Quotes about capability
page 14

“There is, he’d said, an inverse correlation between the amount of power a person has and the level at which his or her mind functions. A person of ordinary intelligence who acquires power, of whatever kind, tends to develop an exaggerated view of his own capabilities. Sycophants gather. There is little or no criticism of decisions. As his ability to disrupt the lives of others advances, these tendencies become stronger. Eventually you end with Louis the Fourteenth, who thinks he’s done a good job for France, although the country he left behind was ruined.”

Jack McDevitt book Infinity Beach

Source: Infinity Beach (2000), Chapter 15 (p. 219)

Intelligence, Thinking, Decision, Personality

“A man is free when he sees clearly the fulfillment of his being and is thus capable of making the envisioned self a reality.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), p. 39

Making love, Reality, Self-confidence

“We must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, as, before everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence at its disposal.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 2 : Well-Being for All, p. 71

Strong

“It is not much good talking about fundamental and irreversible changes in our society and being content with a 38 per cent Labour voting intention. … Democracy means that you need a substantially stronger moral position than this to govern effectively at all, let alone effecting a peaceful social revolution. The programme we put forward must be capable of being carried out in what may well be difficult economic circumstances.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech to the Labour Party Conference debate on nationalisation (2 October 1973), quoted in The Times (3 October 1973), p. 5
1970s

Peace, Democracy, Change

“War is obsolete. It could never have been done before. Only ten years ago… technology reached the point where it could be done. Since then the invisible technological-capability revolution has made it ever easier so to do.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

War

“A third reason why we should love our enemies is that love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. We never get rid of an enemy by meeting hate with hate; we get rid of an enemy by getting rid of enmity. By its very nature, love creates and builds up. Love transforms with redemptive power.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Love, Hate, Making love, Nature

“While we call ourselves animal lovers, and lavish kindness on our dogs and cats, we inflict brutal deprivations on billions of animals that are just as capable of suffering. The hypocrisy is so rank that future generations will marvel at how we could have failed to see it.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

"Goodbye – and good riddance – to livestock farming" https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/04/livestock-farming-artificial-meat-industry-animals, The Guardian, 4 October 2017.

Dogs, Cats, Lovers, Suffering

“He had the high degree of courage so common in the human race, a race capable of conceiving death, yet able to face its probability daily, on the highway, on the obstetrics table, on the battlefield, in the air, in the subway—and to face lightheartedly the certainty of death in the end.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Goldfish Bowl

Goldfish Bowl (p. 381)
Short fiction, Off the Main Sequence (2005)

Death, Courage

“How, it may be asked, are we to make ourselves capable of sharing in this great work? Well, there is no mystery as to the qualifications which are needed by one who aspires to be a helper; the difficulty is not in learning what they are, but in developing them in oneself. To some extent they have been already incidentally described, but it is nevertheless as well that they should be set out fully and categorically. Single-mindedness… Perfect self-control… Calmness. This is another most important point - the absence of all worry and depression. Much of the work consists in soothing those who are disturbed, and cheering those who are in sorrow; and how can a helper do that work if his own aura is vibrating with constant fuss and worry, or grey with the deadly gloom that comes from perpetual depression? Nothing is more hopelessly fatal to occult progress or usefulness than our nineteenth century habit of ceaselessly worrying over trifles - of eternally making mountains out of molehills…. Knowledge…. while the slightest taint of selfishness remains in a man, he is not yet fit to be entrusted……..”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Invisible Helpers (1915), Ch. 14

Making love, Mountain, Knowledge, Learning

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves, endowed with this special sensibilites.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

On the Origin of Species (1859)

Life, World, Imagination, Nature

“Sir, it is very easy to complain of party Government, and there may be persons capable of forming an opinion on this subject who may entertain a deep objection to that Government, and know to what that objection leads. But there are others who shrug their shoulders, and talk in a slipshod style on this head, who, perhaps, are not exactly aware of what the objections lead to. These persons should understand, that if they object to party Government, they do, in fact, object to nothing more nor less than Parliamentary Government. A popular assembly without parties—500 isolated individuals—cannot stand five years against a Minister with an organized Government without becoming a servile Senate.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/apr/11/maynooth-college in the House of Commons (11 April 1845).

