Quotes on Ability

Every man's ability may be strengthened or increased by culture.

Author: John Abbott

We worked on solving the problem of voice communications in a noisy military environment. We established military codes that are highly audible and invented selection tests for personnel who had a superior ability to recognize sound in a noisy background.

Author: M. Abrams

In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.

Author: Ansel Adams

Your ability as republican volunteers, to rise to this challenge will mean that the two governments and others cannot easily hide from their obligations and their responsibility to resolve these problems.

Author: Gerry Adams

The attainment of the present status of Thailand has to depend on the ability or the actions of all the inhabitants of the country.

Author: Bhumibol Adulyadej

There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent who will admit that it is his child.

Author: Thomas Aldrich

I think that Congress' ability to reason is fully equal to that of the judiciary.

Author: Samuel Alito

I loved living and breathing theatre so much that I decided I had to find a way to bring my desire to act and my ability to support myself together. I'd run through the possibilities in Washington, so that meant moving to New York.

Author: Karen Allen

Each of us has been put on earth with the ability to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the world if we don't use that ability as best we can.

Author: George Allen, Sr.

When I played, I had a natural ability to jump and run, and I just wanted to get bigger and heavier.

Author: Brady Anderson

The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.

Author: Philip Anderson

The difference between one man and another is not mere ability it is energy.

Author: Thomas Arnold

The Internet provides very serious challenges to our ability to keep from children the kinds of things that are destructive to them.

Author: John Ashcroft

Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.

Author: Francis Bacon

I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's cool. Let's look at who Billie was: she was this person, this singer, this beautiful diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand.

Author: Erykah Badu

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

Author: Erykah Badu

Instinct is untaught ability.

Author: Alexander Bain

You have to have something worth saying and then the ability to say it- writing's a double skill, really.

Author: Iain Banks

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.

Author: William Barclay

Pension reforms, like investment advice and automatic enrollment, will strengthen the ability of Americans to save and invest for retirement.

Author: Steve Bartlett

The assumption must be that those who can see value only in tradition, or versions of it, deny man's ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

Author: Stephen Bayley

I feel pretty confident in my own ability.

Author: Gerry Beckley

I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation.

Author: Bo Bennett

My colleagues have expressed confidence in my ability to articulate our conservative message and to provide new focus to our efforts in the General Assembly.

Author: Philip Berger

I assure this committee that, if I am confirmed, I will be strictly independent of all political influences... essential to that institution's ability to function effectively and achieve its mandated objectives.

Author: Ben Bernanke

Ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity.

Author: Ambrose Bierce

I played the game one way. I gave it everything I had. It doesn't take any ability to hustle.

Author: Wade Boggs

Yeah, I am a little bit, and I think it is a natural progression of the sport, of going upwards in technical ability and everything like that.

Author: Brian Boitano

The ability to communicate with everybody, regardless of who are you are, is a great thing.

Author: Bobby Bonilla

From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability.

Author: Craig Bruce

There's no use fussing on a boy who doesn't have any ability.

Author: Paul Bryant

The ability to play the clarinet is the ability to overcome the imperfections of the instrument. There's no such thing as a perfect clarinet, never was and never will be.

Author: Jack Brymer

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

Author: Edmund Burke

Apollo Records signed me for my gospel ability.

Author: Solomon Burke

You know, I had the ability like a catalyst to really get everybody hyped up.

Author: Jim Capaldi

I know it is the fans that are responsible for me being here. I've always tried in each and every broadcast to serve the fans to the best of my ability.

Author: Harry Caray

No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.

Author: Thomas Carlyle

The 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.

Author: Andrew Carnegie

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.

Author: Rosalynn Carter

You are the only person on earth who can use your ability.

Author: M. Casey

This ability to have reliable sources of energy and a reliable transmission of energy here in North America is critical for both of us and for Mexico as we want to keep our economies growing.

Author: Paul Cellucci

So, for me, working with larger companies has often been very satisfying, precisely because of the ability of bringing critical mass to bear on a given effort.

Author: Vinton Cerf

If you have ability in a certain area, why not capitalize on it and improve it and use it?

Author: Wilt Chamberlain

Campaign staffers develop the ability to sleep through anything.

Author: Mary Cheney

A politician needs 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.

Author: Winston Churchill

Ability without honor is useless.

Author: Marcus Cicero

The wicked are always surprised to find ability in the good.

Author: Luc Clapier

Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.

Author: Confucius

I was the kind of kid that had some talents or ability, but it never came out in school.

Author: Francis Coppola

Your ability to rationalize your own bad deeds makes you believe that the whole world is as amoral as you are.

Author: Doug Coupland

He knows that you have ability and what he does is he manipulates it and sort of empowers you.

Author: Daniel Craig

The video forum for me has been a source of great consternation because once you start projecting a look to a song, it robs the listener of their ability to adopt that song and make the lyric their own.

Author: Sheryl Crow

Pluripotent cells have the ability to grow into any cell in the body.

