Quotes about ability
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“Strength is the ability to break up a solid piece of chocolate—and then eat just one of the pieces.”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Lucky in Love

“[W]hen a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds.”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

Source: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

People, Thinking

“When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it.”

Twyla Tharp (1941) American choreographer

Source: The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

Question

“Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

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

Feeling

“women made the best beekeepers 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting.”

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees

Love, Women

“Women are already born so far ahead ability-wise. The day men can give birth, that's when we can start talking about equal rights.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Choke

Source: Choke

Women, Men, Birth

“At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Uneasy Money

The Adventures of Sally (1922)
Source: Uneasy Money

Women, Age

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own.”

Henry Ford book My Life and Work

My Life and Work (1922)

Secret, Success, Personality, Success

“Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures

Thinking

“Not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.”

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

Motivation

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

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

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

People, Coffee, Sun

“It sounds silly I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie. Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.”

Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer

Source: How to Kill a Rock Star

God, Lie, Music

“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.”

David Allen (1945) American productivity consultant and author

Source: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

“I had the right to remain silent… but I didn't have the ability.”

Ron White (1956) American comedian

“Genius: the ability to prolong one's childhood.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Childhood

“Status ought not to be measured by a woman's ability to attract and snare a man.”

Germaine Greer book The Female Eunuch

Source: The Female Eunuch

“A company should limit its growth based on its ability to attract enough of the right people.”

James C. Collins (1958) American business consultant and writer

Source: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

People

“The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.”

Harlan Ellison Stalking the Nightmare

Source: Stalking the Nightmare

Dreams

“The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”

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

Newspaper interview (1902), when asked what qualities a politician required, Halle, Kay, Irrepressible Churchill. Cleveland: World, 1966. cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 489 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

“Far too many people opened their hearts and lives at the drop of a hat. Why give someone that power over you? Why endow them with the ability to hurt you that much? Let someone in and you were asking for an emotional kicking some day.”

Dorothy Koomson book My Best Friend's Girl

Source: My Best Friend's Girl

People, Heart, Hurt

“And now that its ruby eyes are set into the gold, you cannot see their tear-shape, so they seem to be laughing rather than crying. It is a constant reminder to me of the human ability to create something beautiful even when things are at the darkest.”

Cressida Cowell (1966) British writer

Source: How to Twist a Dragon's Tale

Beauty, Tear, Cry

“Integrity is the ability to stand by an idea.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Idea

“The key to power, then, is the ability to judge who is best able to further your interests in all situations. Keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Friendship

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

Barbara Johnson (1947–2009) American literary critic

Feeling, Patience

“The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.”

Stephen R. Covey book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Personality

“A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.”

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

Memory, Forgetting

“If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive?… Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“Love is the great test of the human. The human is tested by our ability to withstand love. Love is so difficult, it is so challenging, it demands of us that we wreck it with ourselves. It demands of us an honesty that few of us could sustain.”

Junot Díaz (1968) Dominican-American writer

Love

“What I have achieved by industry and practice, anyone else with tolerable natural gift and ability can also achieve.”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German late baroque era composer

Nature

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.

[, New York Times, April 19, 1992]”

Cormac McCarthy (1933) American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter

Time

“You promised me I could measure your… particular abilities."
"Promised?" Kaladin asked. "I don't remember a promise."
"You grunted”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
with the ability to say no to oneself.”

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

Sense

“I've found that what most people call luck is often little more than raw talent combined with the ability to make the most of opportunities. (Talon Karrde)”

Timothy Zahn Heir to the Empire

Source: Heir to the Empire

People

“What I love most about reading: It gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Source: What I Know For Sure

Love, Reading

“Every day, God gives us the sun — and also one moment in which we have the ability to change everything that makes us unhappy.”

Paulo Coelho book By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

Variant: Everyday God gives us a moment in which it is possible to change everything that makes us unhappy.
Source: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

God, Change, Sun

“The human mind had a remarkable ability both to discount what it sees and make reality conform to expectation.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: The Warrior Heir

Reality

“God’s plan and His ways of working out His plan are frequently beyond our ability to fathom and understand. We must learn to trust when we don’t understand.”

Jerry Bridges (1929–2016) American writer

Source: Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts

God, Way, Understanding, Learning

“Shame resilience is the ability to say, “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Disappointment, Courage, Success, Hurt

“Your fey cousin here has the miraculous ability to hold his liquor--and mine, and yours, and the king's, and half the country's, I expect.”