Understanding, Personality

“The only excuse for this book is that it is an attempt to penetrate to that deeper meaning underlying the great events in the life of Christ, and to bring into renewed life and interest the weakening aspiration of the Christian. If it can be shown that the story revealed in the Gospels has not only an application to that divine Figure Which dwelt for a time among men, but that it has also a practical significance and meaning for the civilised man today, then there will be some objective gained and some service and help rendered…. A myth is capable of becoming a fact in the experience of an individual, for a myth is a fact which can be proven. Upon the myths we take our stand, but we must seek to re-interpret them in the light of the present. Through self-initiated experiment we can prove their validity; through experience we can establish them as governing forces in our lives; and through their expression we can demonstrate their truth to others. This is the theme of this book, dealing as it does with the facts of the Gospel story, that fivefold sequential myth which teaches us the revelation of divinity in the Person of Jesus Christ, and which remains eternally truth, in the cosmic sense, in the historical sense, and in its practical application to the individual. This myth divides itself into five great episodes: 1. The Birth at Bethlehem. 2. The Baptism in Jordan. 3. The Transfiguration on Mount Carmel. 4. The Crucifixion on Mount Golgotha. 5. The Resurrection and Ascension.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

Life, Men, Truth, Books

“You have performed wonders in the past. You are still capable of repeating the history. You are not lacking in the great qualities and virtues in comparison with the other nations. Only you have to be fully conscious of that fact and to act with courage, faith and unity.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Founder and 1st Governor General of Pakistan

Message on Pakistan Day, issued from Delhi (23 March 1943)

Faith, History, Courage, Past

“The part that the woman can play in the development of a revolutionary process is of extraordinary importance. It is well to emphasize this, since in all our countries, with their colonial mentality, there is a certain underestimation of the woman which becomes a real discrimination against her. The woman is capable of performing the most difficult tasks, of fighting beside the men; and despite current belief, she does not create conflicts of a sexual type in the troops.”

Ernesto Che Guevara book Guerrilla Warfare

Source: Guerrilla Warfare (1961), Ch. III: 3. The Role of the Woman

Men, Fight, Parting, Country

“The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realization that prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God. The quality of the attention counts for much in the quality of the prayer. Warmth of heart cannot make up for it.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

"Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God"
Waiting on God (1950)

God, Making love, Soul, Study

“Development is not sustainable if it is not fair and inclusive, and therefore we call for the United Nations to embrace willing and capable partners like Taiwan in its SDG (sustainable development goals) endeavors.”

Lionel Aingimea (1965) Nauruan politician, president from 2019

Lionel Aingimea (2019) cited in: " President of Nauru urges U.N. to embrace Taiwan http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201909270015.aspx" in Focus Taiwan, 27 September 2019. <br class="br">Statement made during the General Debate of the 74th general assembly of the United Nations, 26 September 2019.

“I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know. After living through a thousand lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehension, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God, who is capable of no measurement.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book The Vocation of Man

Jane Sinnett, trans 1846 p.115
The Vocation of Man (1800), Faith

God, Art

“He also created opportunities for Kerala to prove its capabilities at the national and international levels.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

Above two quotes of Achuthanandan cited in 20 March 2009, 13 December 2013, The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/20/stories/2009032059610300.htm, <br class="br">About E.M.S.

“He (Bose) was modern India’s first physicist after all, one of her very first scientists. He was his motherland’s first active participant in the Galilean - Newtonian tradition. He had confounded the British disbeliever. He had shown that the Eastern mind was indeed capable of the exact and exacting thinking demanded by western science. He had broken the mould.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By S. Dasgupta
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

Thinking, Science

“The effortless ease with which his tried vocal chords alternately contrasted the vibrant and tender shades is another special characteristics of Bhimsen’s rendition, capable of capturing the subtlest tones, at once showcasing the aesthetic majesty and grandeur of his exceptionally captivating quality of singing.”

Bhimsen Joshi (1922–2011) Indian vocalist

Critique

Singing

“Think back through all the eras of history—the major ones, the tiny obscure ones known only to scholars. Can you think of a man, ever, who was capable of fashioning the future development of mankind to suit his own idea of it—no matter how noble that ideal may have been? Wouldn’t that be just another form of opinion control—no matter how splendid the conception?”

Mark Clifton book They'd Rather Be Right

Kennedy did not turn around.
“It takes a great deal of faith in mankind to keep from directing it the way we think it should go,” he said at last.
Source: They'd Rather Be Right (1954), p. 92.