Author: Nathan Deal

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Author: Christopher Dodd

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

Author: Rita Dove

Likewise nanotechnology will, once it gets under way, depend on the tools we have then and our ability to use them, and not on the steps that got us there.

Author: K. Drexler

We have developed this unbelievable ability to deny. We have to. If we didn't, we'd go crazy.

Author: Patty Duke

So many dancers paint. I used to paint. I started again recently. While I was dancing, I was very busy with my career. Start something else that makes use of your creative ability because if you don't you will die inside as a person.

Author: Katherine Dunham

Any Ambassador or Foreign Service Officer who has his or her head screwed on right knows that the U.S. position in the world is far more dependent on our ability to compete in world markets.

Author: Lawrence Eagleburger

I didn't have any doubts about my choice of career, but I had constant doubts about my ability, yes.

Author: Suzanne Farrell

The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability.

Author: William Feather

After all, an overvalued dollar gives us the ability to buy foreign goods at lower prices. And the existing volume of exports brings more yen and euros than they would if the dollar were more competitive.

Author: Martin Feldstein

There might've been wires, but I have this ability to make myself light. Well you know what, in ballet, when you kind of lift yourself here, it's all up in the head.

Author: Albert Finney

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

Author: F. Fitzgerald

I've done one movie. And it's not a movie I want to stand on as far as acting ability goes. I mean, I'm not going to win an Oscar anytime soon. I'm not Meryl Streep.

Author: Megan Fox

The totality of a record is usually beyond ones ability to imagine when you start working on it, but the component parts are, usually, fairly clear one way or another.

Author: Fred Frith

I think that's one of the most important gifts we have in television - the ability to heal through laughter.

Author: Soleil Frye

Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.

Author: R. Fuller

The United Nations has long sought the ability to raise revenues in this manner as a means of reducing its reliance on American and other member nations' dues to sustain the UN's operations.

Author: Frank Gaffney

Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.

Author: Howard Gardner

NASA wanted to assure its ability to examine the spacecraft in orbit for signs of damage.

Author: Marc Garneau

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.

Author: Walter Gilbert

That ability to take in your surroundings and sort out the important stuff, to be aware, to be vigilant. Then take all that information, put it together, and see if it makes sense to you.

Author: Paul Gleason

Well, any effort to maximize your potential and ability is a good thing.

Author: Daniel Goleman

Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.

Author: Daniel Goleman

If you are doing mindfulness meditation, you are doing it with your ability to attend to the moment.

Author: Daniel Goleman

I believe that nothing is more important to our ability to effectively address our present than understanding the lessons learned from those who have come before us.

Author: Charlie Gonzalez

Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.

Author: Baltasar Gracian

It is the American way to reward ability.

Author: Judd Gregg

I feel so gratified about having finished college. I learned how to articulate myself. It gave me confidence more than anything. And also the ability to analyze the text.

Author: Maggie Gyllenhaal

There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

Author: Robert Half

Not only the entire ability to think rests on language... but language is also the crux of the misunderstanding of reason with itself.

Author: Johann Hamann

China's ability to deliver nuclear warheads on American cities is expanding.

Author: Lee Hamilton

Events often move faster than our ability to comprehend them.

Author: Lee Hamilton

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.

Author: Robert Harling

I'm confident in my ability to maintain a career. I don't know if it will be doing either independent films or plays in New England.

Author: Randy Harrison

I am very, very proud of my ability as a cook.

Author: Anna Held

I think it's just a lack of ability, we're incapable of writing hits.

Author: Kenny Hickey

Your ability to use the principle of autosuggestion will depend, very largely, upon your capacity to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession.

Author: Napoleon Hill

The ultimate test of a finished account executive is his ability to write a sound marketing plan.

Author: Morris Hite

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

Author: Hans Hofmann

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.

Author: Lou Holtz

I want to sing like Aretha Franklin. Before her I wanted the technical ability of Ella Fitzgerald.

Author: Lena Horne

For the Gulf States, perhaps no forage crop of which the available seed supply is relatively abundant exceeds the velvet bean in potential value. This legume possesses also the ability to make a crop when planted relatively late.

Author: David Houston

There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.

Author: Elbert Hubbard

If you're going to play hockey now, you have to be able to play. If you have the ability to fight and play, you're an unbelievable commodity. But if you can only fight, there might be six of those guys left in the league, and I can guarantee they're going fast.

Author: Brett Hull

The human organism inherits so delicate an adjustment to climate that, in spite of man's boasted ability to live anywhere, the strain of the frozen North eliminates the more nervous and active types of mind.

Author: Ellsworth Huntington

The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.

Author: Washington Irving

The largest challenge that we face, from my perspective, is the ability to continue moving forward so the agency will have a single mission: that is, to provide decent, safe, and affordable housing.

Author: Alphonso Jackson

I played football for a team called the East Dragons on the east side of town. We only had six regular season games. And six games I played tail back and I had 18 touchdowns in six games. That's when I knew I had some athletic ability.

