Ability Quotations | Page 2

Self-awareness is the ability to take an honest look at your life without any attachment to it being right or wrong, good or bad.

Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal.

I think my message to the politicians who have within their power the ability to make change is, 'Do you really, really not care about the future of your great-grandchildren? Because if we let the world continue to be destroyed the way we are now, what's the world going to be like for your great-grandchildren?'

When you're doing a job, you go out there and do it to the best of your ability and you don't think about awards and things like that.

The Illinois Constitution was written before they realized they'd have a city the size of Chicago in the state. The constitution had severe limits on the ability of any city to raise monies through taxes and bonds. When Chicago grew explosively, they had to come up with ways of getting more money to do more things.

I have the ability and to have access to and to learn more in different areas in wellness and health because I have the door open to me to any doctor, any scientist, any hospital, any study around the world. I believe it's my responsibility to share that information with others.

I think I have the ability to win any contest I enter. As long as I stay healthy and keep having fun with my skiing, there's no regressing.

The big banks advise cities about whether privatization is a wise choice. They also control the ability of states and cities to access the market for their financing needs.

The film 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,' based the book of the same name, has a line that enlightens and comforts me. The protagonist, who has lost all ability to move except one eye, discusses his role as a father. He notes, 'Even a fraction of a father is still a father.'

Just as an individual's ability to delay gratification at a young age is a powerful predictor of future academic and professional achievement, discipline is also central to the long-run economic health of nations.

Success is what you do with your ability. It's how you use your talent.

Then, again, the ability to organize and conduct industrial, commercial, or financial enterprises is rare; the great captains of industry are as rare as great generals.

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations.

You have got to believe in yourself every time you go out there and race. If you have no faith in your ability all that training has been a waste of time.

The way they had the room that I was in set up, there was some sort of sound deadening platform that I had to stand on in order to get close enough to the microphone.

The strength of the playing ability is much more important. Only if the strength of the opponent's playing ability is comparable, does the game develop.

Germany was beaten after World War I, but it didn't take long for it to rise again as a much more malignant threat. The end of World War II was not to be a compromise; it was to come about from the total annihilation of the enemies' ability and will to make war.

Relying exclusively on air power has limits: planes are effective against fixed strategic targets, like petroleum storage, bridges, and command bunkers; but even then, air power rarely succeeds by itself in destroying a regime's ability to command and control its forces.

For me, one of my favorites, director-wise, is Tim Burton. I also really admire the work of actors like Sean Penn. He is probably my favorite actor because of his dedication and commitment to roles, and the ability to morph and change himself when he needs to. It's about dedication and commitment and a passion.

The young Obama's lack of playing time on the high school basketball team was due more to his ability than the coach's preference for white players.

Never underestimate the ability of political leaders to misread history on a monumental scale. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have both served to hasten western decline: they have both failed to achieve their objectives and in the process demonstrated an underlying western impotence.

Thank you to the readers of the 'Huffington Post' for voting me the 'Hottest Freshman' of the 111th Congress. It's about time politicians from Illinois were known for something other than bad haircuts or having the ability to walk on water.

In this day and age when we do so much business in foreign trade, we need the ability to identify trace an animal very quickly, identifying where it came from - where it has been, and where it is at today.

If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age.

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

Greed is the lack of confidence of one's own ability to create.

I would drown in objects if I didn't have the ability to photograph them.

The cost of research, development and testing of a new drug is vastly greater than the cost of each dose produced. How should we pay for new medicines? Innovators should be rewarded according to the impact of their medicine, and people should contribute to these rewards according to their ability to pay.

The greatest difficulty with the world is not its ability to produce, but the unwillingness to share.

I personally believe that there's going to be a good case for the government preserving some type of guarantee to make sure that people have the ability to borrow to finance a house even in a very damaging recession. I think there's going to be a good case for that.

I have an incredible confidence in the resilience of the human spirit and the creative ability of the Holy Spirit. So, if you can get people asking the right questions, it really will start moving in the right direction.

The English have an extraordinary ability for flying into a great calm.

Yes, look, social class is definitely an issue in Britain, it is definitely an issue and I think that most people across the country would sympathise with the idea that there are lots of people with talent and ability all across this country who want to make more of themselves and part of the responsibility of government is to make that happen.

My younger sister had kids before I did, and managed to earn a master's degree while raising them as a single parent. Now she's a brilliant second-grade teacher. I'm in awe of her ability to juggle everything and still be a great mother.

Only a reader can become a writer. Develop a lively intellect and the ability to become interested in anything, no matter how mundane it might seem at first. Look for the story. Develop an eye for detail. Feed your mind and your brain: learn as much as you can about everything you can.

Realize that from the start, every activity that comprises the journey has value and the ability to teach you something.

The ability to stretch my range into all genres and characters is something I take great pleasure in doing. I thoroughly enjoy it. I consider myself a character actor, though some think of me as a leading man. As an actor, I love shifting gears from character to character, and the more range I can expand, the better.

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.

We have an uncanny ability to make birds do what we want them to do. In Blood Simple there's a shot from the bumper of a car and it's going up this road and a huge flock of birds takes off at the perfect moment.

I have made sense of my life by developing an ability to analyze Mainstream American Cultural Artifacts.

With DNA, the ability to find out a lot more with a lot less has increased our ability for identification.

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

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.

My dad was an entrepreneurial businessman, and maybe I got some of his ability.

Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

In cross-country skiing, athletes propel themselves over distances of ten and twenty miles - a physical challenge that places intense demands on the ability of their red blood cells to deliver oxygen to their muscles.

There is a real fear around shifting from our existing economic system because people believe it gives us social organisation, a sense of freedom, and the ability to be nice to each other. Growth is seen as a social lubricant that allows us to be socially responsible.

We help people to begin truly healthful diets, and it is absolutely wonderful to see, not only their success, but also their delight at their ability to break old habits and feel really healthy for a change.

The three parts of the theory are analytical ability, the ability to analyze things to judge, to criticize. Creative, the ability to create, to invent and discover and practical, the ability to apply and use what you know.

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.

'Painting like a child' isn't a negative for me... it's something only great artists can really achieve. The childlike quality of some of Picasso's drawings is precisely what makes them so masterful and extraordinary; the ability to express complete visions, feelings and portraits through a continuous line.

Creativity is bound up in our ability to find new ways around old problems.

I think for Amazon's customers, it offers a kind of addictive service - the ability to shop without leaving your house, the ability to read without going to a bookstore or a library.

Past performance speaks a tremendous amount about one's ability and likelihood for success.

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

Power is the ability to get things done

Love's greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred.

Uncertainty is a sign of humility, and humility is just the ability or the willingness to learn.

Coaches give you too much information. I've been allowed to develop that intuitive ability in my career and lifetime.

Ironically, one of the clearer threats to consumer privacy is the government's largely unchecked ability to collect your sensitive information without due process.

While I didn't have a father around, I did have - and what I want my children to both experience - the ability to explore, experiment and enjoy life as a kid.

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

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

Reagan's emotional intelligence, his ability to suss out people's longings and to channel them for political purposes, was better than just about any human being that ever lived.

BlogHer is an incredibly important conference because it really taps into the power of women. It gives women an ability to do what they do - take care of the home, go to work - and, at the same time, spread their power through the power of the digital world.

Without a national ID and the ability to create true data that can be be safely and securely sent between individuals, we are going to introduce new systemic risk back into the system.

It is clear to me that Democrats want to attack me rather than debate Sen. McCain on important economic issues facing the country. That kind of distraction hurts not only Sen. McCain's ability to present concrete programs to deal with the country's problems; it hurts the country.

I feel pretty confident in my own ability.

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.

Do not compare yourself. Find out what God has placed in your ability.

I have a great ability to improvise verbally and I am very funny on a dime.

I believe passionately that everyone has a particular God-given ability.

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.

He has found his style, when he cannot do otherwise.

The amazing thing about technology is that people have power. We are seeing it all the time in that innocuous people you would never know are having their voices heard because of this ability and technology we have.

Over the years, the technology of trade has changed in response to advances in the ability to communicate. From its origins on the streets of Chicago, the Board of Trade moved to a building housing 'trading pits' for the open-outcry exchange by brokers representing buyers and sellers.

Worrisome thoughts and their resulting feelings are a form of self strangulation. They not only strangle your emotions. They affect your physical life as well, and your ability to focus and get things done.

In the end, our minds and their ability to create new ideas are the ultimate source of all human wealth. That's a resource nearly without limit.

Don't stay at the job for safe salary increases over time. That will never get you where you want - freedom from financial worry. Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of mankind.

The main thing is the ability to control your instrument, which, in the actor, is yourself. Look the way you want the character to look. Sound the way you want the character to sound. Once you've trained the instrument to do what you want, you're in control, and you're free.

Pop music has been exhausted. The innocence has been exhausted. I think we've lost the ability to be blown away by music.

I love the power of the musician who composes and performs. I envy their ability to put a nugget of truth in three minutes of sweat and emotional outpouring, colored entirely from their thoughts.

The more you adapt, the more interesting you are.

Our ability to handle life's challenges is a measure of our strength of character.

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society - in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage.

The ability of the humans to not only function in space but be very functional when they arrive at their destination, those are the kinds of things we're learning from the science. Fuel transfer technologies and all the things we can learn about the space environment are all valuable to us for pressing on out.

Evidence shows that having even weak social connections in a stressful situation is really good for your health and your ability to handle that situation.

I had this unusual mix of curiosity, the ability to write in ways people understood, and when I appeared, viewers seemed to trust me to get them through some cataclysmic changes.

I make time to exercise. It's not being indulgent. I think it's got a lot to do with your ability to manage properly and stay focused. There's no doubt about that.

At Year Up, our students - low income 18-24 year olds - come to us having already faced substantial obstacles in life. They are not in search of a handout; what they want most of all is the ability to take ownership of their own futures.

You get stared at the whole time. I first noticed that when I was about 13. I was very shy. Being considered beautiful, I always felt that people were waiting for something more. I imagined you were supposed to have an intellectual ability - and I'm making no claims here - proportional to your supposed good looks.

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

There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that the government, any government, thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.

To be a member of the Labor Party is to be an optimist - optimistic about the future of Australia, optimistic about the ability of government to make a difference.

I can't see any great evidence that humans have any ability to access anything other than the material world. Beyond that, who knows, but there's no good evidence that would take me to any particular belief.

The unknown has undone many a president, and no matter the popularity of an Oval Office occupant, any and all presidents are vulnerable. Of course, one thing that seems to set Obama part from his recent predecessors is his ability to keep an inner calm about tough issues.

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

Must faith be exactly that, the willingness and ability to believe in the face of a lack of evidence? If one could find the evidence, would then the faith be dead?

What makes a person is the ability to look at themselves and deal with their own lives.