1840s, Past and Present (1843)
Session 884, Page 138
Dreams, Evolution and Value Fulfillment, Volume One (1986)
Context: Value fulfillment itself is most difficult to describe, for it combines the nature of a loving presence - a presence with the innate knowledge of its own divine complexity - with a creative ability of infinite proportions that seeks to bring to fulfillment even the slightest, most distant portion of its own inverted complexity. Translated into simpler terms, each portion of energy is endowed with an inbuilt reach of creativity that seeks to fulfill its own potentials in all possible variations - and in such a way that such a development also furthers the creative potentials of each other portion of reality.
The Problem of Peace (1954)
Context: The only originality I claim is that for me this truth goes hand in hand with the intellectual certainty that the human spirit is capable of creating in our time a new mentality, an ethical mentality. Inspired by this certainty, I too proclaim this truth in the hope that my testimony may help to prevent its rejection as an admirable sentiment but a practical impossibility. Many a truth has lain unnoticed for a long time, ignored simply because no one perceived its potential for becoming reality.
Remarks by President Obama After Meeting with Vietnamese Civil Society Leaders at JW Marriott Hotel Hanoi in Hanoi, Vietnam (May 24, 2016) https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/05/24/remarks-president-obama-after-meeting-vietnamese-civil-society-leaders
2016
Context: It’s very hard to prosper in this modern economy if you haven’t fully unleashed the potential of your people. And your people’s potential, in part, derives from their ability to express themselves and express new ideas, to try to right wrongs that are taking place in the society.
“You have within you the potential to accomplish wonderful things with your life.”
The 21 Success Secrets of Self-made Millionaires (2001), Conclusion : Success Is Predictable, p. 64
Context: You have within you the potential to accomplish wonderful things with your life. Your greatest responsibilities are to dream big dreams, decide exactly what you want, make a plan to achieve it … take action every single day in the direction of your dreams and goals, and resolve to never, never, never give up. When you take these actions, you put yourself on the side of the angels. You become unstoppable and your success becomes inevitable.
“But the government collection and storage of such bulk data also creates a potential for abuse.”
2014, Review of Signals Intelligence Speech (June 2014)
Context: [T]he combination of increased digital information and powerful supercomputers offers intelligence agencies the possibility of sifting through massive amounts of bulk data to identify patterns or pursue leads that may thwart impending threats. It’s a powerful tool. But the government collection and storage of such bulk data also creates a potential for abuse.
I would have fired BP chief by now, Obama says http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37566848/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf/ (June 8, 2010)
2010, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 2010)
Source: Lectures on Quantum Mechanics (2012, 2nd ed. 2015), Ch. 2: Particle States in a Central Potential
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Guillaume Dussau, singer of Paris Opera, Ukrainians bid their last farewells to opera singer Vasyl Slipak, laid to rest in Lviv // UT.Ukraine Today. - 2016. - July 01. Fox News http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/02/18/ahmadinejad-obama-cant-spell-obama#ixzz1pkEko0Id/
Source: Designing the Future (2007), p.81
Interview with Lisa Owen at Newshub Nation, 21 October 2017
Leon MacLaren, The Machinery of Government, 1998
1990
"The Advice Alex Morgan Would Give Her Daughter About Getting Into Sports" https://www.romper.com/life/alex-morgan-olympics-daughter-interview (July 10, 2021)
Source: Fever Pitch
Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy
“For each of us destiny is a blend of potential, circumstances, and choices.”
Source: A World Without Heroes
Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (2001): 2001 Gift Edition
Source: An Object of Beauty
“A dream worth pursuing is a picture and blueprint of a person's purpose and potential”
Source: Put Your Dream to the Test: 10 Questions that Will Help You See It and Seize It
Source: The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life & Work
“Trust and faith bring joy to life and help relationships grow to their maximum potential.”
Source: Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in Your Mind
Source: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
“Through imagination, we can visualize the uncredited worlds of potential that lie within us.”