Author: LeBron James

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.

Author: Louise Jameson

What did Citibank get out of it? It got the ability to reverse the arbitrage. Actually, what they got was the ability to give themselves a profit, and that saved the bank.

Author: Bill Janklow

I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.

Author: Bruce Jenner

Indian culture certainly gives the Indian mind, including the mind of the Indian scientist, the ability to think out of the box.

Author: Roland Joffe

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

Author: Barbara Johnson

I liked his ability to deal with a lot of the negativity that surrounded him. Even though he was in a world that he didn't want to be in, he still saw the bigger picture.

Author: Dwayne Johnson

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Author: James Johnson

The core value that differentiates Apple is our ability to innovate.

Author: Ron Johnson

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Author: Samuel Johnson

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

Author: Kim Jung

This hearing came about very quickly. I do have a few preliminary comments, but I suspect you're more interested in asking questions, and I'll be happy to respond to those questions to the best of my ability.

Author: David Kay

Concentration is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.

Author: Ray Knight

If I drive myself to the brink of my ability, then I don't get stale or bored.

Author: Dean Koontz

The best way to make a good deal is to have the ability to walk away from it.

Author: Brian Koslow

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

Author: Karl Kraus

With realization of one's own potential and self-confidence in one's ability, one can build a better world.

Author: Dalai Lama

I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground.

Author: Serge Lang

Our ability to effectively engage China and the Arab world rests on shared economic and political interests and mutual understanding.

Author: Rick Larsen

The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.

Author: Tom Lehrer

If you really do want to be an actor who can satisfy himself and his audience, you need to be vulnerable. You must reach the emotional and intellectual level of ability where you can go out stark naked, emotionally, in front of an audience.

Author: Jack Lemmon

A book comes and says, "Write me." My job is to try to serve it to the best of my ability, which is never good enough, but all I can do is listen to it, do what it tells me and collaborate.

Author: Madeleine L'Engle

It is the ability to choose which makes us human.

Author: Madeleine L'Engle

You honor me greatly and beyond my ability as an individual but in so doing you honor my colleagues also who made possible the results you have cited.

Author: Willard Libby

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Author: Abraham Lincoln

I Kenneth Robert Livingstone, having been elected to the office of mayor of London, declare that I take that office upon myself, and will duly and faithfully fulfil the duties of it to the best of my judgement and ability.

Author: Kenneth Livingstone

I made the most of my ability and I did my best with my title.

Author: Joe Louis

Be thankful for problems. If they were less difficult, someone with less ability might have your job.

Author: James Lovell

The ability and desire to transform the mundane materials at hand that we both bring into the collaboration well beyond the sum total of the parts - to birth a new baby neither of us could claim single parentage of.

Author: Gary Lucas

I had a quick grasp of the secret to sanity, it had become the ability to hold the maximum of impossible combinations in one's mind.

Author: Norman Mailer

Shoes and clothing damage our ability to survive naked in the wilderness.

Author: Steve Mann

Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been.

Author: Mickey Mantle

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.

Author: Orison Marden

Being an Olympian is the ultimate test of one's sporting ability.

Author: Russell Mark

I like fruit baskets because it gives you the ability to mail someone a piece of fruit without appearing insane. Like, if someone just mailed you an apple you'd be like, 'huh? What the hell is this?' But if it's in a fruit basket you're like, 'this is nice!'

Author: Demetri Martin

It was ability that mattered, not disability, which is a word I'm not crazy about using.

Author: Marlee Matlin

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.

Author: W. Maugham

I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level.

Author: Joyce Maynard

The ability of players to jump teams when their contracts are up has hurt fan loyalty.

Author: Will McDonough

The ability to forgive is one of man's greatest achievements.

Author: Bryant McGill

Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.

Author: Golda Meir

Hospitals must provide emergency treatment to all who walk through the door, regardless of their citizenship status or ability to pay.

Author: Gary Miller

My most important professional accomplishment to date is the ability to keep working with absolutely no skills whatsoever.

Author: Colin Mochrie

Some are blessed with musical ability, others with good looks. Myself, I was blessed with modesty.

Author: Roger Moore

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

Author: Jim Morrison

Never underestimate a child's ability to get into more trouble.

Author: Martin Mull

A plant's ability to grow, increase and sustain itself became of secondary and almost minimal interest.

Author: Bill Munson

I didn't want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that's a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I'm proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

Author: Haruki Murakami

I try to keep in touch with the details... I also look at the product daily. That doesn't mean you interfere, but it's important occasionally to show the ability to be involved. It shows you understand what's happening.

Author: Rupert Murdoch

Over the last two decades, America has increased its demand for oil by nearly 30 percent, yet we have not expanded our ability to produce domestic sources of fuel.

Author: Tim Murphy

I actually thrive on all the challenges, and I don't feel like ADD has impaired my ability.

Author: David Neeleman