commanding Officer that he can escape the grasp of command responsibility. His privileges, in view of his obligations, are almost ludicrously small; nevertheless, this is the spur which has given the Navy its great leaders. It is a duty which richly deserves the highest, time-honoured title of the seafaring world—Captain.”

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) Polish-British writer

Command at Sea: the Prestige, Privilege and Burden of Command

World, Understanding, Distant, Time

“One should oblige everyone to the extent of one's ability. One often needs someone smaller than oneself.”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Il faut, autant qu'on peut, obliger tout le monde:
On a souvent besoin d'un plus petit que soi.
Book II (1668), fable 11.
Fables (1668–1679)
Variant: One often has need of one inferior to himself.

“Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal.”

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician

Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 25.

Success

“One day, as I was roaming the mountains, I sought shelter from an approaching storm. The sky became overhung with heavy clouds, but somehow the rain was delayed until, all of a sudden, there was a lightening flash and a few moments after, a deluge. This observation set me thinking. It was manifest that the two phenomena were closely related, as cause and effect, and a little reflection led me to the conclusion that the electrical energy involved in the precipitation of the water was inconsiderable, the function of the lightening being much like that of a sensitive trigger. Here was a stupendous possibility of achievement. If we could produce electric effects of the required quality, this whole planet and the conditions of existence on it could be transformed. The sun raises the water of the oceans and winds drive it to distant regions where it remains in a state of most delicate balance. If it were in our power to upset it when and wherever desired, this might life sustaining stream could be at will controlled. We could irrigate arid deserts, create lakes and rivers, and provide motive power in unlimited amounts. This would be the most efficient way of harnessing the sun to the uses of man. The consummation depended on our ability to develop electric forces of the order of those in nature.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Life, Way, Mountain, Motivation

“But it is not possible ever to insure prosperity merely by law. Something for good can be done by law, and a bad law can do an infinity of mischief; but, after all, the best law can only prevent wrong and injustice, and give to the thrifty, the farseeing, and the hard-working a chance to exercise to best advantage their special and peculiar abilities.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties

Law, Exercises, Chance

“For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Comment to General Henry Knox on the delay in assuming office (March 1789)
1780s

Life, World, Peace, Feeling

“I have drawn my whole life. My parents were in the tapestry restoration business, and as a young girl, I would draw in the missing parts of the tapestry that needed to be re-woven. My ability to draw made me indispensable to my parents.”

Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010) American and French sculptor

Louise Bourgeois: a web of emotions, 2010

Life, Girl, Business, Parent

“A lack of desire to spend money becomes a symptom of disease that requires expensive medication. Which medication then destroys the libido, in other words destroys the appetite for the one pleasure in life that's free, which means the person has to spend even more money on compensatory pleasures. The very definition of mental 'health' is the ability to participate in the consumer economy. When you buy into therapy, you're buying into buying.”

Jonathan Franzen book The Corrections

The Corrections (2001)

Life, Money, Health, Pleasure

“The measure of our rationality determines the degree of vividness with which we appreciate the needs of other life, the extent to which we become conscious of the real character of our own motives and impulses, the ability to harmonize conflicting impulses in our own life and in society, and the capacity to choose adequate means for approved ends.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian

Source: (1932), pp. 27-28

Life, Motivation

“People ask me… "What do you still bring from Hawaii? How does it affect your character, how does it affect your politics?" I try to explain to them something about the Aloha Spirit. I try to explain to them this basic idea that we all have obligations to each other, that we're not alone, that if we see somebody who's in need we should help… that we look out for one another, that we deal with each other with courtesy and respect, and most importantly, that when you come from Hawaii, you start understanding that what's on the surface, what people look like — that doesn't determine who they are.
And that the power and strength of diversity, the ability of people from everywhere … whether they're black or white, whether they're Japanese-Americans or Korean-Americans or Filipino-Americans or whatever they are, they are just Americans, that all of us can work together and all of us can join together to create a better country.
And it's that spirit, that I'm absolutely convinced, is what America is looking for right now.
Because we've been divided for so long, we've been arguing for so long, a lot of times about things that aren't even worth arguing about, and ignoring the things that we should be doing to make the next generation have a better life — that I think people are hungry for a new politics, they're hungry for change, and that's why I decided to run for President of the United States.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Speech in Keehi Lagoon Beach Park, Hawaii, (8 August 2008) http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=40384154 2008