History, Idea, Fashion, Thinking

“It was the Hitler Offensive. It was brilliantly planned by Hitler but poorly executed by the generals. It was not Rundstedt who was at fault so much as Dietrich and his Sixth Army, which was not capable. Dietrich was no army commander and should never have been made one. This Sixth Army was an all-motorized panzer force.”

Sepp Dietrich (1892–1966) German SS commander

Hermann Göring, to Leon Goldensohn, May 24, 1946

“Capable of becoming either Conservative or Labour Prime Minister.”

Oswald Mosley (1896–1980) British politician; founder of the British Union of Fascists

Richard Crossman, New Statesman (27 October 1961).

“I say, life and figure are distinct attributes of one substance, and as one and the same body may be transmuted into all kinds of figures; and as the perfecter figure comprehends that which is more imperfect; so one and the same body may be transmuted from one degree of life to another more perfect, which always comprehends in it the inferior. We have an example of figure in a triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid triangular prism, which is the first figure of all right lined solid bodies, where into a body is convertible; and from this into a cube, which is a perfecter figure, and comprehends in it a prism; from a cube it may be turned into a more perfect figure, which comes nearer to a globe, and from this into another, which is yet nearer; and so it ascends from one figure, more imperfect to another more perfect, ad infinitum; for here are no bounds; nor can it be said, this body cannot be changed into a perfecter figure: But the meaning is that that body consists of plane right lines; and this is always chageablee into a perfecter figure, and yet can never reach to the perfection of a globe, although it always approaches nearer unto it; the case is the same in diverse degrees of life, which have indeed a beginning, but no end; so that the creature is always capable of a farther and perfecter degree of life, ad infinitum, and yet can never attain to be equal with God; for he is still infinitely more perfect than a creature, in its highest elevation or perfection, even as a globe is the most perfect of all other figures, unto which none can approach.”

Anne Conway (1631–1679) British philosopher

The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690)

Life, God, Change, Perfection

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. There is no other way for land to survive the impact of mechanized man, nor for us to reap from it the aesthetic harvest it is capable, under science, of contributing to culture.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Foreword, p. viii.

Love, Making love, Way, Communication

“The heart of the question concerns the presumption of a univerasl human Subject, capable of reducing ethical issues to matters of human rights and humanitarian actions. We have seen that ethics subordniates the identification fo this subject to the universal recognition of the evil that is done to him. Ethics defines man as a victim.”

Alain Badiou (1937) French writer and philosopher

It will be objected: 'No! You are forgetting the active subject, the one that intervenes against barbarism!'So let us be precise: man is the being who is capable of recognzing himself as a victim.
Source: Ethics, Chapter One, Section III: "Man Living animal or immortal singularity?"

Question, Universe, Evil, Heart

“Oh, I would be honoured to even be compared to Roger. He has such an unbelievable talent, and is capable of anything. Roger could be the greatest tennis player of all time.”

Roger Federer (1981) Swiss tennis player

Rod Laver, winner of 11 Grand Slams, considered by some the greatest player to ever play the game of tennis. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/sport/2004/11/12/stfedr12.xml

Time

“To few men was it given to realize so completely the element of eternity — of time-effacing enjoyment in work — as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. … An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. … To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him, was one of the finest attributes of his character. … Among those who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

William Frederic Badé (pages 38-40)
Sierra Club Bulletin - Memorial Issue

Life, Men, Secret, World

“I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note of Nov. 16th. But I assure you I am not.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing; or at least be occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother-tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving. A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.
Letter to Mr. Clarke, librarian to the Prince Regent (1815-12-11) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
Letters

Thinking, Drawing

“If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, that deity must have been vastly complex in the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it!”

Richard Dawkins book The Blind Watchmaker

Source: The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Chapter 11 “Doomed Rivals” (p. 316)

Life, World, Education, Making love

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

Love, Life, Men, Education

“The influence of Charles Austin over me differed from that of the persons I have hitherto mentioned, in being not the influence of a man over a boy, but that of an elder contemporary. It was through him that I first felt myself, not a pupil under teachers, but a man among men. He was the first person of intellect whom I met on a ground of equality, though as yet much his inferior on that common ground. He was a man who never failed to impress greatly those with whom he came in contact, even when their opinions were the very reverse of his. The impression he gave was that of boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world. Those who knew him, whether friendly to him or not, always anticipated that he would play a conspicuous part in public life. It is seldom that men produce so great an immediate effect by speech, unless they, in some degree, lay themselves out for it; and he did this in no ordinary degree. He loved to strike, and even to startle. He knew that decision is the greatest element of effect, and he uttered his opinions with all the decision he could throw into them, never so well pleased as when he astonished any one by their audacity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/77/mode/1up pp. 77-78