Alethea Kontis (1976) American writer

Source: Enchanted

Country

“Asil left Bran alone with his thoughts then, because if he stayed, Bran would argue with him. This way, Bran would have no one to argue with but himself. And Asil had always credited Bran with the ability to be persuasive.”

Patricia Briggs book Fair Game

Source: Fair Game

Way

“One of the liberating effects of science fiction when I was a teenager was precisely its ability to tune me into all sorts of strange data and make me realize that I wasn’t as totally isolated in perceiving the world as being monstrous and crazy”

William Gibson (1948) American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist and founder of the cyberpunk subgenre

World, Science

“Free again, but it's just a feeling; freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit yourself to what is best for you.”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Variant: Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose - and commit myself to - what is best for me.
Source: The Zahir

Feeling, Freedom

“Your ability to remain alive never ceases to amaze me.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Burns

“When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right, with power, and force, and delight, and gamble.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Reading

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

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

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

War, Fight

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent, not a single conception of ability. At the heart of the challenge is to reconstitute our sense of ability and of intelligence.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

TED Conference http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Intelligence, Communication, Sense, Heart

“Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Crack-Up

Source: Quoted, The Crack-Up (1936)
Context: Before I go on with this short history, let me make a general observation – the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. This philosophy fitted on to my early adult life, when I saw the improbable, the implausible, often the "impossible," come true.

History, Intelligence, Idea, Time

“Relational skills are the most important abilities in leadership.”

John C. Maxwell (1947) American author, speaker and pastor

Book Sometimes you win Sometimes you Learn
Variant: Responsibility is the most important ability that a person can possess.
Source: Developing the Leaders Around You: How to Help Others Reach Their Full Potential

“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

Understanding, Past, Future

“It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you - always.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Way, Parting, Madness

“I have always had the ability to attach my demons to my chariot. And they have been forced to make themselves useful.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Source: Images: My Life in Film

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Peaceful

“It especially annoys me when racists are accused of 'discrimination.' The ability to discriminate is a precious faculty; by judging all members on one 'race' to be the same, the racist precisely shows himself incapable of discrimination.”

Christopher Hitchens Letters to a Young Contrarian

Source: Letters to a Young Contrarian

“The ability to hurt someone is usually in direct proportion to how much that person cares about you.”

Susan Mallery (1950) American author

Source: Almost Perfect

Hurt, Personality

“Well, there aren’t any graves in mundane wedding ceremonies,” said Tessa. “Though your ability to quote the Bible is impressive. Better than my aunt Harriet’s.”
“Did you hear that, James? She just compared us to her aunt Harriet.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince

Source: Clockwork Prince

Quotes, Wedding

“Our exclusive dependence on rational thought and language has obscured our natural ability to sense the flow of energy.”

Ilchi Lee (1950) South Korean businessman

Source: Brain Wave Vibration: Getting Back Into the Rhythm of a Happy, Healthy Life

Nature, Sense, Dependency

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.”

André Malraux (1901–1976) French novelist, art theorist and politician

Idea, Failure, Courage, Success

“Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Intelligence

“The word aerobics comes from two Greek words: aero, meaning “ability to,” and bics, meaning “withstand tremendous boredom.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

“With the beginning of life, comes the thirst for truth, whereas the ability to lie is gradually acquired in the process of trying to stay alive.”

Gao Xingjian (1940) Chinese novelist and playwright

Life, Truth, Lie

“The ability to think for one's self depends upon one's mastery of the language.”

Joan Didion book Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Source: Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Thinking, Dependency

“Unless you had a popular video on YouTube
or could perform shows in front of thousands, musical ability meant nothing.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Music

“I try very hard to be annoying. Don’t insult my ability to annoy.”

Rick Riordan book The Lost Hero

Source: The Lost Hero

“I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

“I am like a person whose hands were kept numb, without sensation from the first moment of awareness - until one day the ability to feel is forced into them. And I say "Look! I have no hands!" But the people all around me say: "What are hands?”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

People, Feeling, Personality

“If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

Money, World, Hope, Knowledge

“My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement …”

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

As cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 511,
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: My ability to persuade my wife to marry me [was] quite my most brilliant achievement … Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one’s better half.

“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term, is the indispensable prerequisite for success.”

Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer

Success