Life, People, Idea, Understanding

“HR professionals help turn aspirations into actions by focusing on three things:
[1] talent: do we have the competence (skills and abilities), commitment (willingness to engage and work hard), and contribution (ability to find meaning from the work we do) of our people,
[2] culture: do we have the right organization capabilities that enable us to shape an identity outside and pattern of behavior inside the company, and
[3] leadership: do we have a depth of leadership throughout the company who are focused on the right things.”

Dave Ulrich (1953) American academic

Dave Ulrich in: Dan Schawbel. " Dave Ulrich on the Future of Human Resources http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2012/07/18/dave-ulrich-on-the-future-of-human-resources/#79dd32073b0a," in Forbes, July 18, 2012

People, Behavior, Help

“At the heart of this culture is an understanding that an organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive business advantage.”

Jack Welch (1935) American executive: General Electric CEO

Cited in: Robert Slater (1998), Jack Welch & The G.E. Way: Management Insights and Leadership. p. 12

Understanding, Business, Learning, Heart

“Now, I mentioned yesterday at the town hall -- like America’s first President, George Washington, he understood that democracy can only endure when it’s bigger than just one person. So his willingness to leave power was as profound as his ability to claim power.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Cape Town University Address (June 2013)

Democracy, Personality

“You know, I have said before, and I will say again, that when we started on this journey, we did so with an abiding faith in the American people and their ability, our ability, to join together and change the country in ways that would make life better for our kids and our grandkids.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2017, Farewell to Staff Members (January 2017)

Life, People, Faith, Way

“And finally, let’s remember that peace with justice depends on our ability to sustain both the security of our societies and the openness that defines them. Threats to freedom don’t merely come from the outside. They can emerge from within -- from our own fears, from the disengagement of our citizens.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Brandenburg Gate Speech (June 2013)

Fear, Peace, Justice, Freedom

“Ultrarunners — even the fiercest competitors — grow to love each other because we all love the same exercise in self-sacrifice and pursuit of transcendence. Because that’s what we’re all chasing — that “zone” where we are performing at the peak of our abilities. That instant when we think we can’t go on but do go on. We all know the way that moment feels, how rarely it occurs, and the pain we have to endure to grab it back again. The longer an ultrarunner competes, I believe, the more he grows to love not only the sport, not only his fellow ultrarunners, but people in general. We all struggle to find meaning in a sometimes painful world. Ultrarunners do it in a very distilled version.”

Scott Jurek (1973) American ultramarthon runner

Source: Eat and Run (2012), Ch. 12, pp. 119-120

Love, Pain, People, World

“The aim of science is to falsify theories and to replace them by better theories, theories that demonstrate a greater ability to withstand tests.”

Alan Chalmers book What Is This Thing Called Science?

Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 6, Sophisticated falsification, novel predictions and the growth of science, p. 83

Science

“Win with ability, not with numbers.”

Alexander Suvorov (1730–1800) Russian military commander

Quoted in Danchenko and Vydrin, Military Pedagogy, 1973.

“Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 74

“Education and training for all children to be equal in opportunity in all schools, colleges, universities, and other institutions of training in the professions and vocations in life; to be regulated on the capacity of children to learn, and not on the ability of parents to pay the costs. Training for life's work to be as much universal and thorough for all walks of life as has been the training in the arts of killing.”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

Number 7 in the sum and substance of the Share our Wealth program (1935); quoted in Hugh Davis Graham, Huey Long (1970), p. 74.