Love, Life, Men, World

“The Republican party is a party of progress and of liberality toward its opponents. It encourages the poor to strive to better their children, to enable them to compete successfully with their more fortunate associates, and, in fine, it secures an entire equality before the law of every citizen, no matter what his race, nationality, or previous condition. It tolerates no privileged class. Every one has the opportunity to make himself all he is capable of.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Ulysses S. Grant, as quoted in Words of Our Hero, Ulysses S. Grant https://books.google.com/books?id=wqJBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=%22the+one+thing+i+never+wanted+to+see+again+was+a+military+parade%22&source=bl&ots=zH525oYpJn&sig=ACfU3U0GLPNgij-FmXIDwgWp_Kg8zDskWg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4uc7PzKniAhUq1lkKHWhlBfQQ6AEwBXoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20one%20thing%20i%20never%20wanted%20to%20see%20again%20was%20a%20military%20parade%22&f=false, by Jeremiah Chaplin, p. 59 <br class="br">1880s, Speech at Warren, Ohio (1880)

Children, Making love, Law

“If we as people allow ourselves to be caught up in either PRIDE or SHAME, we severely limit the scope of what we are capable of doing and what we are capable of of becoming in this life.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Life, People

“See him, the newborn, dirty but marvelous, ridiculous in actuality, infinite in possibility, capable of that ultimate miracle, growth.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 1 : Our life begins

“I categorically refused to consider the surrealists as just another literary and artistic group. I believed they were capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the 'practical, rational world'. I was going to become the Nietzsche of the irrational. I, the obsessed rationalist, was the only one who knew what I wanted: I was not going to submit to irrationality for its own sake, to the narcissist and passive irrationality others practiced. I would do completely the opposite. I would fight for the 'conquest of the irrational.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

In the meantime my friends would let themselves be overwhelmed by the irrational, succumbing, like so many others, Nietzsche included, to that romantic weakness.
Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 9

World, Fight

“I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

address " What is Science? http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html", presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320

People, Way, Communication, Understanding

“Many people think that dealing with protecting the environment will be so costly and so hard that they just want to ignore the problem. I hope the prize today could help everyone see that humans are capable of amazing accomplishments when we set about trying to do something.”

Paul Romer (1955) American economist

At a news conference following the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics announcement, as quoted in "2 Americans win econ Nobel for work on climate and growth" https://www.apnews.com/c3e7552c033748e683d502d890613b8b Associated Press. October 8, 2018.

People, Hope, Problem, Thinking

“At present, I am particularly excited by 'bad taste'. I have the deep feeling that there exists in the very essence of bad taste a power capable of creating those things situated far beyond what is traditionally termed 'The Work of Art.'”

Yves Klein (1928–1962) French artist

I wish to play with human feeling, with its 'morbidity' in a cold and ferocious manner. Only very recently I have become a sort of gravedigger of art (oddly enough, I am using the very terms of my enemies). Some of my latest works have been coffins and tombs. During the same time I succeeded in painting with fire, using particularly powerful and searing gas flames, some of them measuring three to four meters high. I use these to bathe the surface of the painting in such a way that it registered the spontaneous trace of fire.
Quote from Klein's 'Chelsea Hotel Manifesto', 1961; from the Yves Klein Archives - archived from the original on 15 January 2013; as cited on Wikipedia: Yves Klein
After the opening of his unsuccessful exhibition at Leo Castelli's Gallery, New York 1961, Klein stayed with Rotraut Uecker (fr) at the Chelsea Hotel for the duration of the exhibition. While there, he wrote the 'Chelsea Hotel Manifesto', a proclamation of the 'multiplicity of new possibilities'
1960 -1964

