Quotes on Ability

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

Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

To define knowledge as merely empirical is to limit one's ability to know; it enfeebles one's ability to feel and think.

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

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

I'm a good neurosugeon. That's not a boast but a way of acknowledging the innate ability God has given to me. Beginning with determination and using my gifted hands, I went on for training and sharpening for my skills.

A culture's ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

...in the shaping of a life, chance and the ability to respond to chance are everything.

A little talent is a good thing to have if you want to be a writer. But the only real requirement is the ability to remember every scar.

Nice' in a bodyguard is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters.

The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life.

My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough.

She seems to have had the ability to stand firmly on the rock of her past while living completely and unregretfully in the present.

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.

Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.