Life, Children, Education, School

“The modern 20th century weapon of neo-imperialism is "dollarism." The Zionists have mastered the science of dollarism: the ability to come posing as a friend and benefactor, bearing gifts and all other forms of economic aid and offers of technical assistance. Thus, the power and influence of Zionist Israel in many of the newly "independent" African nations has fast-become even more unshakeable than that of the 18th century European colonialists… and this new kind of Zionist colonialism differs only in form and method, but never in motive or objective.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Malcolm X on Zionism (1964)

Motivation, Science

“The relationship of soul and body is different in man and woman; the relationship of soul to body differs in their psychic life as well as that of the spiritual faculties to each other. The feminine species expresses a unity and wholeness of the toal psychosomatic personality and a harmonious development of faculties. The masculine species strives to enhance individual abilities in order that they may attain their highest achievements.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), Problems of Women's Education (1932)

Life, Soul, Personality

“Part of the charm of synthetic organic chemistry derives from the vastness of the intellectual landscape along several dimensions. First, there is the almost infinite variety and number of possible target structures that lurk in the darkness waiting to be made. Then, there is the vast body of organic reactions that serve to transform one substance into another, now so large in number as to be beyond credibility to a non-chemist. There is the staggering range of reagents, reaction conditions, catalysts, elements, and techniques that must be mobilized in order to tame these reactions for synthetic purposes. Finally, it seems that new information is being added to that landscape at a rate that exceeds the ability of a normal person to keep up with it. In such a troubled setting any author, or group of authors, must be regarded as heroic if through their efforts, the task of the synthetic chemist is eased.”

Elias James Corey (1928) American chemist

Foreword of Name Reactions in Heterocyclic Chemistry (2004) by Jie Jack Li

Effort, Waiting, Parting, Personality

“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"

War, World, Understanding, Thinking

“It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes. If individuals do not know their own interests in many cases, they are free to turn to private experts for guidance. It is absurd to say that they will be served better by a coercive, demagogic apparatus.”

Murray N. Rothbard book Power and Market

Power and Market: Government and the Economy, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2006, p. 256. First published in 1970

Love, People, Exercises

“Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

1790s, Farewell Address (1796)

Life, Hope, Error, Thinking

“It was the neurosurgeons who fascinated me. When they explained what they could do surgically to help, I thought, I want to be like them. I want to know what they know and have the ability to heal like they do. Eventually my grandfather got better, and my path in life was started.”

Sanjay Gupta (1969) journalist, medical correspondent, neurosurgeon

Finding My Path in Life (2011)

Life, Help

“The fact is, people who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves from learning from their mistakes. They lack the ability to take on new perspectives and empathize with others. They close themselves off to new and important information.
It’s far more helpful to assume that you’re ignorant and don’t know a whole lot. This keeps you unattached to superstitious or poorly informed beliefs and promotes a constant state of learning and growth.”

Mark Manson (1984) American writer and blogger

Source: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (2016), Chapter 4, “The Value of Suffering” (p. 83)

People, Learning, Help

“All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Passariano (26 September 1797), as quoted in Napoleon as a General (1902) by Maximilian Yorck von Wartenburg, p. 269

Chance, Success

“At the same time, we’ll engage Russia to seek further reductions in our nuclear arsenals, and continue leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands — because our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead and meet our obligations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)

Effort, Time, Dependency

“My nerves fell apart before I saw the front this time, the decaying corpses and piercing wire; for a while, they made me harmless, locking me up in order to undertake a special diagnosis of whatever military ability I might still have. The nerves, every last fiber, repugnance, repulsion!”