Bad luck, Art, Feeling

“Many social scientists, including anthropologists, have been interested in the power inherent in gender relations, often described through the idiom of female oppression. It can be argued that men usually tend to exert more power over women than vice versa. In most societies, men generally hold the most important political and religious positions, and very often men control the formal economy. In some societies, it may even be prescribed for women to cover their body and face when they appear in the public sphere, and, paradoxically, these practices sometimes become more common as their societies become more modern. On the other hand, women are often capable of exerting considerable informal power, not least in the domestic sphere. Anthropologists cannot state unequivocally that women are oppressed before they have investigated all aspects of their society, including how the women (and men) themselves perceive their situation. One cannot dismiss the possibility that certain women in western Asia (the Middle East) see the ‘liberated’ western woman as more oppressed – by professional career pressure, demands to look good and other expectations – than themselves.
When studying societies undergoing change, which perhaps most anthropologists do today, it is important to look at the value conflicts and tensions between different interest groups that are particularly central. Often these conflicts are expressed through gender relations.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 2 : Key Concepts

Women, Men, Study, Appearance

“We are in the early morning of understanding our place in the universe and our spectacular latent powers, the flexibility and transcendence of which we are capable.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Understanding, Universe

“I don't think you and I are very closely related, however, if you are capable of trembling with indignation each time that an injustice is committed anywhere in the world, we are comrades, and that is more important.”

Ernesto Che Guevara (1928–1967) Argentine Marxist revolutionary

Letter to María Rosario Guevara, 20 February 1964. Quoted in Guerrillas in Power: The Course of the Cuban Revolution (1971) by K. S. Karol

Spanish: No creo que seamos parientes muy cercanos, pero si Ud. es capaz de temblar de indignación cada vez que se comete una injusticia en el mundo, somos compañeros, que es más importante.

World, Thinking, Relation ships, Time

“Management: The systematic pursuit of desired conditions by utilizing human capabilities in a concerted way.”

Mike Rother (1958) American business academic

Way

“The ability of your organization to be competitive and survive lies not so much in solutions themselves, but in the capability of the people in your organization to understand a situation and develop solutions.”

Mike Rother (1958) American business academic

People, Understanding

“The systematic pursuit of desired conditions by utilizing human capabilities in a concerted way.”

Mike Rother (1958) American business academic

Way

“Many other people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it ... I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don't see why I shouldn't.”

Dusty Springfield (1939–1999) English singer and record producer

As quoted in a September 1970 Ray Connolly interview http://www.rayconnolly.co.uk/pages/journalism_01/journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=78 for the Evening Standard.

People, Way, Feeling, Girl

“And fourteen—fourteen is such a fearful age, when you find out so fast what you’re capable of being, but also what a toll the world expects.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Imaginary Countries (p. 204; first published in The Harvard Advocate (Winter 1973)
Short fiction, Orsinian Tales (1976)

Age, World, Fear

“The machine is supplied with a "tape" (the analogue of paper) running through it, and divided into sections (called "squares") each capable of bearing a "symbol."”

Alan Turing Computable Numbers

On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (1936)

“We may compare a man in the process of computing a real number to a machine which is only capable of a finite number of conditions q1, q2, ..., qK which will be called " m-configurations ."”

Alan Turing Computable Numbers

On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (1936)

“Power and wealth must be in the hands of all, this occurrence needs capable and just managers.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Twitter 21 Aug 2018
2018

Wealth

“Only now I see what I am capable of and I don't understand that I have been able to make this canvas in my small front room.”

Herman Kruyder (1881–1935) Dutch painter

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Herman Kruyder:) Nu pas zie ik waartoe ik in staat ben en ik begrijp niet dat ik het doek in mijn kleine voorkamer [1928, in Blaricum] heb kunnen maken.

Kruyder, c. 1931; as quoted by Regnault in his Memories; as cited in Herman Kruyder 1881 – 1935: gedoemde scheppingen, ed. Mabel Hoogendonk; (ISBN 90-400-9905-7), Waanders, Zwolle 1997, p. 30

Kruyder's reaction after seeing his own painting 'Groot landschap uit Limburg' hanging in a large room of the house of his art-buyer P.A. Regnault
dated quotes

Making love, Understanding

“The audience I play to really is the bright 14-year-old: someone who is capable of sitting still and listening and watching and feeling for even three hours. I know, as I did at that age, they'll potentially have their lives changed.”

Ian McKellen (1939) British actor

Ian McKellen Tours with Royal Shakespeare, 2007 https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/ian-mckellen-tours-royal-shakespeare-25640/,

Age, Feeling, Change

“If men are capable of committing evil actions, granting them power over others makes evil actions certain. But there is a difference. When men in government commit and evil act, they are legally shielded from their consequences of the act.”

Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman

Source: A Way to Be Free: The Autobiography of Robert LeFevre, Volume II, (1999), p. 487

Men, Making love, Evil

“...they perceived that no beginnings should be considered too small to be capable of quickly becoming great by uninterrupted endurance and having no obstacle to their growth by reason of being despised.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

sec. 4
Parallel Lives, Caesar

“Technology should not aim to replace humans, rather amplify human capabilities.”

Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013) American engineer and inventor

“There’s a double pressure on the evolution of every organization: how you evolve to be more capable and effective, and efficient, but also how you stay in synch with the rest of the environment.”

Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013) American engineer and inventor

Source: https://www.dougengelbart.org/colloquium/session_01/session_01.html#7G

“Any possibility for improving the effective utilization of the intellectual power of society’s problem solvers warrants the most serious consideration. This is because man’s problem-solving capability represents possibly the most important resource possessed by a society. The other contenders for first importance are all critically dependent for their development and use upon this resource.”

Douglas Engelbart (1925–2013) American engineer and inventor

Source: https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/138

Problem, Dependency

“I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely far‐sighted and clear‐headed in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly short sighted and muddle‐headed in mat ters [sic!] that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of business in general. This short sightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or incomes policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally controlled system than effective governmental control of prices and wages. The short‐sightedness is also exemplified in speeches by business men on social responsibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the ptirsuit [sic!] of profits is wicked and im moral [sic!] and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, business men seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

Men, Business, Suicide, Time

“No one has more than a given number of minutes... in which he can work, and no matter how great his ability he will soon find his limitations. If, however, he uses that ability in finding and teaching others as capable as himself, or in certain details even more so, the limits to his sphere of operations are hard to set.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), A Representative Business of the Twentieth Century

“I do not underestimate the obstacles which the Congress will face in enacting such legislation. No one will be satisfied. Everyone will have his own approach, his own bill, his own reduction. A high order of restraint and determination will be required if the possible is not to wait on the perfect. But a nation capable of marshaling these qualities in any dramatic threat to its security is surely capable, as a great free society, of meeting a slower and more complex threat to our economic vitality. This Nation can afford to reduce taxes, we can afford a temporary deficit, but we cannot afford to do nothing. For on the strength of our free economy rests the hope of all free nations. We shall not fail that hope, for free men and free nations must prosper and they must prevail.”

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

Source: 1962, Address and Question and Answer Period at the Economic Club of New York

Men, Hope, Waiting, Perfection

“Virtuous, worthy, wise and capable people are chosen as leaders.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

The Analects, A Great Utopia (The World of Da-Tong)

People

“To know oneself is the equivalent of knowing God. But in order to acquire this knowledge, the disciple must submit to long and painful process of self-discipline. He must pass though all the test of the severest asceticism. Only after he has prepared himself, will the spiritual master open his heart and render him capable of perceiving the mysteries of the spiritual world.”

Shah Badakhshi Indian poet

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 202

God, Pain, World, Knowledge

“Love is a sweet and unmistakable feeling that vibrates only in the heart of someone who is capable and really willing to love.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'amore è un dolce e inconfondibile sentimento che vibra solo nel cuore di chi è capace e disposto davvero ad amare.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Making love, Feeling, Heart

“Saying no is its own leadership capability. It is not just a peripheral skill.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Twitter

“Gerry had once said to her in the middle of an argument that he didn't believe in souls but if, just perchance, they did exist, hers would be like a razor. She had been made that way by the Catholic Church, he said. Inflexible, narrow, capable of doing terrible damage by her adherence to rules and systems. But she totally objected. She told him that if she was a good person at all, it had come from her religion. If she had any sense of justice and fairness, any concept of equality, then it had come from the Church.”

Bernard MacLaverty book Midwinter Break

Ch 11 - p.217
Novels, Midwinter Break (2017)

Religion, Justice, Way, Soul

“Any person capable of angering you becomes your master.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Personality, Anger

“Many individuals are capable of creating wealth but are excluded from the job market by minimum wage and licensing laws. Much poverty can be alleviated by allowing people to create wealth at whatever level they can and ‘work their way up.’”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: The Other Piece of the Puzzle, (1993), p. 147

People, Law, Way, Wealth

“God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them. Thus it is that in the hope of finding some pleasure, we attach ourselves to created objects and that we have no sooner possessed and sampled that which we have so ardently desired than we turn to something else, hoping to find what we wanted. We are, then, through our own experience, constrained to admit that it is but useless for us to want to derive our happiness here below from transient things. If we hope to have any consolation in this world, it will only be by despising the things which are passing and which have no lasting value and in striving towards the noble and happy end for which God has created us. Do you want to be happy, my friends? Fix your eyes on Heaven; it is there that your hearts will find that which will satisfy them completely.”

