ability to perform an action or fulfill a role From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
Ability can refer to the capability of performing or achieving certain actions or outcomes through a set of controllable and measurable faculties, features, functions, processes, or services, or to aptitude and definite levels of competence in performing such kinds of work.
Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste.
Lucille Ball, as quoted in The Real Story of Lucille Ball (1954) by Eleanor Harris, Ch. 1.
He'll find a way.
J. M. Barrie, Sentimental Tommy, indicating the Corp's belief in Tommy and Tommy's in himself.
ABILITY, n. The natural equipment to accomplish some small part of the meaner ambitions distinguishing able men from dead ones. In the last analysis ability is commonly found to consist mainly in a high degree of solemnity. Perhaps, however, this impressive quality is rightly appraised; it is no easy task to be solemn.
Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
De chacun selon ses facultés, à chacun selon ses besoins;
German: Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen
English: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Louis Blanc's Plus de Girondins, (1851), p. 92 popularized by Karl Marx in (1875). "Part I". Critique of the Gotha Program.
Man is not altogether an imbecile. True, "circumstances do make the man." But they make him only in the sense and degree that he permits them to make him.
Luganda: Ssi buli muntu nti mugwaagwa. ky'amazima 'ebintu omuntu byayitamu by'ebimufuula kyaali.' Naye bimukyuusa okusinziira ku kigera kye nga bwakkiriza okubiganya okumukyuusa
George D. Boardman, reported in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p.1.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
For as our modern wits behold, Mounted a pick-back on the old, Much farther off, much further he, Rais'd on his aged Beast, could see.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend; A Series of Essays (1812), No. 15 (30 November 1809), p.228; comparable to Isaac Newton, in a letter to Robert Hooke (15 February 1676): "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants".
I don't even know how to use a parking meter, let alone a phone box.
Diana, Princess of Wales, as quoted in The Times (22 August 1994), replying to allegations that she had been making nuisance telephone calls.
Every person is responsible for only the good within his abilities, and for no more, and no one can tell whose sphere is the largest.
Mary Abigail Dodge,Country Living and Country Thinking, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th edition (1919).
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776), Volume 1, Chap. 68.
Breath is strange, if you hold it for too long you run out.
Yuval Greenfield, The Rise of a great man, early memories (1956), Volume 2, Chap. 14.
I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Edward Everett Hale, in Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough, A Year of Beautiful Thoughts (1902), p.172. This is often misattributed to Helen Keller since the 1980s.
Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his abilities, and for no more, and none can tell whose sphere is the largest.
Gail Hamilton, Country Living and Country Thinking, Men and Women.
A Dwarf on a Giant's shoulder sees farther of the two.
Every man who can be a first-rate something - as every man can be who is a man at all - has no right to be a fifth-rate something; for a fifth-rate something is not better than a first-rate nothing.
What we do upon a great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are; what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline, under the grace of Christ or the absence of it.
Henry Liddon, as reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p.1.
To the very last, he [Napoleon] had a kind of idea; that, namely, of la carrière ouverte aux talents — the tools to him that can handle them.
A Traveler at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedaemonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."
Plutarch, as attributed in "Apophthegmata Laconica" (a.k.a. "Laconic Apothegms" or "Sayings of the Spartans"), Remarkable Speeches of Some Obscure Men, in Moralia.
Illud tamen in primis testandum est, nihil præcepta atque artes valere nisi adjuvante natura.
One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.
One who intends to understand grasps even the slightest hint, but the one who has no intention to understand never comprehends, no matter how loudly you shout.
We shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole.
I think you are gonna find, when it's over... I think you're gonna find yourself one smilin' motherfucker. The thing is Butch, right now, you've got ability. But painful as it may be, ability don't last. And your days are just about over. Now that's a hard motherfuckin' fact of life. But it's a fact of life your ass is gonna hafta get realistic about. See this business is filled to the brim with unrealistic motherfuckers. Motherfuckers who thought their ass would age like wine. If you mean it turns to vinegar, it does. If you mean it gets better with age, it don't. Besides Butch, how many fights you think you got left in you anyway? Two? Boxers don't have an 'old timer's day.' You came close, but you never made it, and if you were gonna make it, you woulda made it before now.
Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, character Marsellus Wallace.
Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed.
Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
Horace Walpole, as quoted in "The Works of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford" in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Volume 27 (1798) edited by Ralph Griffiths, p.187.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.