Otto Dix (1891–1969) German painter and printmaker

Quote in Dix' letter from Görden 1917, to his brother-in-law, Otto Schmalhausen; as cited in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 248

Time

“"There's a transformation to some degree in the Prophetic Tradition, where there is a spirit that rises above the law, but this transformation really takes place in the New Testament. The Old Testament is prohibition, and the New Testament is, 'here's the good things you do once you're more than merely prohibiting yourself from impulsive sin. There's a positive good to be accomplished, not just a negative to be avoided. You have to look around you within your direct sphere of influence, and you fix the things that announce themselves to be in direct need of repair. And those are often small things. They can start with things as simple as: your room. Put it in order. It's not important that you put your room in order necessarily, what is important is that you learn to distinguish between chaos and order, and that you learn to be able to act in a manner that produces order. In most households there's a hundred things that could be done to make it less hideous and horrible. So practicing that is both a useful form of meditation, but it's also a divine act.""Women are attracted to men's ability to generate, to be productive, and to share. These qualities transcend wealth, which can disappear."”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Women, Men, Law, Learning

“It is rotten and dismal that a world of so many hundred million people should be ruled by a single caste that has the power to lead millions to life or to death, indeed on a whim…This caste has spun its web over the entire earth; capitalism recognizes no national boundaries…Capitalism has learned nothing from recent events and wants to learn nothing, because it places its own interests ahead of those of the other millions. Can one blame those millions for standing up for their own interests, and only for those interests? Can one blame them for striving to forge an international community whose purpose is the struggle against corrupt capitalism? Can one condemn a large segment of the educated Stürmer youth for protesting against the greatest ability? Is it not an abomination that people with the most brilliant intellectual gifts should sink into poverty and disintegrate, while others dissipate, squander, and waste the money that could help them? … You say the old propertied class also worked hard for what it has. Granted, that may be true in many cases. But do you also know about the conditions under which workers were living during the period when capitalism “earned” its fortune?”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Letter to Anka Stalherm (14 April 1920), quoted in Ralph Georg Reuth, Goebbels (Harvest, 1994), pp. 33-34
1920s

Life, Death, Money, People

“Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it — that is great, that belongs to greatness.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Sec. 325
The Gay Science (1882)

Women, Pain, Feeling, Suffering

“I love thinking that there is magic in the world, that there are people in the world with amazing abilities that we just don’t know about.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Personal Quotes 2009–2012 Source: http://burts-snapback.tumblr.com/post/27261453499/i-love-thinking-that-there-is-magic-in-the-world, Chicago-Sun July 15, 2012, interview with Chris Colfer; archived.

Love, People, World, Thinking

“But the current convulsions arising out of the Arab Spring remind us that a just and lasting peace cannot be measured only by agreements between nations. It must also be measured by our ability to resolve conflict and promote justice within nations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly (24 September 2013) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/09/24/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly 2013

Peace, Justice, Spring

“In some ways I believe I epitomise the average New Zealander: I have modest abilities, I combine these with a good deal of determination, and I rather like to succeed.”

Edmund Hillary (1919–2008) New Zealand mountaineer

Sir Edmund Hillary : King Of The World

Way

“In the final analysis, a race or specie is not judged superior or inferior by its accomplishments, but by its will and ability to survive.”

David Lane (white nationalist) book 88 Precepts

page ?
88 Precepts

“One of the things I love about Kate Bush is her absolute ability to take things, to pluck things that you would never expect to see on a rock album, and put them there and make them work. James Joyce's Ulysses — one of the greatest passages in all of English or Anglo-Irish literature, is Molly Bloom's glorious soliloquy ending in a sequence of Yeses. It's about embracing the world of the senses, embracing yourself, embracing sex, embracing love, embracing the future, embracing all possibility, and it goes all the way back to me, to "Wuthering Heights" — this is somebody who is not afraid of books. This is somebody who is not afraid of reading, somebody who's not afraid of writers, and who's not afraid of translating, being an intermediary, being a door, between the world of books and the world of rock.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Love, Books, World, Sex

“And we’ll work to strengthen families by removing the financial deterrents to marriage for low-income couples, and do more to encourage fatherhood — because what makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Fifth State of the Union Address (February 2013)

Marriage, Family, Courage

“The young have the ability, but lack the wisdom, and the old have the wisdom, but lack the ability.”