John Vianney (1786–1859) French priest and saint

Do You Want to Be Happy?

God, Happiness, Pleasure, World

“So long as a person is capable of self-renewal they are a living being.”

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881) Swiss philosopher and poet

Personality

“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

Life, Passion, Wise, Happy

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

People, Help, Leadership

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the worlds problems.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

World, Problem, Motivational, Peaceful

“I will be capable of loving, regardless of whether I am loved in return,”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Aleph (2011)

Love

“An observer studying the Solar system dispassionately, and finding himself capable of bringing the four giant planets to his notice, could reasonably say that the Solar system consisted of one star, four planets, and some traces of debris.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Worlds In Order" in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 63
General sources

Star, Study

“Who knows how to give true love belongs exclusively to that rarity of living beings, capable of changing the world.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Chi sa donare vero amore appartiene esclusivamente a quella rarità di esseri viventi, capaci di cambiare il mondo.
Source: prevale.net

Love, World, Change

“To the limits of my capabilities, I have tried to find a possibility of evolution as an answer to all life. But, it simply will not work without intelligent intervention.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

WotansVolk
Focus Fourteen

Life, Intelligence

“For younger girls living in any small town, it can be hard to move forward and get out. You are more than capable, the only thing stopping you is you.”

Cassandra Kuzneski

Source: https://www.indianagazette.com/news/indiana-native-launches-line-of-swimwear/article_21fdcb08-1ad3-11eb-9024-072dc8b9d80e.html

Girl

“Technology is a capability. To be good is a choice. Over the past 23 years, Tencent has managed to come this far because society and our country have provided support that allowed Tencent to continuously grow.”

Ma Huateng (1971) Chinese internet entrepreneur

"Tencent founder Pony Ma emphasises company’s investment in social value amid increasing antitrust and gaming scrutiny" in South China Morning Post (23 April 2021) https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3130836/pony-ma-emphasises-tencents-investment-social-value-amid-increasing

Support, Past, Country

“If you are stupid they’ll humiliate you, if you’re wise they’ll hate you, if you’re beautiful they’ll kill you, and nor the virtues nor the weaknesses of a woman are ever forgiven. Men are blind of rage for being born as monsters, for not being capable to be loved and to love themselves.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Brunella, Act II, scene ii.
Theater Quotes

Love, Men, Hate, Stupidity

“Depending on what you believe in life, you are capable of achieving anything without changing your body somehow.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Change, Dependency

“I strongly believe that the main destination of education is not to get rich only, but to be capable to identify corruptions around you.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Education

“Perhaps, even in love, freedom can still be considered sweeter than peace. That is to say that, you are capable of scheduling and re-scheduling your plans without waiting for the approval of any third-party.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Love, Peace, Freedom, Waiting

“Without doubt, the mystics have accessed the cosmic consciousness and they are capable to use their intuitive abilities, unlike the majority of the people. This is the highest knowledge one can ever seek to possess in our age.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

People, Age, Knowledge

“You must become a rational being that is capable to balance everything, big and small acts in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life

“Our minds must be capable of concentrating and living in the present moment, rather than always seeking for the past events that cannot be proven to be true.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Past

“The more knowledge you have, the more imagination. The more you can imagine, the more you will be capable to explore the universe.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Imagination, Knowledge, Universe

“Total war necessitates total espionage. The leadership of a country must be capable of finding out about and calculating the entire force of resistance of in opponents, military and otherwise.”

Curt Martin Riess (1902–1993) German journalist and writer

Source: Total Espionage: Germany’s Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-41 (1941), p. 7

War, Country

“To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.”

John Ruskin (1819–1900) English writer and art critic

Letter VIII: Things Written, section 33
Time and Tide (1867)

Children, Education

“Just as we underestimate the degree to which human brains rely upon instincts, so we have generally underestimated the degree to which other animals are capable of learning.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 16 “Memory” (p. 222)

Learning, Animals

“We persist in regarding ourselves as a great power, capable of everything and only temporarily handicapped by economic difficulties. We are not a great power and never will be again. We are a great nation, but if we continue to behave like a great power we shall soon cease to be a great nation.”