“Your past is not your potential”
Making a Living Without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work That You Love
“The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities.”
"Taboo and Metaphor"
The Dehumanization of Art and Ideas about the Novel (1925)
Context: The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. All our other faculties keep us within the realm of the real, of what is already there. The most we can do is to combine things or to break them up. The metaphor alone furnishes an escape; between the real things, it lets emerge imaginary reefs, a crop of floating islands. A strange thing, indeed, the existence in man of this mental activity which substitutes one thing for another — from an urge not so much to get at the first as to get rid of the second.
LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Source: Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart
“The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.”
Source: Do the Work
Source: 1930s, Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), p. 322
Context: Historically our own culture has relied for the creation of rich and contrasting values upon many artificial distinctions, the most striking of which is sex. It will not be by the mere abolition of these distinctions that society will develop patterns in which individual gifts are given place instead of being forced into an ill-fitting mould. If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.
“Every love story is a potential grief story.”
Source: Levels of Life
“Being poor is not an indication of potential or worth. It’s a lack of resources.”
Source: A Perfect Blood
Variant: Because the world isn’t divided into the special and the ordinary. Everyone has the potential to be extraordinary. As long as you have a soul and free will, you can be anything, do anything, choose anything.
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4 "Problems of Humanistic Ethics"
“People--stupid when they lived; potentially stupid when they died.”
Source: Roadkill
Source: The Truth About Forever
Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life
“One of the greatest tragedies in life is to watch potential die untapped.”
Source: Demon from the Dark
“If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.”
Source: The Elephant Vanishes
Source: Purple Hibiscus
Source: The Songs Of David Bowie
Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence
page 332
Source: A Million Little Pieces (2003)
Context: All of us started out normal. All of us started out as functioning human beings with the potential to do almost anything we wanted, but somewhere along the paths of our lives we got lost. Though we are here at this Clinic trying to find our way back, we all know that most of us will never get there. Things like the fight allow us to dream, and take us away from here, and allow us to imagine what the normal World must be like and how normal people must live in it.
Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1994), p. 53
Context: Once we overcome our fear of being tiny, we find ourselves on the threshold of a vast and awesome Universe that utterly dwarfs — in time, in space, and in potential — the tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors. We gaze across billions of light-years of space to view the Universe shortly after the Big Bang, and plumb the fine structure of matter. We peer down into the core of our planet, and the blazing interior of our star. We read the genetic language in which is written the diverse skills and propensities of every being on Earth. We uncover hidden chapters in the record of our origins, and with some anguish better understand our nature and prospects. We invent and refine agriculture, without which almost all of us would starve to death. We create medicines and vaccines that save the lives of billions. We communicate at the speed of light, and whip around the Earth in an hour and a half. We have sent dozens of ships to more than seventy worlds, and four spacecraft to the stars. We are right to rejoice in our accomplishments, to be proud that our species has been able to see so far, and to judge our merit in part by the very science that has so deflated our pretensions.
“Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.”
First mentioned as "Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking and using our potential." according to Quote Investigator in the 1981 book The Reflecting Pond: Meditations for Self-Discovery by Liane Cordes, Quote Page 89, Hazelden Publishing, Center City, Minnesota. For further research on this quote see: Quote Investigator (August 31, 2013): Continuous Effort — Not Strength or Intelligence — Is the Key to Unlocking and Using Our Potential Winston Churchill? Liane Cordes? Liane Cardes? Apocryphal? Archived http://archive.is/E0M12 on June 2, 2020.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/21/effort/ from the original
Benkin, Richard L. (2012). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. New Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan. p.300.
Source: Crisis Management: A Model For Managers (1993), p. 74
Source: Boria Majumdar "I'll play with anyone for my country: Sania Mirza"
"Open Source and the future of print in the age of the Social Network" http://www.linuxvoice.com/interview-tim-oreilly/, Linux Voice, February 20, 2015. ( WebCite archive http://www.webcitation.org/6WiMJqC9h)