José Saramago book The Cave

Nem a juventude sabe o que pode nem a velhice pode o que sabe.
Source: The Cave (2000), p. 4 (Vintage 2003)

Wisdom

“I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.
That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.
Now, there is no straight line to realise this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Life, War, People, Peace

“With each success the ability to change is reduced. My longtime friend and coach Grandmaster Yuri Dokhoian, aptly compared it to being dipped inbronze. Each victory added another coat.”

Garry Kasparov (1963) former chess world champion

Part I, Chapter 2, Strategy, p. 34
2000s, How Life Imitates Chess (2007)

Change, Success, Victory

“There is no wasted effort. There is no wasted effort. It will all add to the path. It will all add to the journey. Somehow. You just can't even imagine how it will. But you just need to do things fully to the best of your ability. And you go towards the thing that you love. What you love to do.”

Jennifer Beals (1963) American actress and a former teen model

Interview at Chatelaine.com (February 2011) http://www.chatelaine.com/en/videos/26327--interview-with-jennifer-beals/.

Love, Imagination, Effort

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

The Criticism of the Gotha Program (1875)
Variant: Variant translation: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016) 2016

Women, War, People, Truth

“I believe honestly that I can talk. I believe that I have the ability to reason, I have logic, I have compassion, I have understanding. If we talk there's no problem you know what I'm saying. But that's not what happened. People used what they heard in media and that's how they come at me, and then you know we got a clash.”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

1990s, Ed Gordon interview (1994)

People, Understanding, Problem

“And this is something that I emphasize wherever I go -- democracy does not stop on Election Day. For a real democracy to work, and for a society to thrive and continually improve, it requires that people continue to participate. And there have to be laws in place to protect that space and facilitate people’s ability to participate.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama in Conversation with Members of Civil Society at YALI Regional Leadership Center, Kenyatta University,Nairobi, Kenya https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/07/26/remarks-president-obama-conversation-members-civil-society (July 26, 2015) 2015

People, Law, Democracy

“Sometimes I'm criticized in my own country for professing a belief in international norms and multilateral institutions. But I am convinced that in the long run, giving up some freedom of action – not giving up our ability to protect ourselves or pursue our core interests, but binding ourselves to international rules over the long term – enhances our security.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2016, United Nations Address (September 2016)

Freedom, Country

“What’s at stake in this debate goes far beyond a few months of headlines, or passing tensions in our foreign policy. When you cut through the noise, what’s really at stake is how we remain true to who we are in a world that is remaking itself at dizzying speed. Whether it’s the ability of individuals to communicate ideas; to access information that would have once filled every great library in every country in the world; or to forge bonds with people on other sides of the globe, technology is remaking what is possible for individuals, and for institutions, and for the international order. So while the reforms that I have announced will point us in a new direction, I am mindful that more work will be needed in the future. One thing I’m certain of: This debate will make us stronger. And I also know that in this time of change, the United States of America will have to lead. It may seem sometimes that America is being held to a different standard. And I'll admit the readiness of some to assume the worst motives by our government can be frustrating. No one expects China to have an open debate about their surveillance programs, or Russia to take privacy concerns of citizens in other places into account. But let’s remember: We are held to a different standard precisely because we have been at the forefront of defending personal privacy and human dignity.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Review of Signals Intelligence Speech (June 2014)

People, World, Communication, Motivation

“I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 8: Western Civilisation

Age, Dependency

“AI is going to be one of the trends that is going to be the next big shift in technology. It's going to be AI at the edge, AI in the cloud, AI as part of SaaS applications, AI as part of in fact even infrastructure. And to me, to be the leader in it, it's not enough just to sort of have AI capability that we can exercise—you also need the ability to democratize it so that every business can truly benefit from it. That to me is our identity around AI.”

Satya Nadella (1967) CEO of Microsoft appointed on 4 February 2014

Forbes: "Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella On The Extraordinary Potential Of AI" https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/06/04/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-the-extraordinary-potential-of-ai/ (4 June 2018)

Exercises, Business, Parting