Henry Tizard (1885–1959) British chemist

Memo written as Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Ministry of Defence https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/01/britain-retrenched-island-europe-papers-react-to-brexit-day (1949)

“Many capable people are kept from getting to the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important.”

Greg McKeown (author) book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Popular Quotes, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

People

“It is highly important to encourage and help people inearning their living and supporting themselves with adequatemeans, because those who are gainfully employed andself-supporting are capable of contributing definitelytowards higher levels of development.”

Bhumibol Adulyadej (1927–2016) King of Thailand

Source: "Speech given at the ceremony of conferring degrees at Kasetsart University" http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:usILNxurwOMJ:www.rdpb.go.th/UploadNew/Documents/f55969e3-1f51-4d73-90cf-d201f4f69a67_2.%2520Royal%2520Dev%2520Principles_Booklet.pdf+&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us (18 July 1974)

People, Support, Help

“People think they follow advice but they don't. Humans are only capable of receiving information. They create their own advice. If you seek to influence someone, don't waste time giving advice. You can change only what people know, not what they do.”

Scott Adams book God's Debris

Source: Books, God's Debris (2001)

People, Thinking, Change, Time

“In the ideal state, man treats the races of beings affiliated with him, not as objects of pillage, but as beings with rights and feelings and capabilities of happiness and misery, like himself.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Silent Martyrs of Civilization, p. 64

Happiness, Feeling

“Can we grasp that there is more than enough land surface, capable of restoration, to support and feed in comfort a larger population than now exists on this globe?”

Vera Stanley Alder (1898–1984) British artist

Source: Humanity Comes of Age, A study of Individual and World Fulfillment (1950), Chapter II Planning a Model World

Support

“We know that threats and sanctions from the enemy have brought difficulties to the management of the country, but there are also considerable sacred, popular, economic and international capabilities that can help us overcome these challenges.”

Ebrahim Raisi (1960) Iranian president

Source: 5 August 2021, Speech after oath taking ceremony in Tehran https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/463741/Raisi-officially-takes-oath-of-office-as-Iran-s-president

Help, Country

“If I am law abiding and honour all the laws of a country, I am integrated into society. If I am serving the nation with all my potential and capability, that is integration.”

Mirza Masroor Ahmad (1950) spiritual leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Others <br class="br">Source: Loving country you live in part of Muslim faith, says Ahmadi leader, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/06/loving-country-you-live-in-part-of-muslim-faith-says-ahmadi-leader,

Law, Country

“The Iranian nuclear threat must be neutralized once and for all, with or without an agreement. Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities.”

Isaac Herzog (1960) Israeli politician

Source: Isaac Herzog (2021) cited in " Iran must be stopped from obtaining a nuclear bomb, with or without deal - Herzog https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-689474" on The Jerusalem Post, 22 December 2021.

“The reality is; there is something which exist but what that something is; remains a question. Either because we are not capable to reveal it yet or because with time and movement it changes itself and has no truth in it. But what’s the reason for its existence without having or revealing any truth, that’s the evidence we need to find.”

Zaman Ali (1993) Pakistani philosopher

Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11085116-the-reality-is-there-is-something-which-exist-but-what

Truth, Question, Reality, Change

“I do not intend to ask whether Christianity is “true” or “false,” or to establish, for example, the former hypothesis. Rather, what will be in question here is what Christianity considers as truth – what kind of truth it offers to people, what it endeavors to communicate to them, not as a theoretical and indifferent truth but as the essential truth that by some mysterious affinity is suitable for them, to the point that it alone is capable of assuring them salvation. We are trying to understand the form of truth that circumscribes the domain of Christianity, the milieu in which it spreads, the air that it breaths, one might say – because there are many sorts of truths, many ways of being true or false. And we are also perhaps trying to get away from the concept of truth that dominates modern thought and that, as much in and of itself as in its multiple implications, determines the world in which we live.”

Michel Henry (1922–2002) French writer

Books on Religion and Christianity, I am the Truth. Toward a philosophy of Christianity (1996)
Source: Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 1

People, Truth, World, Way

Quotes about capability page 14

Quotes about capability
page 14